Contributors

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Tonight

The second presidential debate is tonight at Hofstra University and it's very clear that the race has changed since the last debate. If you would have told me before the last debate that the president's chances of re-election went from  347-191 to 281-235 (with Colorado and Virginia being pure tossups), I would have said you were nuts.

But that's what one poor debate performance and a completely new and improved Mitt Romney does for a presidential race. The president has a tough task ahead of him tonight. He has to obviously be more upbeat than he was in the last debate and he also has to challenge Romney on his many about faces on the key issues. Yet he has to do it without seeming belligerent because this is a Town Hall style debate with undecided voters in the audience who would likely frown upon heavy partisan bickering. A tough task, indeed.

What I would do tonight if I were the president is point to his list of accomplishments in office and use them to challenge Romney. The president could say, "Mr Romney says that he is a job creator...well, he's sharing the stage with one right now. I've created 5 million jobs in my four years in office and that was after the greatest economic contraction since the great depression. The stock market is seeing new highs, housing is coming back, and consumer confidence is getting higher everyday. We've cut the deficit by 200 billion. We're on the right track, despite the policies of the past that Governor Romney wants to return us to." This is the way he has to frame it. He can't be the attack dog that the Democrats want him to be.

Another thing he could say to erase the last debate is to say something like, "I was shocked at the last debate to see that Governor Romney has come to my way of thinking on issues like health care and taxes. I'm glad he wants to save social programs and keep most of my health care plan like pre-existing conditions and children being able to be insured by their parents until they are 26. I think it's great that he thinks taxes don't need to be cut for the wealthy. But he still hasn't said how he is going to pay for all of this."

The president can nail Romney on specifics without going negative. He could simply say, "I stand for the wealthy paying more of their fair share of taxes. I want to keep tax cuts permanent for the middle class. I'm looking forward to implementing the rest of my health care plan. Who are you, Governor Romney and what do you stand for?"

This point really has to be driven home because it's enormously aggravating that Romney is now suddenly a moderate who supports helping the middle class. More irritating is the sound of crickets I hear from the Right who now have made it abundantly clear that they just want Barack Obama to lose and it's not because they think his policies are wrong for the country. It's because they KNOW they are starting to be effective (which Romney will, of course, take credit for if he wins) and that would hasten the end (already inevitable, demographically speaking) of their party as they know it. It matters not if Mitt Romney does these things...just as long as it's not Barack Obama.

Honestly, I don't think Mitt Romney can do these things. I think he's a nice guy and he is exactly like all the dads of the kids I with whom I went to school (private school, grades 7-12) but he's not presidential material. The fact that people are now of the mind that he "looks like a president on the TeeVee" is really disappointing to me. I thought we had moved past all that.

I guess I'm very pessimistic about the race at this point. Perhaps it's because there was such a comfortable lead by the president that has now been needlessly squandered and we are left with an honest to goodness nail biter that sadly isn't based on substance. More frustrating is the fact that the Democrats are likely to pick up 12 seats in the House and hold the Senate, possibly even gaining a seat or two, given the fact that the GOP candidates are so awful this year and the Democratic candidates are so good.

281 does win it, however, and so perhaps I'm being overly paranoid. With Ohio holding the way it is (even after the president sucked in the last debate), that means that Romney is going to have to run the table on the rest of the states. Even Frank Luntz says that the president is likely going to win simply because of electoral math.

So, the president could really help himself tonight and I'm hoping that he will!

11 comments:

Nikto said...

The entire point of the last four years was to elicit exactly this kind of Democratic handwringing. Republicans obstructed the president on every front specifically to discourage Democrats, especially those who historically don't vote and voted for the first time in the last election.

By making it seem that their vote didn't matter, and that nothing they do can help the president win, they hope to get these people to stay home on election day.

Why reward the Republicans by publicly cutting down the president? The Republicans HATE Romney. They've warmed to him now because he was strong and forceful and "won" the debate, but they don't trust him at all. Hearing him talk like a reasonable guy really puts them on edge. They're not sure he's really going to do what he said he was going to do during the first half of the campaign, though the entire reason they picked him was because they wanted a guy who moderates would vote for, because they KNOW their ideas are completely unacceptable to 70% of the country but they think those people are stupid enough to be conned by Romney. They like CEOs like him because their entire life history is built on a house of lies, and they need liars like Romney to win. They just wish he wasn't such a weasel.

So they HOPE he's lying now, and that he was lying when he ran for governor and senator in Massachusetts. But in their heart of hearts, they fear that he was lying during the primaries, and that he'll be some cowardly technocrat who just wants to make things work instead of a died-in-the-wool conservative. His main backers don't have to worry though: if there's one thing we know about Romney, the wealthy are going to make out like bandits no matter what his real stands are other issues.

As a backstop they put Paul Ryan in as a behind-the-scenes VP who will pull all Romney's strings, a la Cheney. But the only thing that really matters is that they win, because if they don't win this one they'll have an extremely hard time winning next time. They need to have control over the levers of powers for the next four years in order to solidify their ability to maintain minority control over this country, especially by sabotaging the Justice Department, voting rights legislation and the judiciary. Demographically they are dangling over the precipice.

