The first presidential debate of the season swung some Colorado Springs voters decidedly to the right, but left others on the fence.

After a debate watch party at The Gazette with about 20 attendees, most of those who responded said Republican Mitt Romney did decidedly better than President Barack Obama.

“Mitt Romney to me is like a car salesman. He tells you what you want to hear, how you want to hear it, and when you want to hear it,” said 48-year-old Eric Phillips, a registered independent voter. “But I wouldn’t be scared if he was president. He’s still a moderate.”

Phillips, like many others, said he’s going to wait for the next several debates before making up his mind.

Jean Swartzendruber, 83, called herself a “Republican who votes for the right person.” She said she was leaning towards Obama when she walked into the watch party, and the debate tilted her the other way.

The difference, she said, was health care.

Swartzendruber has had cancer for three years, and is worried that under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, she would be required to get permission to get treatment.

“That’s not going to work,” she said.

But, she said, she’s going to wait for the next two debates before she decides on her vote.

Several other previously-undecided voters said the debate put them firmly in the Romney camp.

Unaffiliated voter Barbara Vail, 51, said Romney’s “ideas on how to run the country are old-fashioned but necessary.”

When asked which ideas she meant, she waved her hand and said, “Pick one.”

Vail said Romney came across as someone “who would actually do something, and not just throw out numbers.”

Retired political science professor Ed Herlik said Romney’s esoteric references to the 10th Amendment, along with his recitation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, snagged his vote.

The 10th Amendment, Herlik noted, says that many things such as education and health care should be left to the states, and not regulated by the federal government.

“I was listening for that,” Herlik said. “Romney said the states should decide things. Constitutionally, he’s right.”

Said Herlik, “You don’t see a lot of that, because now he can’t come back and ram something down the states’ throats.”

Zoe Wood, a recently retired Army master sergeant, said Romney’s performance floored her.

“I had an epiphany. I realized that you don’t have to know all the details of a plan to support it, because I trust the person whose plan it is,” Wood said.

Wood related the situation to her service in Iraq, and talked about how her soldiers obeyed her orders because they trusted her, and that she carried out her orders because she trusted her commander.

Along the same vein, she said, Romney’s background of uniting Democrats and Republicans in the Massachusetts legislature gave her hope.

“When I heard that, I sat up a little straighter,” Wood said.

Not everyone was blown away by Romney, though. Registered independent voter Walt Taylor, 63, said Obama seems more in touch with the average man.

“He comes across as more understanding of what’s going on,” Taylor said. “He could sit down in a chair next to me, look into my eyes and understand what I’m going through.”

But Taylor, like Swartzendruber, said he wants to watch the next two debates before choosing a candidate.

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J. Zoe Wood takes down notes during the presidential debate at a watch party for undecided voters at the Gazette on Tuesday, October 3, 2012. Photo by JERILEE BENNETT/The Gazette