msnbc   |  October 03, 2012

Maddow: Debate format was a fail

Rachel Maddow gives her initial reaction to the debate calling President Barack Obama “calm” and “explanatory” while Mitt Romney was “more amped, more assertive.” Maddow also said both of them dismantled the debate format.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> that's the end of the first presidential debate between governor romney of massachusetts and president obama . you see both men being greeted by their wives on stage. even this portion of the debate is negotiated ahead of time by the campaigns in terms of which members of their family will be joining them on stage. this is, these these are negotiated down to this level of detail . in terms of how the overall debate unfolded, i personally do not know who won this debate. i do feel that we saw this debate format die a very painful death on camera tonight. the contrast between the candidates was stylistic as much as substantive. president obama i think calm and basically explanatory tonight. governor romney, more hyper, and i don't mean that in a negative way, just sort of more amped, more assertive. and that manifests in a way that the debate format was just dismantled. the format and i think the moderator, with all due respect to mr. lehrer dismantled. this is one of those debates, you could predict the score more by time of possession in terms of who was speaking more. then you could by any other individual plays.