Two Debates Down, and One To Go

Some thoughts on the first two Presidential debates:

The second Presidential debate has come and gone, and thus far the most interesting bit of gossip to come out about it has been that the Facebook chatter has been less than it was for the first debate. By that metric, the second debate—where both men came to participate—was considerably less exciting than the first.  This is understandable, since this week’s debate was more or less what we expected:  cherry-picked ‘facts’, twisted truths and outright lies, with a moderator who might as well have been wearing an Obama t-shirt under her jacket.  Mitt Romney acquitted himself well (and by ‘well’ I mean “didn’t stutter too badly, look too constipated, or channel Joe Biden”) while Barack Obama looked like he didn't want to be there.  A number of the questions focused on voters’ disappointment with President Obama, his policies, and the dismal state of the economy.  Mr. Obama cannot deny that his policies haven’t given us the wonderful state of affairs he promised four years ago, and now he’s being called to account for why they have not.  His answers to these questions were smooth and polished, but ultimately boil down to (a) it’s still Bush’s fault and (b) those evil old Republicans just haven’t let me do what I wanted to.  The President did have one Presidential Moment when he took ultimate responsibility for the Benghazi debacle:  “I’m the President, and I’m always responsible”.  In this, he is correct, but it was perhaps not as strong a statement as many would have liked, considering that his Secretary of State had already claimed responsibility for the incident…and she looked equally ‘Presidential’ when she did.

Obviously, Mr. Obama’s debate prep focused on not repeating the mistakes he made in the first debate; namely, to look like he was offended just by having to defend his policies and record.  Then again, maybe it was just the altitude.  Unlike Denver (where Mr. Obama gave his 2008 nomination acceptance speech, and then bombed the first debate), Hofstra University is only 50-odd feet above sea level.  If this is the case, then the country as a whole should be thankful that Washington, D.C. is also very close to sea level.  One shudders to think of the consequences of the President making critical decisions affecting the country and the world from a more altitudinally-challenged location.  Perhaps, for the remainder of his term, the President should be restricted to the White House?  Sadly, under this scenario, Air Force One (pressurized at between 6000 and 8000 feet) and Camp David (elevation 1840 ft.) are right out!

Somehow, I just don’t see that happening, not at this stage of the election.  There are too many fundraisers Mr. Obama has scheduled for him to travel by AmTrack.

At any rate, it’s too late to worry about little things like altitude at this point.  It obviously didn’t bother Barack Obama in 2008, so Mr. Gore’s hypothesis fails on that point.  Also, if that were the case, what does it say about the President’s handlers if they didn’t take the altitude differential into account when they sequestered him in Las Vegas (elevation 2014 ft.) for the week before the first debate?  Isn’t Mr. Obama something of a basketball fan?  Aren’t sports teams aware of the need to spend a day or so conditioning themselves in Denver before critical games?  If I, fat old band geek that I am, know this…why didn’t someone on the President’s team?

Meh, it’s less than three weeks until the election; what’s done is done.

I suspect the true reason behind the markedly different versions of Barack Obama we’ve seen at the first two debates stems from something much simpler than altitude-induced lethargy.  The President made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t enjoy the work of preparing for these debates, calling it "a drag".  In the first debate, this lackadaisical attitude showed itself.  Barack Obama was obviously unprepared, and irritated at being confronted at every turn by a vigorous Mitt Romney.  For the second debate, after two weeks of significant drops in every major poll, the President had much more motivation to do his homework.  Whether this motivation was internal and reflected an honest desire to continue in the office, or external as applied by his wife, Chief of Staff and various handlers is something we’ll never know.  I suspect that, like most things, it was a combination of the two, and the ratio varied from hour to hour during the days leading up to this second debate.

There is one more factor that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere, but I think needs to be considered:  the shock factor to Obama’s psyche that was the first debate.

Mr. Obama lost the first debate.  Period.  Even his most ardent supporters admitted as much immediately after Jim Lehrer closed it down.  From James Carville’s "Mitt Romney came in with a chainsaw" to Al Gore’s “altitude” excuse, the Left flapped and flailed, wept and wailed and in general twisted themselves into pretzels trying to explain away the debacle that their candidate brought down upon himself.  I thought Rachel Maddow was about to cry on camera during the first post-debate analysis on MSNBC.  Between the general angst of Ed Schultz and Chris Matthew's meltdown, it was much more entertaining than the smug gloating on Fox, or the self-serving defense of Candy Crowley’s performance on CNN.

