Column: Obama needed debate blowout but didn't get it

• Clip of Romney shredding Obama jobs record will be played over and over.
• Obama never addressed why he went to a fundraiser after Libya attack.
• President didn't even bother to argue why the next 4 years will be better.

President Obama needed a game changer tonight, to reverse the strong trajectory in Mitt Romney's favor after the first debate.

Obama did not get it. Obama had a strong performance, but so did Romney.

The question as far as the election goes is who drove the narrative which matters. While Obama landed many class envy and "war on women" punches, Obama barely attempted to defend a brutal exposition by Romney on four years of broken promises and failed economic results. It was the issue people care about, and it was Romney's strongest part of the debate by far.

I predict that clip of Romney laying bare Obama's failed economic policies will be played over and over.

On Libya, Obama was set back when Romney pointed out something many people may not know, that Obama went to Las Vegas for a fundraiser the day after our ambassador was killed. Obama responded that he considered it offensive to question whether he cared, but he never addressed why he traveled to the fundraiser.

Obama was helped on Libya when the moderator interjected herself into the debate by siding with Obama on the issue of whether he quickly called the attack on the Embassy an act of terrorism. In fact, the transcript of Obama's remarks shows that he simply said that no acts of terror would be tolerated, not that he contradicted the rest of his administration which was calling it a spontaneous protest which spun out of control. The moderator broke out of her designated role, and her reputation will suffer for it.

While Obama supporters will be heartened, Obama needed to convince people that the next four years will be more successful than the past four years. He didn't even try to make the case.

The failure to defend his record and to explain why the next four years will be better was Obama's greatest failure at the second debate. It was a failure which could not be overcome even by effective attacks on Romney.

William A. Jacobson is an associate professor of Law at Cornell who writes the law and politics blog Legal Insurrection.

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