to some degree, so did romney, bunot to the degegree that t the president was. he was passive and listless in the first debate this time he came o on and mention all the things he failed to mention in the first debate, whether it was romney's tax rate being lower than t of a ecial education teacher with a 4 romney essenally groping troops in afghanistan tonight as -- grouping of in afghanistan tonight as moochers and freeloaders. i do thihink that nina i is right that as it went on, romney did get peeved. he was upset. the equanimity and consistey of his first debate was not present. i was s reminded of mike huckabee's line in 2008- i i want to be a presidentho reminds people of the person who hired them not the person whwho fired them. >> speing of the economy, who won on that isissue? >> if yoyou look at the last polls, romomney was up by 18% on that issue after this debate by those who watched the debate, and in another poll, cbs poll, up by 31%. i agree with my colleagues to some extent. romney won on points with a lot jabs, a minor, narrow victory. that ove

. >> reporter: now bunot everyone in the room saw it that way. >> i think romney cut off the moderator a number of times. he kept cutting off president obama. i think he didn't have any solid points. >> reporter: at times, the two men appeared to be battling over the facts or numbers which professor jackson says is confusing for the average voter. but she says the debate is also about how voters feel about the candidate. and that's where she says romney gained ground. counteracting the image of the out of touch rich guy which has plagued him throughout his campaign. >> coming across as caring and sympathetic and trustworthy was something that romney needed to do, and i think that he did do a good job. >> reporter: professor jackson predicts that romney will get a slight bump in the polls after this debate. and where that really matters is in those swing states where the two men are separated by only a couple of percentage points. live in san jose, monte francis, nbc bay area news. >>> perhaps the harshest performance criticism of the night is being aimed at debate moderator jim lehrer

but throwing out the bad ones, keeping the good parts of simpson-bowles, keeping good regulations bunot ones that were too onerous. did you not see a pivot? >> well, yes and no. i mean, i think the main thing is that his critique of obama care, anderson, which just like about everything else that governor romney did during the debate, was appropriately respectful, civil, but extremely toh and fact-laden. he laid out a systematic and devastating critique of obama's record on health care, including the independent payment advisory boards, across the board cuts in services, including $716 billion in draconian cuts to providers, nursing homes, hospitals and doctors under medicare, including $2 trillion in new spending, including dozens of higher taxes, and his argument was mr. president, this is a big government scheme that doesn't work for trying to take over one-seventh of the gdp. i think for conservatives that was a rallying cry. >> would you say it was a game changer or is that going too far for you? >> well, i think it's too early to say that. look, i worked on the bush campaign in 20