•The first battle you must win is the one with your toughest adversary: yourself
AFTER a flaccid first debate performance, President Obama redeemed himself in the second event. His performance was nearly masterful. Unlike the first debate where his responses bored the listener by being too wordy and enmeshed in the arcane, his second debate answers were pithy. He not only evinced command of facts and figures that seemed elusive in the first encounter, he spoke of large themes such as economic fairness, gender discrimination, peace and security, and the role of government. Some of what he espoused was too much a rehash of moderate-conservative orthodoxy to do him or the nation much good. Yet, at least, he talked as if he possessed a vision for the country and that the burden of the last four years had not reduced him to a transactional president satisfied with minor policy initiatives at a time when only major steps will suffice.
Taking small steps when the moment begged for a series of huge leaps was the trademark of President Hoover. In the American political context, Hoover’s name is synonymous with failure. As the surge waters of the Great Depression descended on his countrymen, all Hoover could advise was for them to hold their breath and pray they did not drown before the tide subsided. After the first debate, Obama was in danger of being perceived as the spiritual heir of Hoover’s palsied incrementalism.
The difference between the two debates was the president came into this one with starch in his collar. It was a contentious sparring session. This time, the president did not hire himself out as his opponent’s trampoline. This time following the biblical guidance on giving and receiving, the president delivered more blows than he took in. The long-term importance of his combativeness should not be missed. Throughout his political career, President Obama painstakingly positioned himself as a “non-offensive” black man so as not to perturb too much of a largely white electorate. In 2008, this strategy helped him win the election against an irascible, mercurial John McCain. In 2012, it might help him to lose it.
In surrendering the first debate, Obama gave away more than he realised. He allowed the fallacious Romney to appear presidential, thus pilfering in one easy night a chunk of the goodwill Obama had studiously cultivated over the years. The results of the first debate were extraordinary in that the considerable electoral movement toward Romney was disproportionate to the performance levels of the two candidates. Romney won that first debate but Obama’s performance was not so meritless as to justify the erosion of support he has suffered. Startled by the loss of fortune occasioned by that debate, Obama was forced to reassess his passive black man strategy. His performance at the second debate shows that he decided to shelve the passive approach. As such, the second debate may be more important for what it taught Obama than for anything it revealed to the voting public.
President Obama learned he could publicly confront, fight and even ridicule a leading white conservative and still garner enough support to have won the debate. In a politically divided nation, a leader will lose his way if his guiding principle becomes “thou shall not offend.” He has to realise everyone will not like him and that many will bitterly oppose him, politically and personally. Thus, the most prudent thing is to battle your opponents by fashioning policies that attract and galvanise a winning electoral and governing coalition. Obama may now understand that he can forge such a coalition by asserting himself more than he can by acting demure. He may now understand a black man can actively battle against a conservative white opponent without being completely written off by the white electorate as a Mau Mau run amok. As long as he fights wisely and well, he will maintain enough support. If the president holds on to win the election, he will be able to view his first debate performance as a blessing in disguise. Without having that setback, he might not have abandoned the passive approach and only by abandoning this stance can he move from being a middling chief executive to becoming the excellent one we expected.
Mitt Romney lost the debate but did not suffer in the opinion polls. Romney did not do poorly, he just did not equal Obama. One of his problems, Romney appeared confident, perhaps too confident. Some of his answers were tinged with the plutocratic arrogance he successfully hid during the first outing. One could sense his natural disposition was to be dismissive of minorities and women whom he did not consider among the masters of the economy. The concern he expressed for their welfare was as meretricious as a streetwalker’s affections. All in all, the debate showed Obama at his best was better than Romney at his. Strangely, this might do Obama no good. Although he scored less than Obama, Romney did not implode during the debate. Undecided voters, who are mainly white conservative moderates, can still conceive of Romney as being president. While there is no greatness evident in the man, they believe he can do a yeoman’s job in office. This will be sufficient for them to base their vote on tribal (racial) affiliation. Since they do not feel Obama has proven to be an exceptional president, they feel no hesitation dumping him.
The working thesis in this election is that if these white conservative moderates sense that Obama is only slightly better than his opponent, that slight advantage will be a disadvantage. It will not deter them from flocking to Romney. In American politics, the admonition against changing horses in mid-stream does not apply when the incumbent steed is black and the challenger is a white thoroughbred.
During the debate, the two men battled over many issues. Governor Romney tried to berate “Obamacare” but his attack seemed unduly rehearsed and wooden. Health care reform has been President Obama’s signal piece of legislation. This column has repeatedly assessed this attempt as a flawed compromise where an impuissant Obama yielded too much to the insurance companies and did not sufficiently protect low-income consumers. Obamacare is the equivalent of giving the poor a raincoat. That would be fine in a storm except that the insurance companies are pelting them with rocks and bullets not water. The poor need a Kevlar shield. Obamacare provides only the image of one. In reality, the measure was not truly health care reform but insurance reform. More people will be entitled to insurance but they will pay a higher price. Those who have little money will end up purchasing insurance policies with coverage that will prove elusive when most needed. As badly as it sounds, this improves the current system. This is where Romney told on himself. He presented no alternative save the current way. He would rather continue feeding a vulnerable public to ravager insurance companies. In effect, he would toss everyone into the water. The fit and lucky would make it to shore. If the alligators don’t get the rest, the piranha will. Such is the way of life and death in the Romney-world of health coverage flimsily regulated.