Before his first debate with Mitt Romney, Mr. Obama hadn’t been seriously challenged in a debate in…well, EVER.  He wasn’t just out of practice.  Mr. Obama’s aversion to the press is well known, except for those places where he can be guaranteed the interview equivalent of slow-pitch softball.  For the first time in his political career, an opponent came at him without the kid gloves.  For the last several months, Mr. Romney has been called everything but a Child of God, first in the Republican primaries, then by Team Obama and their surrogates (and I include the mainstream media, most of CNN and all of MSNBC in that group).  Trailing in the polls and tarred with every ad hominem attack in the book, Mr. Romney had NOTHING to loose and everything to gain in Denver.  Obama’s own supporters and their incessant attacks had already stripped Mr. Obama’s greatest defense—the fear that any who dared say anything against him would be labeled RAAACIST—off Mitt Romney.

The result?  “Chainsaw.”

Before you dismiss this idea out of hand, think back to 2008.  Remember the Hillary/Obama California 'debate'?  It’s obvious that Hillary was restrained in her disagreements with a young, completely unqualified candidate Obama.  The harshest ‘attack’ ad she ran against him was her now-infamous 3 AM phone call.  She had no other choice, as she knew that attacking Obama would alienate the black voters she and the Democrats so desperately need.  In the general election, Obama faced John McCain—low key, soft-spoken and unable to gesticulate effectively because of his injuries in Vietnam—who apparently had this same fear of alienating potential voters.  Then, on election night, McCain refused his staff's advice to seek a Federal injunction against Democratic ballot box stuffing in Philadelphia and Ohio because it would be “detrimental to our country”, “coupled to the possibility of domestic violence”.

Translation:  if McCain called the Dems on voter fraud, he would be called RAAACIST and the blacks would riot.  In hindsight, McCain’s nice-guy approach was useless; 96% of black voters voted for Obama anyway.  Worse still, fully 60% of Americans believe that race relations are either stagnant or worse now than before Obama took office.

In the first debate, Mitt Romney didn’t seem to care about being called RAAACIST, and rightly so!  He’s been hearing that swill for months now, and it’s hard to see how the attacks against him could possibly get any worse.  Even more disturbing, Twitter has been deluged with twits threatening to riot if Romney is elected, both from (probably) black and union sources.  Throw in the racially tinged rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan and floridly anti-white spewings from King Samir Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party, and it’s hard to see how vigorously debating this President on his policies could add any more fuel to those fires of resentment and hate.

Just as an aside, Romney voters on Twitter have generally threatened not to riot, but to leave the country, i.e. ‘vote with their feet’.  Bit of a difference there, isn’t there?

Freed from any real concerns about being labeled RAAACIST, Romney did the last thing Obama expected in round one:  Mitt actually debated.  Obama’s reaction—peeved, irritated, smug and condescending—did more damage to his campaign than anyone imagined could be done in a single night.  Romney was challenging, (mildly) confrontative and unwilling to roll over and play dead at Obama’s feet…and Obama didn’t know how to handle that particular reaction because he’s never experienced it before.  As we all know, Obama doesn’t think well on his feet.  Without his teleprompter, Barry sometimes says the wrong things.  He avoided any major verbal gaffs in the first debate, but the frowny face didn’t do him any favors.

Obviously, Mr. Obama didn’t repeat that particular mistake in the second debate.  His performance was at least as polished and professional as Mr. Romney’s, and his command of his own set of ‘facts’ was bolstered by a sympathetic moderator.  The result was, for all practical purposes, a tie, just like most of the current polls.  The election is still up for grabs by either man.

Expect Second Debate Obama to show up at the third debate, if for no other reason than his handlers will flog him as hard or harder than they did for the one just past.  With the election this close, and the first debate as proof of the effect of one bad night, Mr. Obama is in for an intensive round of foreign policy prep, as that is the stated focus of the third debate.  Foreign policy has never been Obama’s strong suit, but then again, it’s not Romney’s, either.  Barry can at least take comfort in that fact as he crams for his final debate.

Far less likely is the possibility that First Debate Obama will ‘phone it in’ to the third debate, just as he did the first time.  In that case, I think the most important things to do will be to put Chris Matthews on suicide watch, sedate Ed Schultz with the rhino tranquilizers and make sure the tissue box is close to Rachel Maddow.

The riots probably won’t come until election night, and hopefully not even then.