I miss the days when heavyweight boxing loomed large over the American cultural landscape. The great champs were men of mythic stature — Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and (most mythic of all) Muhammad Ali. Then the sport deteriorated like a jack o’ lantern two weeks after Halloween.
The hulking, ear-biting Mike Tyson is the last heavyweight champ whose face I can remember. An upstart named Evander Holyfield followed him, and I couldn’t name you a single one of Holyfield’s heirs. The sport has trailed off into insignificance, replaced by video games, reality TV and presidential debates.
Yes, our presidential debates are the next-best thing to the heavyweight bouts of yore. Especially the town hall debates, which allow the candidates to get up from their seats, move around and invade each other’s private space.
The defending champ and his Republican challenger met this past Tuesday for the second in a best-of-three contest. Both men entered the ring in fighting trim: tall, lean and energized… not an ounce of flab around the waist or skull, boyish hairlines intact. Romney at 65 was looking more unnaturally youthful than his 51-year-old rival, whose arduous three-plus years in the White House have taken a visible toll.
Obama, recovering from his lethargic TKO loss in the first debate, needed to show the world that he could still catch fire and pack a well-aimed punch. The Republican challenger, who had the momentum along with a paper-thin edge in the polls, simply needed to look like a champ while successfully dodging and weaving in the ring.
Romney came out of his corner in response to a college student who wondered aloud if he’d ever find a job. The Marauding Mormon conveyed friendly concern and instantly promised him gainful employment. Romney was being Romney: the smooth, upbeat, ideologically elusive plutocrat who’s gallantly forcing himself to sympathize with ordinary middle-class Americans.
Now it was Obama’s turn: the president surprised the doubters with a show of renewed moxie. Energized, intense and combative, he quickly brandished his own credentials as a Certified Friend of the Middle Class and repeatedly put his opponent on the defensive. Obama jabbed Romney again and again, knocking his opponent’s faith in “top-down economics”… his mysterious promise to roll back the deficit while cutting taxes (“the math doesn’t add up”)… his flip-flopping on illegal immigrants and Obamacare… his haste to make political hay out of the Libya consulate attack… his fealty to the GOP’s right-wing fringe in general and the National Rifle Association in particular.
But despite his adroit maneuvers, Obama never put his opponent away with a decisive knockout punch. Romney countered with jabs of his own: Obama’s broken promises, lingering recession, billowing deficit, sluggishness in drilling for oil, mishandling of Libya, prohibitive taxes on American companies. But again, nothing fatal. Each attempted to paint himself as a moderate while his opponent quickly defaced the self-portrait.
Both men, masters of self-control under less stressful circumstances, began to frazzle visibly midway through the bout. Romney grew prickly and impatient; the president quietly fumed and sulked. But neither man collapsed. Each danced defiantly onto the other’s turf. Both abused their allotted time slots; both wrangled with the referee, CNN’s Candy Crowley, she of the feisty humor and tanklike physique –and no pushover in the ring.
All the while, often nervous and fumbling, the hand-picked inquisitors — a gathering of undecided, mostly white Long Island voters — tried to extract straightforward answers from the two combatants. Not much luck there. In the end, nobody asked the most important question of all: What will you do to stop lobbyists and big-money interests from buying our elected representatives? If I had been in the audience, that’s the question I would have asked… though it might not have made it past the censors.
The most decisive action came late in the match. In response to an audience member’s challenge for Romney to differentiate himself from the unfortunate George W. Bush, the Mittster appropriately cited his faith in small business (as opposed to big corporations) as the engine of growth and progress. Obama also drew a contrast between the two Republicans — and scored a minor coup by providing evidence that Bush the Younger was actually more liberal than the current GOP nominee! Then, in his closing statement, the president finally pulled Romney’s infamous “47%” remark out of his hat.
The victor: Obama on points — not a knockout — not even a TKO — but still an encouraging turnaround for the embattled chief executive.
It strikes me as odd and unseemly that our presidential elections increasingly hinge on the combatants’ skill in the debating ring. Debates favor quickness, glibness, style and maneuverability over substance and character. Not exactly the kind of screening process we need to recognize a great leader… but one that’s suited to a nation in thrall to pop culture and its mandatory slickness.
George Washington, perhaps the single most magnificent character to emerge from the entire 400-year American pageant, wouldn’t have stood a chance in a televised debate. A reluctant speaker, starchy and slow of wit, he would have sputtered and mumbled through his grotesque false teeth while a Romney or an Obama shredded him alive. But after all, folks, that’s show business.
Rick Bayan is founder-editor of The New Moderate.
Founder-editor of The New Moderate, a blog for the passionate centrist who would go to extremes to fight extremism. Disgruntled idealist… author of The Cynic’s Dictionary… inspired by H. L. Mencken… able to leap small buildings in several bounds. Lives with his son in a century-old converted stable in Philadelphia.