Interesting discussion with a conservative coworker..

First, a bit of backstory. Been working with him for about 10 years. He's a good guy, 30ish, taking courses and working towards going into law enforcement. Politically, we have very little in common, but he actually follows current events pretty closely and we're able to talk politics and disagree without being disagreeable. He's no teabagger. We don't often agree, but he's reasonable. He mentioned when Romney got the nomination that he was disappointed the Repubs couldn't find someone else. We talked about the first debate and I admitted I thought Obama had a pretty bad night.

I didn't bring up the debate today. I wasn't sure if he'd watched or what kind of mood he'd be in about it if he had, so I let him bring it up. About 4 today, he came up to me and said

"So, wanna know what bugged me about the debate? It might surprise you." And I said sure. Turns out, he was really turned off by how Romney handled himself. He thought he was really disrespectful to the moderator and, even worse, the President. Basically, his feeling was you respect the office, no matter who the President is. He thought Romney seemed arrogant and basically bulldozed his way through the debate. He specifically mentioned some of the back-and-forth "you did this" "no I didn't" "yes you did" exchanges, complaining that it seemed really childish, "probably on both of their parts, but one of them already has the job." It was interesting. This is someone who is pretty solidly Republican. It's not like he's going to vote for Obama, but I found it pretty telling that he had that reaction. There's no love for Mitt, even on the right.