Obama got more time to stumble and stutter. That didn’t help him. Without his teleprompter, he should have kept his answers short.
Obama fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" or the only slightly less well-known which is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"!
You see, Obama read his own press, and believed it! He believes he is a great communicator and that he can convince anybody of anything, as long as he talks long enough.
This open-ended response format is just what Obama thinks he wants, but is the thing that is poison to somebody with his rambling-on tendencies...
I think this debate format was intentionally picked in order to give Obama time for his “soaring rhetoric.” However, without the TOTUS, he sank like a brick. Romney took the economy, hung it around Obama’s neck and then choked him with it!