Oh, what low expectations can do for you.
The pundit-spew following tonight's First Presidential Debate of 2012 gave Romney the victory; he didn't get anything close to a 'knockout', but most agreed he won more rounds and took the decision.
Of course, it is easier to do well if - in addition to having those low, low, expectations in your favor - you don't have any kind of identfiable (and recent) track record your opponent can criticize. Especially when your opponent does have a public record of four years on the job you (or rather your handlers) have had literally years to peruse for any useable weakness.
All you have to do is jab and keep moving around the ring. Mitt Romney did exactly that.
He did something else too. He morphed into an entirely different variety of Republican, right before our eyes. That Romney who disavowed the Massachusetts universal health care law he enacted as Governor (aka RomneyCare), because to own it would cost him Tea Party support? Gone! Replaced by a moderate kind of guy who actually thinks that law was just great.
Romney still thinks that 'ObamaCare' needs to be scrapped, of course, even if it is closely modeled on RomneyCare, and was crafted by some of the same advisors. That contrast might have cost him some points, even brought him to his knees, but Barack Obama seemed caught off-balance by this tactic switch and let him escape to the corner.
Of course, even if Obama had landed a punch on this topic, Mitt's been toughened by all those (20?) GOP debates - there's lots of calloused scar tissue there.
The takeaway fom this first debate is just this: Romney's handlers have proven that he CAN be trained to speak well in public, even absent a script, if given enough preparation and with knowing the topics in advance. Obama has been shown lacking in his preparation (not much spare time when you are Commander-In-Chief), and lacking too in his enthusiasm and political killer instinct.
I imagine it must irk the President to debate someone like Mitt, given what Obama's gone through, and what he's accomplished since January 2009; and given that Romney's done nothing but campaign during that time. It must sometimes seem to him as if the American people are reality show junkies ironically unable to distinguish the Real from the insubstantial.
But irksome or not, the President has two more of these things to get through, and he'd be wise to shake off his ennui and come out of the corner swinging.
The pundit-spew following tonight's First Presidential Debate of 2012 gave Romney the victory; he didn't get anything close to a 'knockout', but most agreed he won more rounds and took the decision.
Of course, it is easier to do well if - in addition to having those low, low, expectations in your favor - you don't have any kind of identfiable (and recent) track record your opponent can criticize. Especially when your opponent does have a public record of four years on the job you (or rather your handlers) have had literally years to peruse for any useable weakness.
All you have to do is jab and keep moving around the ring. Mitt Romney did exactly that.
He did something else too. He morphed into an entirely different variety of Republican, right before our eyes. That Romney who disavowed the Massachusetts universal health care law he enacted as Governor (aka RomneyCare), because to own it would cost him Tea Party support? Gone! Replaced by a moderate kind of guy who actually thinks that law was just great.
Romney still thinks that 'ObamaCare' needs to be scrapped, of course, even if it is closely modeled on RomneyCare, and was crafted by some of the same advisors. That contrast might have cost him some points, even brought him to his knees, but Barack Obama seemed caught off-balance by this tactic switch and let him escape to the corner.
Of course, even if Obama had landed a punch on this topic, Mitt's been toughened by all those (20?) GOP debates - there's lots of calloused scar tissue there.
The takeaway fom this first debate is just this: Romney's handlers have proven that he CAN be trained to speak well in public, even absent a script, if given enough preparation and with knowing the topics in advance. Obama has been shown lacking in his preparation (not much spare time when you are Commander-In-Chief), and lacking too in his enthusiasm and political killer instinct.
I imagine it must irk the President to debate someone like Mitt, given what Obama's gone through, and what he's accomplished since January 2009; and given that Romney's done nothing but campaign during that time. It must sometimes seem to him as if the American people are reality show junkies ironically unable to distinguish the Real from the insubstantial.
But irksome or not, the President has two more of these things to get through, and he'd be wise to shake off his ennui and come out of the corner swinging.
Posts
2 comments:
One day analysis - you're good.
It's hard to debate a liar, or "disassembler" , as Dubya famously said.
In poker terms, maybe debate1 was "the Flop". Obama checks through to see what level of deceit MItt will achieve... Let's see what "the Turn" brings us.
Agreed. If the President's campaign strategists were paying attention and taking copious notes, 'The Turn' might be very interesting ...
Post a Comment