Cutter to Jessica Yellin: Romney wins style points

CNN’s Jessica Yellin speaks to Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter about the hits and misses of the first presidential debate.

A full transcript of the interview is after the jump.

THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. IT MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORMAT AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT:  That’s right, Candy.  I’m here with Stephanie Cutter, who is the deputy campaign manager for the Obama campaign, and was also a staffer inside the White House.  You know the president well.  And, Stephanie, let me just ask you, plainly, where was the passion we see on the campaign trail from the president?  Why wasn’t it there tonight?

STEPHANIE CUTTER, OBAMA DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER:  Well, you know, I think we came here with a specific purpose, and we told everybody what that purpose was, was to have a conversation with voters about his specific plans to move this country forward, and he did that tonight.  And I think he scored points on his balanced deficit reduction plan and how he would do it.  Holding Wall Street accountable and how he would do it.  His health reform plan.

And I think that Mitt Romney, yes, he absolutely wins the preparation.  And he wins the style points.  But that’s not what has been dogging his campaign. What has been dogging his campaign are the policies that he doubled down on tonight.  You know, let’s talk about his tax cut.  You know, they signaled over the course of the last several days, they put out details of how they would pay for it.  They didn’t put out details.  In fact, he backed away from it.  He is not being honest with the American people.  He spent a lot of time on defense on these policies.  And you know what’s worse?  He got testy about it.  He got testy about being on defense, and I think that came across to the American people.

YELLIN:  The president also seemed to get testy at one point when he was interrupted by Jim Lehrer, and he sort of bristled himself.  So I wonder, will the president do a little bit more debate prep before the next debate, and prepare a little bit differently?  Do you think he maybe didn’t take this seriously enough?

CUTTER: We feel pretty good about the president’s performance here tonight.  Again, he wasn’t speaking to the people in this room, he wasn’t speaking to the pundit class, he was speaking to the people at home.  And I think what people at home heard tonight is a plan forward, a detailed, measured, balanced plan forward of how we’re going to rebuild the economy and strengthen the middle class.  And they saw another guy who got testy, who interrupted, interrupted the moderator.  I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator, because we had Mitt Romney.  He should rethink that for the next debate.  And somebody who is doubling down on the very same policies that crashed our economy in the first place.

He talked to the American people about his plan to voucherize Medicare.  He talked to the American people about his plan to repeal Wall Street reform, but couldn’t name one single regulation he’d put in place on Wall Street.  Talked to the American people about how he doesn’t really have a $5 trillion tax cut, which he has been campaigning on for 18 months.  So I don’t think they leave this debate tonight having any better idea of where Mitt Romney is going to take this country.

YELLIN:  All right.  Thank you, Stephanie Cutter.

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