The Great Debate?

Well, Governor Romney did a great deal better then most people expected, particularly those who live off the pabulum that flows from the mainstream media.  More to the point of many (though it shouldn’t be) is that President Obama performed so poorly.

Should that have been a surprise?  I would suggest not.  Even a cursory review of Obama’s performance in debates in the past reveals that he has rarely been pressed hard by his opponents, and, more to the point, he has never been forced to defend his position.  Instead, he was always in one of two positions: someone who had grand ideas but had never been in an executive position and hence had no record he needed to defend; or two, someone in an executive position who used (or tried to use) his position to force through his position based on his executive power without really convincing anyone.  Thus, Obamacare, forced through against the wishes of the majority of the US population (and which just squeaked through Congress, was mainly drafted out of sight of nearly everyone and presented without detailed explanation.)  These simple facts, coupled with the twin realities of a coddling press and the fact that the Presidency is an office in which the occupant can easily isolate himself and insist on deferential treatment, means that President Obama was in fact facing a situation with which he has no real experience.

Can Obama do better next time?    

Certainly.  But it will require a few things:

Hard preparation: the President will need to bring in someone who is substantially brighter and tougher than John Kerry to play the role of Mitt Romney.  The questions must be tougher, the opponent tougher, the ‘practice audience’ must be tough and unforgiving.  And they need to ‘hit it hard’ over the next two weeks.  Assuming the President ‘has it’ in regard to this or that point is a mistake.

Dealing with his record for the last 4 years: the President has to address the floundering economy head on, telling the American people why unemployment is so high (and disregarding the nonsense perpetrated on the US by Department of Labor with the latest unemployment numbers); he must explain why – despite the fact that he added more than $1 trillion to the debt in the last 12 months – his economic path is the right one; he must explain why his health care plan will, in fact, work; he must explain why he, and he alone, can solve Social Security problems for the next four years.  Despite the nonsense published by his campaign, Mitt Romney isn’t telling lies, he’s simply explaining his program.  Obama has to show why the Obama program – despite the abysmal record of the last 45 months – is better.  Romney won the debate because he succeeded in explaining his program and Obama failed to defend his.

Recognition of his defeat: But the above requires that Obama and his campaign people recognize that Romney beat him fair and square.  The senior staffers who don’t acknowledge that should be fired.  And for his two or three closets advisors, in private, should start looking forward with a conversation that begins something like: “Boss, you got your butt kicked.  We have a lot to do to clean this up.”   It starts there; if Obama can’t get his head around the simple idea that Romney was better than he was, that he lost, then he will lose again.

So, here are a couple of predictions: if Vice President Biden performs poorly, and President Obama performs poorly in the second debate, “international tensions” will “force” the President to cancel the final debate.

Further, the President will search for any opportunity to target someone, no matter how tenuous the intelligence, who is ‘connected’ to the attack on Benghazi, and conduct some sort of attack – cruise missiles or B-2 bombers or SEALs or some other means.   Ideally, such an attack would take place the night of the (cancelled) third debate.