Appearing as a panel member on CNN's post-debate coverage on Wednesday, Democratic strategist James Carville gave President Obama a poor grade for his debate performance, asserting that 'I did everything I could not to reach it, but I had to reach it, and it looked like Romney wanted to be there, and President Obama didn't want to be there."
After former Obama advisor Van Jones tried to evade grading Obama by listing out criticisms of Mitt Romney that he believed the President should have made, Carville repeated that Obama seemed like he "would have preferred to be somewhere else."
Carville:
I had one ho-hum impression, I did everything I could not to reach it, but I had to reach it, and it looked like Romney wanted to be there, and President Obama didn't want to be there. He seemed like he was happy to be there debating, President Obama gave you the impression that this whole thing was kind of a lot of trouble. ... I do think that Romney had a good night. I think he wanted to be there, I think he knew he needed this, and I think Obama just gave a sense that he wasn't happy to be there.
(...)
I'll go back to my original thing. I just got the sense that the President would have preferred to be somewhere else. And, you know, Van, I agree with you completely, but he's got to make those points. And you got to say one thing, Jim Lehrer let these guys, you know, he let them freelance and let them go back and forth, and he did not, the President didn't bring his A game.
