If you reduced last night’s debate to its essentials by parsing the verbiage used by each candidate, you’d find something fascinating and revealing: Mitt Romney wanted to focus on the issues, while Barack Obama wanted to avoid issues and talk about Mitt Romney.

The evidence for this assertion is in the frequency of nouns chosen by each candidate when he spoke. The three top nouns Romney used were people, tax, and government. The two top nouns Obama used were Governor and Romney. In order, the noun used the most was Romney talking about people, followed by Obama using governor and Romney, then Romney using tax and government.

For all of Obama’s posturing about how he’s the man of the people, it was Romney who had the people the most on his mind last night. It was Romney who obviously wanted to talk about the issues while Obama obfuscated and resorted to meandering stories about his grandmother.

The fog that Barack Obama has created over the past 6 years by posing as a wonk while only offering platitudes has been blown away by Romney’s relentless focus on the issues at hand. Romney’s sunlight is the best antidote for Obama’s work in the shadows, and the American people love sunlight.