It is often thought that the debates between the the GOP nominee and the Democratic nominee were the one pre-planned and built-in opportunity for a presidential candidate to alter the course of an election campaign. There are, of course, a number of ways that a campaign can change course, but only the debates are planned in advance and shine forth on the calendar as a possible turning point. And it is not a figment of some campaign manager's imagination because we all can recall several times when elections and campaigns turned on something said in a debate. Remember Michael Dukakis' cold answer to the question about how he would react if his wife was raped? Do you recall, still, Gerald Ford's admission that he wasn't aware that Poland lay behind the Iron Curtain? How about Al Gore's incessant smart ass answers and the treatment he gave George Bush? How many votes did Gore lose by failing to keep his ego and 'know-it-all' personality in check. In the Carter-Reagan debates, there wasn't a single moment that jumps out at you. But taken as a whole, Reagan showed America just how human he was and how logical and full of common sense his approach to national government was. Those debates were one of the cornerstones for his landslide victory. Now it is 2012 and the country - for the first time since the War of 1812 - actually has its future and continued existence hanging in the balance. One candidate wants to take the country out of the superpower category and leave it, when he is done, among those countries that play but bit parts on the world stage. Even if that were a legitimate goal of a president, it is not that simple. The US churns the world economy and the world economy "needs" the engine of prosperity to keep it in balance, working, and vibrant. Take the USA out of world markets and the world economy fails, crashes, and sends the whole Earth, along with all four corners of it, plunging into economic oblivion.
Now the debate time has passed for this election cycle. Did they affect the coming election? There is every chance that they did. Prior to the first debate the polls were close but many of them, most of them, to be honest, had obama in the lead. They also had obama with a significant lead in a few of the most important swing states. Then came the first debate, the one when Romney skunked obama. It was so bad that obama joked later that he had slept through it. Many people think that summary is way too mild. Many think obama was revealed, or, to put it into today's jargon. "outed." Outed? Outed as a what? obama was outed as an impostor to the country's highest office. His answers were not the kind of thing that come from the mouth and mind of a president. obama look tired, disinterested, even, heaven forbid, burned out. But he also looked put upon, angry that he had to be there, irritated that he had to debate with "that kind of person." In short, obama acted like no one had a right to question him. in a democracy? In the USA? Romney had a right and a duty to be there. The audience at the debate didn't seem to mind that obama wasn't acting like a president. They came to see the president debate and they did, more or less. On this night, the man who would be president sounded an awful lot like somebody who should be president and is ready to hit the ground running come January. His answers were thoughtful, well-reasoned, and grounded in reality. He wasn't blaming other people for the problems he wants to fix. I will bet you $100 that Romney will never blame obama for the problems he confronts. How nice will that be? Hearing the president speak and not hearing him blame President Bush for all his failures. I know that growing up a Christian I was taught that you don't blame others for your shortcomings. I guess obama missed that lesson. Missed it? Hell, he used a chainsaw to cut that lesson out of the growing up curriculum.
Well, anyway, the second and third debates were of a different ilk. It was as if the two candidates weren't playing the same game anymore, or maybe they were playing the same game but with different rules. obama spent debates two and three trying to make up for the catastrophe that was debate no. 1 (for him). He had a ton of lame one-liners and worn out punchlines. Romney, on the otherhand, was determined not to get into the kind of gutter brawl that would only benefit someone familiar with the genre. He displayed an almost mind-boggling breadth of knowledge about almost every topic thrown at him. It seemed that every focus group and every undecided voter interviewed said they were stunned at Romney's ability to explain the economy and its current problems in a succinct, fascinating and understandable manner. And be sure, that spell-binding explanation included a stinging indictment of obama's policies and decision-making methods. It is a gift to be able to do what romney did when you are the only speaker on the stage and you have no real time limit. But Romney did it in a debate with the president, and the president and his functionary in the moderator's chair were constantly interrupting him and, in the case of Ms. Crowley, pushing the flag toward obama with absolutely no hesitation or pangs of conscience. Many of the people interviewed said, in so many words, that Romney looked like a president. obama didn't. By the end of the first debate the languid polls, weighted down all summer by ridiculous over-sampling of democratic voters, began to boil. First one, then another, suddenly reported that Gov. Romney was picking up steam, picking up support. From a few points behind nationally, Romney lept into the lead and actually carved out a working lead in most polls. In key swing states that were reporting - in some cases - a double-digit lead for obama, new poll results showed the obama lead gone and the race either tied or tilting toward Romney. Supporters of obama were more heartened by the second and third debates. They interpreted obama's interuptions, "zinger" lines and taunts of Romney as signs he had won a great victory. They proclaimed it loudly until fresh poll results came in. The country, it seemed, did not share their opinion of the outcome. The thing that these insiders were missing was the substance of the policies they were debating. Romney was proposing plans that had a history of success. Many are the same ones President Reagan used to lead the country out of the economic malaise of the Carter years. Well, interest rates were ridiculously high. That was good if you were getting 9% and 10% on your passbook savings account, but terrible if you were borrowing money for an on-going business, terrible if you were a bank trying to pay that interest every day to each customer even though your investments weren't quite so dependable. Unemployment was very high - not as high as it is now, of course; it's never been this high during my lifetime. The markets were in the doldrums, and these doldrums seemed so interminable that some believed this is how it was going to be. Sound familiar? How often have we heard that 8% unemployment is the "new norm." Bush's unemployment rate was about 5%. How terrible. Everything was Bush's fault. During the Carter years (there were only four of them, but many remember them being longer. That's not a joke; it is merely true.) we were introduced to a new economic kind of misery. They were called "gas lines." In gas lines, people lined up bumper to bumper at the gasoline station, waiting for their turn to pump gasoline. People got surly in those lines. Nobody blamed the ones losing their tempers. Everybody loses their temper when they have to wait hours to pay way too much money for something. The Carter years also introduced us to runaway petroleum prices. When President Carter took office in the years immediately after Watergate, the gasoline prices at that time were below $1 per gallon. It didn't last long. Along with the lines came the wildly higher prices. Suddenly, 100% increases were commonplace.
So a lot of people are recalling Carter in the wake of the debates. For obama and the functionaries, this is not good. if they recall Carter in the debates, they recall the end of the Carter presidency and the landslide defeat.
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