Obama: Debate partner 'couldn't have been Mitt Romney'

President Obama accused Republican nominee Mitt Romney of running from his own record in Wednesday night’s presidential debate, joking that the man he faced onstage at the University of Denver must have been someone else.

“When I got onto the stage I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” Obama told supporters at a Denver campaign rally on Thursday. “But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney.”

While the real Mitt Romney has been promising $5 trillion in tax cuts and saying the country doesn’t need more teachers, Obama said, “the fellow onstage last night” said the opposite.  

“The man onstage last night, he does not want to be held accountable for the real Mitt Romney’s decisions and what he’s been saying for the last year. And that’s because he knows full well that we don’t want what he’s been selling for the last year,” Obama said.

Obama may have seemed tired and unfocused at Wednesday’s debate, but he exuded energy at Thursday’s rally. His supporters didn’t hold back cheers and chants of “four more years!”. One woman yelled out, “We believe in you!”

Obama didn’t pass up a jab at Romney’s remark during the debate that he’d cut PBS funding in order to bring down the deficit.

“Thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird. It’s about time,” Obama said of Romney’s promise to defund the popular kids’ show Sesame Street.