Regarding the issue of fair pay for women, Obama reminded the audience that he championed legislation calling for equal pay and expanding women’s legal rights thereto. Romney tried to steer away from this big issue by trumpeting that his record of hiring women to important positions when he was Massachusetts governor demonstrated his commitment to equal distaff treatment. However, he never mentioned whether his female staffers received salaries equal to their male counterparts. He dared not enter that territory. He is on public record opposing equal pay for women. When Obama effectively assessed that Romney’s position was not only unjust but poor economics, Romney could not fashion a retort. There was none to fashion. If he told the truth lurking in his heart – that women are lesser beings and thus deserving of lesser pay – he would surely throw the election. Thus, he sat and silently smirked waiting for this awkward issue to pass.
The most dramatic moment of the debate focused on Libya. Romney thought he had Obama cornered. Romney was right on one point. There was a corner. However, he was dead wrong as to who was in it. Romney strutted about like a bantam rooster when Obama stated he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror merely one day after the attack happened. Romney implied Obama was lying. When the moderator informed Romney the president had indeed used those words, Romney looked nonplussed as if someone just handed him a passage to read in Sanskrit. Attempting to regain composure and the offensive, Romney suggested the Administration had purposely misled the public about what occurred in Benghazi. Obama’s riposte was the highlight of the evening. Firmly and passionately, he defended his team and his own integrity. He said he took full responsibility for Benghazi but that Romney’s insinuation of a cover-up was offensive to decency. Obama declared that was not the way he conducted business as commander-in-chief of a great nation. He said it so deftly that one was left with the impression that Romney alleged a cover-up because that is exactly what he would have done had he occupied the Oval Office at the time. With the turn of a few choice sentences, the accuser, not the accused, was revealed to be morally shallow.
The most important segment of the debate centered on economic policy and taxation. Sadly, Obama stuck to the old saw that deficit reduction was a top priority. He endorsed the recommendations of a commission he established to reduce deficit spending by 4 trillion dollars in ten years. Trying to be even-handed, he said this would be accomplished by budget cuts on one hand and tax increases on the rich on the other. This is unsound economics. In a period of weak economic growth and significant private-sector debt deleveraging, reducing government deficit spending is the road to economic deflation. In the end, such deflation hurts the poor and working classes while benefitting the financially endowed.
Meanwhile, Romney crafted a tax proposal that seems to give a bit to everyone without taking anything from them. It is too easy to be true. It is also mathematically implausible that the proposal would reduce the deficit. This is where the fun starts with Romney. If implemented, his proposal will produce a higher deficit. Either he tackles this with higher taxes which could be economically poisonous if those taxes fall too heavily on the working and middle classes. However, he could well let the higher deficit stand. Spurring more economic activity by putting more money in private-sector hands, this policy would be condign. Ironically, this is what should be happening given the current economic circumstance. If this is Romney’s ultimate design, he must be given credit. The ersatz conservative may actually be attempting to accomplish through the sidedoor what an unabashed progressive Democrat would have tried through the front one. Sadly, on economic matters, President Obama has not been a progressive or even a liberal. Thus far, he has had the mind and heart of a 1970’s Republican wrapped in black skin and adroit in the symbolic rhetoric of the mild social liberalism of the first two decades of the 21st century. In other words, Obama is a liberal on social issues but a moderate-conservative on economic matters. The nation would be on more solid footing if the president were less amphibious.
The silliest moment of the debate came when both candidates claimed government does not create jobs, only the private sector does. This nonsense is particularly ironic coming from two men willing to devote so much time, log so many travel miles and spend billions of dollars to win a government job. It is a fairy tale of free market orthodoxy that teachers, firemen and air traffic controllers do not perform real and valuable service to the public and the economy. It makes no sense to believe that when government spends money for the construction of a road, bridge or railway that the laborers on these projects are not performing “real jobs” because the money comes from government. The truth is that government is an important direct employer and indirect job creator in every nation, including America. Without government exercising this function, the economy would be reduced to perpetual depression. That is a fact that no amount of free-market cheerleading can mask. Not only is it wrong it is dangerous for it belittles the role of government at a time when government has a very important role to play.
In the end, Obama acquitted himself at the second debate. He proved that he is better than Romney. This advantage may be insufficient to sway undecided white voters. The majority of this group may decide that tribal affiliation trumps Obama’s skill and temperamental advantages. While the debate may not stop the move of this segment toward Romney, it has helped to reactivate Obama’s own support base. This will be important to maintaining his leads in many of the key states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, etc.) that will ultimately decide the election. If he does survive this battle of attrition and hold to the presidency, perhaps the lessons learned in the second debate may lead to a different way of governance in his second term. Stylistically, the president has learned he can be more assertive without alienating the American heartland. Perhaps more importantly, he may summon the courage to break with mainstream orthodoxy and veer toward a more progressive economic path. This path would promote the retooling of the American industrial sector, bolster the middle class with more jobs and better wages, and assure the continued viability of the programs at the core of the American social compact: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Beyond the immediate fallout from the debate, the longer-term hope is that he breaks from the strictures of conservative thought. We do not require this new hope to be one of audacity. We just pray it will not be a forlorn one.
