Debating Lessons and Campaign Momentum

   I feel a bit of the pain that the Democrats felt after the first presidential debate. " Why didn't my guy talk about ... ?"; "why didn't he call the other guy out on his gross distortions ?"; "how did we ever agree to that moderator?" By chance I experienced the emotions first hand when I recently did a debate on NPR about the candidates' economic policies with the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It ain't easy, but here are some learnings:

    First the bad:

        1. It is difficult to determine when to challenge your opponent's distortions. (There are few actual lies, just a lot of deliberate distortions.) The audience generally likes the conflict, but gets bored with the details, there is usually not a clear TRUTH, and you want to spend your time talking about your positives. Even the next-day fact checkers will usually split the difference. Romney's choice to cede the 7.8% unemployment rate without discussion might have disappointed some partisans, but it allowed him to spend his time on the larger picture - a good call. Overall there was too much contention both ways.

        2. It is critical to have internalized the best opposing arguments during your preparations. Rob Portman's preparation for the first debate had Romney on the top of his game. This time, Romney was taken back by Obama's assertion that he had called the Benghazi attack terrorism on the following day (and by moderator Crowley's intervention as part of Team Obama.) This was true to a point, but there are numerous devestating follow-on points which went unsaid - at least until the next debate.

        3. You will miss opportunities. Another green energy company went bankrupt on Tuesday, costing the taxpayers $250 million; Obama's White House pays women substantially less than men; Romney really could have shown a personal side by offering the college student some advice on finding a job rather than going immediaterly to the "50% of college graduates are unable to find a job" criticism.    

        4. The fear of a mainstream media bias is real - and should be limited by getting detailed agreement on format and the role of the moderator before the moderator is selected. Crowley publicly repudiated her instructions to not become part of the story, selected a larger share of "social issues" questions than in the first debate, gave more time to Obama (ditto the prior two debates), and interrupted Romney 28 times to Obama's nine - not letting him answer on health care, for example. That's beside her support for Obama on Benghazi.    

   And the good: 

        1. What really matters is the big facts. The economy sucks; Obama has no plans to fix it; Romney has a plan; Romney has demonstrated that he understands business and can fix things. People may get lost on how many oil wells were drilled on public land, whether the capital gains tax will be 15% or 20%, and whether Obama's pension plan has investments in China, but they do get the big picture.  

        2. Romney was ready on the obvious big challenges - his active championing of women in his Massachusetts administration (the importance of his record is reflected by the force of the Obama campaign's effort to ridicule his "binders of women" comment), his approach to immigration and Obama's failure to deliver on his commitment to Hispanics, his commitment to 100% of Americans, including the 47%.

        3.  What gave Romney momentum after the first debate was his blowing up the caricature of an uncaring plutocrat. Obama's efforts in that direction in the second debate fell flat ("Romney has a one point plan - help the rich") and the late question about what is most misunderstood about him gave a great opportunity to talk about his counseling work in Boston and the Olympics. He could have used more humor and better connection with the questioners, but Obama set the tone.  

        4. Most importantly, it matters what you spend the debate talking about.  Many of the snap polls had Obama doing a bit better than Romney in general with Romney doing significantly better on the economy, jobs, and taxes.  Fox and MSNBC focus groups of "undecided voters" both showed movement toward Romney. Perhaps the most telling sequence of the debate was the response to an African American voter who was disappointed by the lack of progress under Obama - the president had nothing to say; Romney gave a concise litany of economic failure and broken promises.

    With three weeks to go Romney and Ryan have shown that they are qualified, serious, viable alternatives to Obama and Biden. The polls two days after the "Crowley debate" show continued movement in Romney's direction. It is time to be thinking about potential game changers - an unlikely major failure by Romney in the October 22 foreign policy debate; a spectacular attack on the jihadists who attacked the consulate; an unanticipated foreign crisis.  This would seem to be about where Team Romney had hoped to be three weeks out.

