If Mitt Romney was a boxer who walked in to the ring an 8-1 underdog he climbed out of the ring with perhaps not a knockout but with a belt around his waist.  Mitt Romney did everything he needed to last night and more.  As James Carville said, “It looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn’t want to be there,”.  At times the President looked uncomfortable.  As I wrote earlier, there is none better than the President when perched in front of a prompter but how will he do when head to head with Romney?  Last night at least, we had our answer, poorly.  At times he smiled when Romney made an accurate and hard-hitting comment, much the same way a boxer smiles when he takes a good shot.  No question Mitt Romney had more to gain than to lose and he will probably pick up two or three points in the polls, although I am no fan of polls.  There were two stand out moments for Romney last night, First, his businesslike approach to lowering the deficit.  Romney said there are three ways to lower deficit 1) raise taxes 2) cut spending 3)economic growth.  Clearly he believes the best way to lower the deficit is to put people back to work so they become taxpayers.  Isn’t that’s what’s best for the country; putting people back to work?  We can not tax our way out this enormous deficit.  We must grow our way out of it.  It may make liberals and socialists feel better sticking it to the rich, but it won’t help lower the national debt.  Romney took that opportunity to stick it to the President, “Let’s face it, the rich will continue to do well whether you’re President or I’m President”.  President Obama smiled as Romney landed a solid jab.  Second, the President attacked Romney on the four billion dollar tax break for Exxon to which Romney countered, “your administration gave ninety billion dollars in tax breaks to green energy companies, half of which have gone bankrupt and many of which are your supporters Mr. President”.  Another great counter punch.  The President had no retort.  One other weakness in the President’s debate last night, was the use of his grandmother once again, to make a point about economic opportunity in this country.  That plays well to your audience at a political convention but at some point the “pulling at the heartstrings” strategy becomes ineffective and uninteresting and it’s a poor debate strategy.  So on the morning after the first debate, the morning after the Yankees are once again division champs, score it Romney 1, Obama 0.