I think this is good advice for the president. He should be prepared for Mitt Romney to step to the mic tonight and shake his Etch a Sketch repeatedly. There seems to be almost price for him to move dramatically to the center, and the president needs to be prepared for it. Back in the spring, the campaign moved away from the flip-flop attack in favor of the plutocrat attack. It worked very well, but it came at a cost that he is paying now. If the flip-flop attack had been pursued, Romney would be afraid to change positions as it would reinforce people’s strongest negative impressions of him. But he has that freedom now because the flip-flop attack was dropped. Obama needs to use that attack preemptively if he can, and he needs to keep on it throughout the debate and in the hours and days following the debate.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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RomneyTaxPlan.com
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Smart!
I’m very nervous about this debate. Was confident going into Biden’s debate, and for that matter Obama’s first debate, but I’m afraid I don’t have confidence that Obama (and his advisors) will have a good plan for tonight.
There’s SO MANY possible ways to be successful tonight. My favorite would be to decide in advance that there are two key messages to hammer home and keep hammering them: 1) voting for Romney/Ryan ends guaranteed medicare, 2) (whatever else is most likely to get votes). But I really don’t care what they choose for a strategy as long as it successfully creates a perception that shifts votes for Obama and his party.
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen Obama overcome this kind of challenge before. This really isn’t his wheelhouse at all. His strength, all his life, has been reconciling differences between groups and building successful compromises. From Harvard Law Review to community organizer to the Illinois Senate he’s always been the middle guy everyone trusts to do the right thing. He played that role very successfully in the first campaign, dismissing the Palin crowd as a fringe and yet even still keeping the door open should they want to talk. But as President he kept trying to play that role but the GOP as a whole wouldn’t let him, although a few moderate exceptions in the GOP did welcome him in that role.
Now he’s in a situation where he has to point out “my side is right and their side is wrong”, not “can’t we all agree on a middled ground.” The middle ground appeal is probably not going to win it this time – he has to create contrasts. Hell, the GOP ticket is blaming HIM for not crossing the aisle – the Party of NO – the party that refused any compromise on anything.
It’s not natural to Obama. The furthest he went on this in 2008 was to use the phrase “failed policies of George Bush” but even then he talked centrist. Can he create a stark contrast between the Democratic and Republican parties in the minds of the voters? Can he point out unequivocally that a vote for the GOP is a vote to end medicare and to end healthcare for 10s of millions? I fear he can’t – I fear he’ll fall into his centrist comfort zone – talking about his own plans but not sufficiently contrasting with his opponent.
I hope like hell I am wrong. If Obama fails and some how loses this thing – and if Romney gets coattails and a tie Senate – then it is over for America. Forget about trashing the filibuster, the Ryan budget can be passed with reconciliation. End guaranteed medical care in retirement for anyone under 55; end the incremental improvements brougth by Obamacare; slash social security; eliminate taxes on any rich person except those stupid enough to receive compensation as wages.
And that will be just the beginning. Replacing two SCOTUS liberals with two more Scalia clones will end the reminents of our so-called democracy. If you think the anti-vote laws are bad now wait until they enact the next round that the SCOTUS approves them all, overriding the lower courts. Seriously, for 20 years we’ve had this situation where there was always a “swing” justice to occasionally temper the extreme right wing views. Look at all those 5-4 decisions that went against the right wing – all those decisions will be revisited and will be the new law of the land. Abortion will be just the beginning.
That’s the stakes tonight. Perhaps the most critical 90 minutes in Obama’s career.
OK, that’s one side of it. The other side, though, is that Obama is a president with, I think, unusual respect for facts and reality, and a strong desire to promote and defend his programs. He is very cool under pressure, and he is infinitely taking questions from ordinary people than Romney is.
A good example of the first advantage that I can think of is his handling of the Fiscal Responsibility Summit in late February 2009, at the height of the fiscal crisis and just a few weeks into his administration. At the end of that event, there was a question-and-answer session that the character of a debate, although there was no moderator. — The republicans were well into their hostile mode, and the president was trying to emphasize civility. This forced the Republicans to be civil.
Obama’s job was to explain and defend his programs. He did this, I think, clearly and flawlessly.
http://www.dailybarometer.com/forum/civility-reintroduced-to-the-washington-world-1.2380371
Of the second, his comfort with people and Romney’s awkwardness (to put it mildly), no examples are needed.
There’s one more thing that is rarely brought up. Obviously Obama is a guy that tries to get along, but there are people he truly dislikes, and Romney is one of them. Obama can go for the jugular if so motivated. But he will do it in the nicest possible way.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/08/book-details-obamas-dislike-of-romney/1
I meant “infintely more comfortable with”
I just remember “I think Governor Romney and I agree on Social Security.”
I didn’t hear that from Joe Biden. Joe Biden attacked them on Social security. He didn’t agree with them.
Yes, well I’m not defedning that, but that was then, this is now.
Yes. You are right.
“I’m very nervous about this debate.”
Me, too.
“Was confident going into Biden’s debate, and for that matter Obama’s first debate, but I’m afraid I don’t have confidence that Obama (and his advisors) will have a good plan for tonight.”
That’s where you lost me. It would be crazy to think Obama and Plouffe and Axelrod and Cutter don’t know what’s at stake.
