Mitt lies his way to victory
Mitt lies his way to victory
By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com
Presidential debates don’t have referees, but there is a broad consensus across the political spectrum, one with which I don’t disagree, that Mitt Romney won the first debate against President Obama last week. Hands down, big time: Romney was the victor.
Why, how, and what are the implications for the elections?
We can console ourselves by saying that, on a given night, the worst team in baseball can beat the World Series Champions. And, as we know all too well in Miami, the best basketball player in the world, LeBron James, can have an awful night then come right back and lead the team to the NBA championship. Obama too can do that, but there is no disguising he didn’t do the job the first time out.
Of course, Romney won by repeatedly lying about his own proposals to make them seem benign to the general public and by damning Obama as president for not being Superman and Houdini rolled up into one. Romney wants the electorate to believe that Obama could, in a flash, have fixed the freefalling economy handed him by Bush and do it with his hands tightly tied behind his back by Congressional Republicans hell bent on using the jobs issue to politically checkmate the Democratic incumbent.
Yet all of Romney’s lies were loose balls on the floor for Obama to pick up and slam dunk over Romney’s face. But the president didn’t do it. Obama seemed strangely listless and failed to take advantage of the multiple scoring opportunities Romney handed him.
Nor did the President seize the initiative and, for instance, say to Romney: “Governor, how dare you write 47 percent of the American people off as bums mooching off government. Governor, stop trying to walk away from your own words sneering at half of the American people, or would you like me to play the videotape right now and let you try to explain it away? Mr. Romney, why did you lie to the American people a few minutes ago when you said that your health care plan makes insurance companies cover people with pre-existing medical conditions when you know that is just not true?”
What were the reasons Obama was not more aggressive? The president is a statesman, a gentleman, and a scholar and as such may not have wanted to get down in the dirt with a vulture capitalist like Mitt Romney. He also may have wanted to avoid the racist narrative about “angry black men” or the paranoid theories that he is a secret Muslim or an African socialist ready to reveal his true colors (pun intended) during a second term. So he played soft, didn’t get under the basket where the sharp elbows fly, and instead shot from the safe perimeter or played defense.
He won’t be making those mistakes again. Obama is many things, including a fierce competitor. You don’t get to be editor of the Harvard Law Review and, especially, president of the United States by being anything other.
For a black-identified, mixed-race guy, from a family in the 99 percent and with a name like Barack Hussein Obama to make it to the very top, intelligence and grace are necessary but not sufficient. You also have to be very, very tough.
As Obama has watched Mitt Romney’s poll numbers edge uncomfortably close in the wake of the debate, I bet he is thinking, maybe even with a bit of uncharacteristic anger: “Next time, I am going to take it to this guy but good.”
The good news after the debacle of the first debate is that, like LeBron, Obama has the stuff to do just that – the talent, the knowledge, the willpower, and the focus. And Romney has so many holes you could drive a Hummer through that Obama should be able to go to the basket on him time and again.
“Hey, Mitt, how much money have you stashed away in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and other tax havens? How many jobs would that money have created if you instead had invested it in your own country?”
“Hey, Mitt, some wounded military veterans that you put in the 47 percent of “takers” want to have a little chat with you, on television, how about it?”
“Hey, Mitt, release your tax returns already, all of them. Or are you hiding something?”
And finally, just for fun, because Obama would never stoop to saying this but I have no reason not to, “Hey, Mitt, is there any truth to the rumor your dog is writing a travel book that will put On the Road to shame?”