Romney and the Republicans are doubling down on all the worst mistakes of the Bush administration -- tax cuts for the wealthy, endless saber-rattling and wars, giving the financial industry more regulatory rope to hang us all, cutting back on spending that will help the economy grow.

last in line said...

Not even a hint or a mention of what Obamas second terms agenda. may be from either one of you - telling.

Obama never had a comfortable lead. I really don't think people are out there fluctuating like the polls say they are.

I'm sure he will do fine because all he will have to do is step onto the stage and breathe and he will be known as The Comeback Kid!!

As far as askign Romney who he is, in this style of debate, he will be answering the people in the audience, not talking directly to Romney.

Mark Ward said...

Not even a hint or a mention of what Obamas second terms agenda. may be from either one of you - telling.

It's been said many times so why sound repetitive? Tax cuts permanent for all but the wealthy, the jobs bill, and a budget deal that will have a combination of revenue and budget cuts to reduce the debt and deficit among many other things.

Obviously, he will mention it again tonight but all you have to do is click on the tag "Obama's policies" and you can see the results of his policies and that more of the same is in store for the future. There have been two such posts this week.

Like it or not, the president is a job creator.

Mark Ward said...

Obama never had a comfortable lead. I really don't think people are out there fluctuating like the polls say they are.

I think the tightening was a combination of what happened naturally and Obama's poor performance in the first debate. But you're talking about national polls, not swing state polls, and it's those nine states that matter.

Have you seen this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-political-polls/2012/10/12/21408264-13de-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html

Check out #1.

juris imprudent said...

Republicans obstructed the president on every front

Partisan assholes are just such partisan assholes.

The Democrats controlled the House, Senate and Presidency the first two years of Obama's Admin. The simple truth is that the Demo majority in the House in particular was not a bunch of flaming proglodytes. The Dems bought that majority by sacrificing leftwing purity.

Mark Ward said...

The Democrats controlled the House, Senate and Presidency the first two years of Obama's Admin.

I'm going to give you a chance to correct this falsehood.

A. Noni Mouse said...

I'm going to give you a chance to correct this falsehood.

Welcome to Marxyworld—where reality is forbidden.

111th United States Congress

Senate Majority: Democratic Party
House Majority: Democratic Party

Don't worry Marxy. The nice young men in the white coats should be there soon.

Mark Ward said...

Have some difficulty reading your own link, Noni? Scroll down to the "Party Summary" section and take a look at exactly how long the Democrats actually "controlled" the Senate. September 25, 2009 to February 4, 2010. That's not two years, it's barely five months. You (and juris) know as well as I do how the Senate works. If you don't have 60 votes, it's filibuster time which makes this statement

Republicans obstructed the president on every front

completely true.

So, accept the responsibility of behaving like an adolescent and not allowing the president to succeed at anything. You should be proud, right? Rooting for America to fail since 2008...

A. Noni Mouse said...

Marky, you need to get your eyes checked.

Democrats controlled both houses all the way through November 2010. And are still the majority in the Senate. It's not necessary to have a supermajority to be in control (as Harry Reid has amply demonstrated over the past two years).

completely true

"Completely". As in squint your eyes and turn your head just so.

The scary thing is that you believe your own bullshit and are infecting your unsuspecting students.

Mark Ward said...

Wow, you are really full of misinformation today. The Democrats had a majority in both houses until January 5th, 2011, not November of 2010.

Further, having the majority does not mean being able to do whatever you want. Unless you have 60 votes in the Senate, the minority can indeed obstruct...which they did wholeheartedly. Their number one goal, remember, was to make the president a one term president. Kinda makes you wonder why they have 10 percent approval ratings. What a puzzler!

juris is right, though, when he says they sacrificed purity to have a majority. That's ANOTHER reason why they couldn't do whatever they wanted. They actually had moderates in their party (unlike the GOP) who weren't going to march in lockstep with every bill Nancy Pelosi put out there. This aided GOP obstructionism.

It's a nice dance you are doing but I think you just admit who the problem in progress is here and the who's, why's and how's of obstructionism.

A. Noni Mouse said...

Wow, you are really full of misinformation today. The Democrats had a majority in both houses until January 5th, 2011, not November of 2010.

YOU were the one who pointed to that chart, dumbass, the one that goes to November 29, 2011. Not me. I was just repeating what the chart YOU specifically pointed out says. Yet another example of your cherry picking and saying anything (Dancing Goalposts!) to pretend that you're not wrong (again!).

Congress is not in session every single day. A Christmas/Holiday break is normal. I presume that Nov 29th was the last day that Congress was in session. If what I posted is incorrect, that is due to the Exact. Same. Information. YOU tried to beat me over the head with.

When are you going to repost your last Sarah Palin bashing, but with your own picture so that it's more accurate?