This is one of the ways that people spin themselves into a panic. All the “What If”s are negative. What if they don’t have a good plan? What if Obama gets caught flat-footed again? What if Romney lies even more? What if this is a total disaster and Obama loses?
Obama is GOOD in town halls. Romney, not so much. I am absolutely confident that debate practices were not skipped this time around and I’m absolutely positive that Obama will not be low energy tonight. History shows that Obama fights hard when he’s in a crunch. Have some faith.
What if we try some positive “What if”s on for size.
What if the people at the town hall see right through Romney? What if Romney is shown for the fraud he is? What if Obama connects with people at the town hall? What if Obama is at the top of his game tonight?
We don’t know what will happen tonight. And I’m nervous, but I don’t think we do ourselves any favors if we spin ourselves into a panic beforehand.
If I were Obama, I would be pissed as hell that after one bad night, some of my supporters lost their faith in me.
Good advice. Also, don’t watch the pre-show speculation by the theater critics. The concern trolling is nauseating.
When you are standing on opposite sides of a canyon, there is no middle ground.
The job for Obama is to get Romney to Flip Flop in real time, in front of a gigantic audience. His base will be watching and if Obama can expose Romney as their worst enemy…a politician who willingly runs away from his Conservative identity, to pander to Obama’s supporters thus leaving the base to question their own trust in him, heads will explode.
Romney will run to the center. If his base perceives this not as a trick against an opponent but instead an abandonment of the Conservative beliefs they have never been sure he shares, Obama will have revealed, finally, the true Mitt.
Hey, cool, you got a Romney/Ryan ad at the top of your page: “Are you better off with $5 trillion in new debt? It’s time for a real recovery!”
Which is a complete non sequitur, but I guess it isn’t really trying to speak to me on a rational level. They seem to want to use that $5 trillion in new debt the way Bush used Al Qaeda: Booga booga! Scary! I’ll protect you!
(But really, are we better off with $5 trillion in new debt? I don’t know, what did we get for that $5 trillion? And what was the alternative?)
Every time Romney makes some kind of moderate statement, Obama should ask if it is another of those statements that is staff is going to walk back like they did after the last debate.
Hmm, do flip-flop attacks even work? How much do voters care that one person is a liar?
The big question is, will it work? Create an atmosphere to completely destroy trust in the ability of government to solve any problems with near total obstruction, stir the pot of the crazy plus unleash a long simmering racial backlash. Can they win this because the other side was afraid and/or too weak to point out this was their strategy. Such was the first debate.
Just as stark as the obstruction was, the systematic destruction of our manufacturing base by the vulture capitalist, led by Bain, produced a great deal of long term pain. For so many people, their economy has collapsed long ago with no relief in sight. As before, in the not too distant past, this kind of pain led to a desire for an authoritarian leader as well as system of government where decisions are made by corporations. Mix this with a national identity based on racial superiority for a classical definition of Fascism. In our case it will come wrapped in our flag carrying a cross. This kind of thing has way too much visceral appeal and is at the heart of the conservative movement. Can they win? They can if left unchallenged.
This is not the first time we have visited these crossroads. Last time Europe went one way and we went the other. Last time things did get bad enough to expose the corporate game of the Gilded Age then produced a progressive movement with a strong leader on the national stage. Maybe this time things never got bad enough with a centrist leader perceived now as weak.
We were lied into a costly war with absolutely no consequences for the liars. The financial corporations crashed the world economy with no consequences whatsoever, even rewarded by making them even bigger, even stronger. Our idea was to become more like them, move to center. All we were able to accomplish with that was to pass some recycled Republican ideas, thanks to interference from our centrist blue dogs. I ask again, did they win?
Obama has already painted Romney as the liar and the vulture capitalist he is. First it was Bain, then hiding his taxes that reinforced the idea he was hiding something, then catching him telling the real truth with his 47% remarks. Obama had Romney ready to go over the cliff but then Obama appeared weak on the national political stage, allowing the Republicans, with Romney’s bully debate performance, to paint Obama as weak, in over his head. The election momentum reversed. Republicans were able to walk away from all their negative positions, even to close the gender gap after a national attack on women. Why? Because none of this was discussed at the moment it mattered.
Being President with all these undercurrents is not easy. I don’t think Obama can win unless he can satisfy, at least somewhat, our desperate need for an authoritarian leader while reminding people who Romney and the Republicans really are. We have not yet seen Obama perform in this role and it may not be natural for him but I do believe he has grown while in office. I now hope he surprises us to turn this thing around.
I am watching the pundits spitting on hardball they are so wound up.
It is all “he needs to” “he should” “he has to” blah, blah, blah.
If he doesn’t do what they think he should then does this mean he lost even if I don’t particularly want him to do all these things they are suggesting.
They set him up every single time. I am so sick of this.
How about he not nod his head “yes” when Romney tells a whopper? Act alert and engaged. Have a coherent and plausible story wrt to Benghazi — and remind the viewers that Reagan lost Marines in Lebanon and GWB lost civilians in NYC. Also remind women that Mitt would close Planned Parenthood and he earns good profits from outsourcing jobs to China even as he pretends to disapprove of the practice while on the campaign trail.
The polls are telling us something, but nobody seem s to know what it is. Or if it’s a trend or an unstable blip. Either way, something seems to be connecting with voters that has reversed the months and months of polling trends and whatever it is, it’s quite possibly not about substance or lying.