He showed a lack of energy (which made him seem detached), looked down too often, and his most-displayed expression when Romney was speaking was a lip compression with a clenchedjaw.
The presence of light-struck wash drawings of cloud-borne figures and angels by Giambattista Tiepolo proposes a reading of Degas's aerialist as a modern-day, secular version of such imagery, clearly suspended from her clenchedjaw, not divinely supported.