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Mitt Romney’s Big Debate Challenge


Sep 27, 2012 by

When President Barack Obama faces off against Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney in Denver on Oct. 3 for the first of three Presidential debates, Romney starts a new chapter where he must win two key debates. He must win the debates at hand and a debate seemingly raging within himself that’s picked up by voters.

Both candidates have been preparing big-time for the debates, with many analysts saying Romney has prepared more extensively than any Presidential candidate in American history. He’ll face Obama, who must try not to lose ground and play defense. Obama must look Presidential, answer and nail Romney on specifics, and not provide the GOP with a factual error or gaffe in a campaign that seems more about gaffes and media joy in covering them than serious substantive policy issues.

But if Obama walks a tightrope, Romney must steady the shaky one he’s been walking on.

Political scientist Samuel Poplin, author of the must-read “The Candidate: What it Takes to Win — and Hold — the White House” has noted: “While a challenger’s presidential campaign can quickly adjust and adapt to shifting winds like a speedboat, an incumbent’s campaign behaves more like a battleship, maneuvering slowly and making very large waves.”

Romney’s problem is that since his non-helpful Republican convention, Obama’s campaign has seemed like the speedboat and Romney’s like the battleship. Or the cruise ship Titanic.

If Ann Romney said, “Stop it” to Romney’s conservative Republican critics, it’s what they’ve been screeching at the Romney campaign as they watch its Gong Show-like performance. Romney may have once tied his dog Seamus to the roof his car, but today, due to tepid polling numbers and a campaign that MUST be being run by Democratic moles, it’s Romney who’s in the political doghouse.

Romney’s task in the debate will be formidable because he will have to communicate a grasp of issues (he will) but also quickly make himself instantly likable (tougher). Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks calls Romney “the least popular candidate in history,” a technocratic “non-ideological person running in an extremely ideological age, and he’s faking it.” The Daily Beast’s John Avlon is even more blunt in trying to diagnose why Romney is so disliked.

Avlon notes that in Presidential primaries Romney’s competitors personally disliked Romney, who they viewed as aloof and politically cold-blooded. Avlon sees voters as picking up some vibes:

“Mitt Romney approaches politics in a more transactional way. He wants to improve the country but he is fundamentally a salesman and in this worldview, it would be illogical not to tailor sales to the needs of different audiences. Why would Mitt try to make the same pitch to a Massachusetts electorate as Republican primaries voters? It’s not personal; it’s business. This businesslike approach to politics also explains Mitt’s willingness to go negative.”

Avlon concludes what I’ve concluded in reading “The Real Romney” by Boston Globe investigative reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman: “Romney is a good man deep down. But his dislike of politics, his disregard of policy details, and his plain discomfort with average people ends up looking like a disdain for the democratic process, and that’s a problem if you want to be the president of all Americans.”

How ingrained is Romney’s attitude problem? Look no further than his response on CBS’ 60 Minutes to Scott Pelley, unsuccessfully trying to get Romney to tell him what tax loopholes he’d close. Pelley finally said to Romney: “The devil’s in the details.” And Romney replied: “The devil’s in the details. The angel is the policy.” P.S.: Romney never gave Pelley the details.

Attention Mitt Romney: If you give answers like this in the debate, you’ll find the failure will be in the fudging, the error in the evasion, and the debate loss in the predictable non-answer.

No one likes someone who absolutely refuses to give a straight answer. And you have a big, fat problem with being liked.

Copyright 2012 Joe Gandelman. This weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

LEGAL NOTICE ON CARTOON: The above copyrighted cartoon by Milt Priggee, www.miltpriggee.com is licensed to run on TMV. Reproduction elsewhere without licensing is strictly prohibited. See great cartoons by all the top political cartoonists at http://cagle.com. To license this cartoon for your own site, visit http://politicalcartoons.com

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3 Comments

  1. cjjack
    September 27, 2012 | 12:21 am

    A lot of ink (and bandwidth) is being spilled over the possibility that Romney could turn things around in the debates. Reporters and pundits breathlessly state that the debates could very well be a turning point for Mitt, but they almost all neglect two rather pertinent facts:

    1. In 2008, Obama won the debates handily.

    2. The man he’s facing in the debates next month lost to the candidate Obama defeated in 2008.

    John McCain beat Mitt Romney back in 2008, and if recent performances are any indication, Mitt has not progressed much in his debating ability. He was able to fend off the likes of Herman Cain and Rick Santorum in the primaries, but this is a whole new ball game.

    A ball game where he couldn’t even get on the field four years ago.

  2. slamfu
    September 27, 2012 | 12:20 pm

    Lol I’m with cjjack. There seems to be some expectations of Romney making up lost ground in his debate with Obama, and I just have to wonder from those who think that is possible, have you been paying any attention at all to the two men that are going to be in it?

    The Romney campaign has basically used talking points that are either BS to denigrate Obama’s performance, or are simply just vague support for things that everyone supports, like he is for democracy. What may fly at at an invite only GOP $50k/plate dinner is not going to fly in a moderated, public, fact checked debate situation. At his best Romney is an adequate public speaker. The idea he is somehow going to turn the tables on Obama at a debate is pretty wishful thinking from everything I’ve seen so far.

  3. roro80
    September 28, 2012 | 4:34 pm

    The funny thing is that Romney already seems to have given up on actually winning the debates. Here’s a recent letter that went out:

    In a matter of days, Governor Romney and President Obama will meet on the presidential debate stage. President Obama is a universally-acclaimed public speaker and has substantial debate experience under his belt. However, the record he’s compiled over the last four years – higher unemployment, lower incomes, rising energy costs, and a national debt spiraling out of control – means this will be a close election right up to November 6th.

    Between now and then, President Obama and Governor Romney will debate three times. While Governor Romney has the issues and the facts on his side, President Obama enters these contests with a significant advantage on a number of fronts.

    Voters already believe – by a 25-point margin – that President Obama is likely to do a better job in these debates. Given President Obama’s natural gifts and extensive seasoning under the bright lights of the debate stage, this is unsurprising. President Obama is a uniquely gifted speaker, and is widely regarded as one of the most talented political communicators in modern history. This will be the eighth one-on-one presidential debate of his political career. For Mitt Romney, it will be his first.

    Four years ago, Barack Obama faced John McCain on the debate stage. According to Gallup, voters judged him the winner of each debate by double-digit margins, and their polling showed he won one debate by an astounding 33-point margin. In the 2008 primary, he faced Hillary Clinton, another formidable opponent – debating her one-on-one numerous times and coming out ahead. The takeaway? Not only has President Obama gained valuable experience in these debates, he also won them comfortably.

    But what must President Obama overcome? His record. Based on the campaign he’s run so far, it’s clear that President Obama will use his ample rhetorical gifts and debating experience to one end: attacking Mitt Romney. Since he won’t – and can’t – talk about his record, he’ll talk about Mitt Romney. We fully expect a 90-minute attack ad aimed at tearing down his opponent. If President Obama is as negative as we expect, he will have missed an opportunity to let the American people know his vision for the next four years and the policies he’d pursue. That’s not an opportunity Mitt Romney will pass up. He will talk about the big choice in this election – the choice between President Obama’s government-centric vision and Mitt Romney’s vision for an opportunity society with more jobs, higher take-home pay, a better-educated workforce, and millions of Americans lifted out of poverty into the middle class.

    I mean, he’s setting up a scenario where if he manages not to pee his pants or pick his nose on stage, he’ll consider it a win.