I am surprised at the responses to Wednesday night's debate
because it seemed to me that both candidates were true to themselves and
appeared just as I expected, Romney taking a practical approach to solving the
three major problems we face, crushing debt, lagging GDP, and high
unemployment, and President Obama, aloof and unengaged and seemingly offended
at the criticism.
First of all, let’s remember that debating skill may, in the
case of an uninformed electorate, help one be elected president but is not a
pre-requisite or even an important attribute for serving as president. Much more valuable would be ability to have
honest face-to-face bi-partisan discussions about the issues and seek
data-based solutions to those problems.
So the obsession of the media and the citizenry with who won or lost the
debate totally misses the point in my opinion.
But, don’t worry, because this event was not a debate. It was nothing more than a media-moderated
confrontation, maybe even an argument, sound bite vs. sound bite, the incumbent
and the candidate talking past each other because their fundamental
understandings of the responsibilities and methods of government are vastly
different. And now that we are a few
days past the initial reactions, some of President Obama’s supporters are arguing
that though Romney may have won on style, the incumbent clearly won on
policy. At least they are asking the
right question, not who won but who was right.
I had high hopes with the election of President Obama, even
though I had not voted for him, that he would help temper the racial conflict
that exists in the USA as residue of our shameful history of legal slavery and
that he would, as promised, be president of all the people. That hope began to be dashed with his
inappropriate July 2009 comment that the Cambridge MA police had “acted
stupidly” in their encounter with an African American professor. Rather than reveal his bias, he, as President
of the United States, should have just stayed out of that local discussion.
I completely abandoned hope for his presidency during the
health care negotiations in February, 2010, when the president insulted Senator
John McCain, whom he had just defeated for the presidency, with this public display of
arrogance: “Let me just make this point,
John, because we are not campaigning anymore. The election is over.” In a February 27, 2010 blog posting, I wrote about that and about how Mr. Obama failed completely as moderator of that supposedly
bipartisan discussion of proposed health care legislation. I suppose community organizing is, by nature,
confrontational rather than cooperative.
Of course that single failed attempt at bipartisanship was followed by
Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi ramming through the unfathomable health care
legislation, on behalf of the president, without Republican votes.
That confrontation with Senator McCain may have been the
last time President Obama was directly and publicly challenged face-to-face until last
Wednesday’s event. Having been surrounded
with people who agree with him, having granted only a few carefully controlled press
conferences during his presidency, and having focused his campaign speeches and
fund raising activities on friendly audiences, it must have been shocking to be
so directly challenged and criticized on national TV with tens of millions
watching.
I’m not going to suggest that half the nation is dependent
on the federal government, but I am going to suggest that half the nation has
little to no understanding of economics in general or of those three major
economic problems we face, crushing debt, lagging GDP, and high unemployment, in
particular. I believe those are not
major concerns of President Obama because all three, as they worsen, will, as a
result of inflation and expanding welfare programs, tend to improve fairness
and equality of outcome, his major interests, even while reducing the economic
and political strength of the USA. They
are major concerns of Mr. Romney because he believes the game is not over and
it is not time to “fold ‘em” and “run” away from our responsibilities as leader
of the free world but rather time to re-invigorate the economy, creating
opportunity for rich, middle class, poor, and immigrants alike.
I hope Romney gets a chance to try his approach and wish he wouldn't have to deal with the extreme partisanship of such as Senator
McConnell who will have two more years to serve and who has apparently been
more interested in defeating President Obama than in solving national problems. Hopefully, Senator McConnell will retire or be
retired in 2014 at age 72. President
Obama has his shortcomings, but there is plenty of blame to spread around for the
simple fact that there is less wealth to spread around.
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