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Fighting talk stops the rot for Barack Obama

Obama last night seized back the initiative in the US election campaign as it entered its final 20 days, after defeating Mitt Romney in a bitterly fought second presidential debate.

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Barack Obama last night seized back the initiative in the US election campaign as it entered its final 20 days, after defeating Mitt Romney in a bitterly fought second presidential debate.

The president embarked on a tour of crucial battleground states, including Ohio and Virginia, having given a commanding performance under interrogation from struggling voters and his Republican challenger.

"You've heard of the New Deal," he told supporters in Mount Vernon, Iowa, last night. "Well Mitt Romney is trying to sell you a sketchy deal."

Onstage hours earlier during the debate, he aggressively claimed that this "sketchy deal" was so lacking in detail that Mr Romney would never have accepted it during his business career.

"And neither should you, the American people," he told the tens of millions of television viewers watching the contest at Long Island's Hofstra University. "Because the math doesn't add up."

Shaking off his timid performance in the first debate a fortnight ago, Obama landed a series of sharp blows. He painted  Romney as a tax-avoiding vulture capitalist and lambasted his remark to wealthy donors "behind closed doors" that 47% of Americans were government-dependent "victims" refusing to take responsibility for their lives.

"I want to fight for them," Obama said in his closing statement. "That's what I've been doing for the last four years - because if they succeed, I believe the country succeeds."

Polls indicated that Obama had effectively fought back from his disastrous showing in Colorado, which triggered a surge in support for Romney. An instant CNN survey found 46 per cent of respondents said Obama beat Romney, with 39% backing the former Massachusetts governor. A snap CBS poll gave it to the president 37-30.

The effects of the debate will not be seen in authoritative polls for several days. Obama yesterday led Romney by three points in a survey of 11 battleground states by Rasmussen, a Republican-leaning pollster. Romney was ahead by two in the same poll last week. However, a Gallup tracking poll said Romney led nationally by six points.

Addressing supporters in Virginia last night, Romney said Obama was running on fumes and had no agenda for a second term. "He's got to come up with that over this weekend," he said, referring to Monday night's final contest in Florida. "I have to be honest with you, I love these debates."

Yet after triumphing in Colorado two weeks ago, Romney was repeatedly frustrated on Tuesday. At one point he was even corrected by the moderator, Candy Crowley, for his criticism of Obama's response to the Sept 11 terrorist attack in Libya, to applause from the town hall-style audience.

Allies of Romney admitted that the debate was probably not a win for their candidate. Asked directly if he had won, Kerry Healey, his deputy in Massachusetts, told The Daily Telegraph, "I don't think tonight will move the needle".

Free to leave their stools and roam the stage, the candidates directly addressed one another in a series of angry, finger-jabbing exchanges. Romney at one point drew gasps from the audience by ordering Obama to stop talking.

Karl Rove, the former top strategist to George W Bush, said, "Governor Romney, in my opinion, made a mistake asking questions of President Obama. You never ask a question and give your opponent a chance to offer an answer."

Romney forcefully told the audience that Obama had presided over a limp economic recovery and failed to keep a string of promises he made four years ago. After promising to halve the budget deficit, he doubled it to $1.2 trillion, and barely reduced unemployment.

"The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked," said Romney. "He's great as a speaker, and describing his plans and his vision - that's wonderful. But we have a record to look at."

He also attacked Obama for failing to keep a promise to overhaul America's immigration laws in his first year in office, pledging: "I will not grant amnesty to those who come here illegally."

However, he surprised onlookers by fumbling his criticism of Obama's handling of the Benghazi crisis. Dismissing claims that the White House "played politics" on the issue as "offensive", Obama said, "That's not what we do. That's not what I do as president. That's not what I do as commander in chief."

John Weaver, a senior adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign against Obama, said: "After last night, it's time for the Libya arrow to go back in the quiver. Romney's best shot is a singular focus on economy and job creation."

However, Obama dismissed Romney's vaunted five-point plan for the economy as a retread of George W Bush's "failed" policies that would cost the US $5?trillion (pounds 3.1?trillion). "Governor Romney doesn't have a five-point plan - he has a one-point plan," he said. "And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules."

 

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