                                                            -----

This week's video is an ad funded by Thomas Peterffy, a successful Hungarian immigrant, who lived with the results of a socialist system.  He eloquently captures the perspective of immigrants who frequently speak at Tea Party rallies.

bill bowen - 10/20/12

Comments

[Bill mccormick]

WOMEN T URN on Obama. New poll has women 47-47. They are the difference. If it holds Mitt wins

[DickG]

"ABUSE OF 1917 ESPIONAGE LAW"; yesterday's 'Spartanburg Herald Journal', OPINED on The 'Eric & Barry' attempts at suppressing those who would dare 'WHISTLEBLOW' on the White House. The 'Cover' was the Army 'gay rights' activist who released documents to Wikipedia. The remaining indictments were thrown out by the Judge as simple 'whistleblower deeds' worthy of protection. Of course, Obama & Holder proceded to do so in order to keep the Media at ease.
If a President is Impeached on Election Day ; is it called a Safety ?

[DickG]

THE 'JUDO' DEBATE STRATEGY; my initial reaction to Romney was 'Trying Not To Lose'; and we are all familiar with the sports analogy and results. Limbaugh gave a summary today of three post-debate 'focus' groups:CNN,NBC & FOX. Amazingly enough,and the schocked faces of the hosts on CNN & NBC proved it; it was Romney by 6 & 3-1. They all went toward a distinguished and Presidential style finish. As with JUDO, the over- agressive reckless abandon of the opponent is used in overturning his effort.
Rob Portman confirmed that the whole thing was Romney's decision; and he refused a more contentious Final Debate."That the American People have had enough". So far it seems to be correct.

[Bill McCormick]

CAN TWO WIN? I thought Obama was pretty good in last nights debate in defending his positions. Of course, there was no one attacking.It appeared from his physical stare and snake like posture that the President thought Romney would be on the attack beginning with Libya. When that never occurred the President was forced to go on the attack against a "I'm a peaceful man" Romney he must not have expected. And, that resulted in a somewhat weird debate with about 50-50 agreement. The result was that the President was rarely challenged and unable to make Romney into a 2nd running of GWB: more war and and less diplomacy. One often forgets how long GWB used diplomacy against Saddam before finally pulling the trigger. It also reminds me of how much the trigger pulling was based on inaccurate intelligence. And, yet, the President is in exactly the same position with Iraq. He said confidently last night that he (and the Isreali's) know exactly where Iran's nuclear program stands. Really? Yesterday the CIA was admitting it did not know of the terror attack planned in Libya. So, how long will the President wait to pull the trigger against Iran? After the first salvo? Iraq was under incredible sanctions as well. They did not work.

The President took a couple wrong stances against Romney but the average voter won't care. GWB negotiated a standing force to remain in Iraq and Romney was correct the President wanted it to remain (the number was not clear) but in the negotiations led by Biden the force was removed. Romney was in favor of that force as well.

In the end though it was a President who could justify his strategy when left unopposed which Romney did most of the night instead looking forward and to the big picture advocating a master plan for dealing with Islam versus only drone strikes. That worked--who can fault a undefined master plan to bring Pakistan into the fold and cure the chaos of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan,etc. The big debate focused on Iran but neither side wanted to go to war. It was unclear how to keep their promises that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. It came down to virtual agreement with a difference of when sanctions should have started. Both claimed great relations with Isreal.

Romney successfully got the foreign policy debate to the economy for a significant section of the debate. And, when he did he scored points. On China and on a strong country image. And, this is the focus of the American people. The economy. Romney did enough to clear the air of taking us to war. And, that's probably all he had to do to keep American's moving his way on the economy. Virtually every time the President spoke of cutting things we don't need he followed it with more spending for teachers and technology.

So, in the end they both did what they wanted and while the far right wanted a Romney to attack he didn't. The President looked like he wanted Romney to attack as well. The President can now say he is a good CIC. But the people seem to believe he's a weak CEO and prefer Romney. They will likely vote with their pocketbooks on this one over foreign policy.

[Bill McCormick]

