As I said, it's a matter of perception. Here's the exchange from
the ABC News Transcript...
First off, the statement "I don't look at my pension" came off as out of touch. Who doesn't look at his pension? That's his retirement. I am telling you that I don't care how small your pension is, you look at it, because that's your retirement. If you don't look at it, it's because you're so rich you don't worry about it. So he stumbled off the bat.
Then he went for the laugh with "It's not as big as yours so it doesn't take as long." And then he tried to cover-up the first sentence with "I don't check it that often," which, imo, weakened the joke.
And the joke is basically making run of Romney for being rich. It's not even saying he's out of touch for being rich, or anything else. Just that Romney is very wealthy. I think he was going for a "Romney doesn't understand folks like you or me -- I'm like you, audience, I have a small pension that doesn't take as long to review as Romney's" but to me it just came off as a "Heh. He's rich!" And Romney's response, while not funny, sort of hit Obama for not knowing about his own pension funds and the nature of his investments. It didn't get a laugh, but I think it did undermine Obama's attack on Romney's questionable investments.
I didn't think it was Obama's best moment, but it did get one of the biggest audience reactions.