ONE BY ONE--I see people who voted for Obama moving cautiously to the other side. This week another blue collar union guy told me he was convinced Romney would win in a landslide. But, for the most part people are just becoming more comfortable with Romney. The rich versus poor argument is beginning to lose steam. In the end it is a bit unbelievable to the people who sruggle to keep their jobs to believe it is in their best interest to attack their bosses in a time when they see bosses strggling to make payrolls, pay healthcare increases and find capital to keep them employed and receiving paychecks and benefits. Over the long haul as the emotions die down people remember the American dream: work hard,learn,save, start a little company of your own and someday you'll be the boss. Right now it is questionable who wants to be the boss and take the risk when your President and Congress are telling you they want to take your earnings away and pass on more of the costs to you when you aren't making profits now. Employees may be struggling but they are not blind --they are beginning to see why--a government so needy of more revenue to pay their spending habits and growing payroll that they lurk like predators in the shadows looking for the next regulation or tax to pass to inhibit companies from growing. And, growing they are not. Virtually every Wall Street company reporting profit growth the last 4 quarters has at the same time reported revenue shrinkage. Employees see this in the stores and factories and in their sales jobs. Tax,Tax,Tax, regulate,regulate,regulate, leads to layoffs, restricted payroll, less benefits and whether they believe republicans will do a better job they know this way will not work. The best they can hope for is that they are so talented and valued that they will be the last to be affected. And, One by one whether they tell their peers in the union or they tell their friends they are switching sides.

Tonight we will listen to a man who began it all by showing his true leadership style by bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, embracing the leadeship of Iran, stopping Boeing from opening a new plant in South Carolina and closing the oil drilling platforms in the Gulf (while giving Brazil $2B to drill off their shores). He will not likely sound anything like the guy who was given the Nobel Peace Prize in advance for having done nothing--and yet accepted it rather than turn it back like he did the bust of Winston Churchill. A man who's campaign slogans divide America. A man who's fighting words have gone from alternative energy and global warming to American energy independence based on oil from private lands. A man who drew a line in the sand with Iran in Dec of 2009 and has yet to defend it 3 years later. A man who's version of a budget is a Fed who prints unlimited supplies of money to pay for unconstrained spending. A man who whispers to the Soviets to wait for the election to pass so the American people won't have any ability to stop his "caving in". I look forward to the performance of the "I" man once again as he tells us how he got Osama Bin Laden several more times.

[DickG]

THE ERIC & BARRY CONUMDRUM; Although they 'rale'against the 'satanism'and excesses of Wall St 'Fat Cats'; there have been '0' Prosecutions related to neerdowells of the "Crash". Steve Croft on '60 min'posed the question to Holders' No2 (Lanni Davis) a year ago. Clinton AG prosecuted 1100 Wall st related crimes and Bush-1300. Lately there may have been an 'Insider Trading' action. Nothing however that might lead back to the hallowed halls of Washington or 'THE TRUTH' of the origins.

[Bill McCormick]

COMING TO AN END: the strategy of US big business to make profits by cutting jobs and costs while the top line revenues shrinks is coming to an end--quickly. Profit gains are disappearing. To make matters worse Q3 numbers are reflecting the danger of overseas moves looking for revenue growth in emerging markets as revenues from China,Europe and South America are slowing quickly. To further make matters worse the emerging countries and our trading partners in Europe are devaluing their currency now in a race with the US to keep their share of manufacturing. It wouldn't be so bad if the US economy and consumers who provide the world economic stimulus were on top of their game. You see what Obama doesn't understand in his pursuit of justice for the underdeveloped world is that it is the Amrican economy and negative balance of payments currency flow that funds the Communist regime in China, stabilizes South America and gives the Europeans stabiltiy to fund their socialist programs. And, when you ignore or even worse restrict American businesses to grow and hire and spend and invest overseas you ulimately hurt the world's poor and deny them the opportunity to rise up. In 4 short years Obama has done more to delay the return of American business to it's leadership position than any Predsident in our life time--yes, even Carter. Obama has it all backwards--to help the disadvantaged you need strong American businesses with the pockets full, their rich management teams and their occasional mistakes and fraud. Not restricted demotivated businesses constantly being punished for both success in the form of higher taxes and forced benefits but also punished for their mistakes in the form of excess regulation, fines and subsidized competition.

American companies left to their own initiatives will return America to prosperity. Someone should applaude them once in a while for the jobs they create and the taxes they pay. Let's hope that this is not all coming to an end.

[DickG]

THE BENGHAZI INTERLUDE;I find Romney pulls back on quite a few topics that would otherwise push Obama into the 'rediculous' catagory. I suspect the topic will fall like an avalance on monday.
It begs Romney further on into 'full on ' politicalization' of National security: Seal team leaks (killed 30 a mo. later), White House security leaks 'en masse' and recent releases of drone, black ops., and ship movements into and around Lybia.
As Govr. Sununu warned; "beware desperate events by the Admin. in October." Romney's caution may be to preclude such an event.