Obama’s campaign has unfolded almost without fault since June. It was Romney and his operatives who seemed to be struggling. At one point several of the top Republican leaders thought that the Romney campaign had all but self-destructed. The Obama campaign simply rolled on. While those who are more expert than I am thought the Obama people were merely coasting to victory I withheld my judgment. There is no such thing as a perfect political campaign. And the Obama people found this out last night. This is the first major setback they have had. The question is whether they can re-group and remain competitive.
There is another factor. I have often wondered what the effect is on American politicians who hold the presidency and still have to run campaigns for their re-election.
The constant campaigning might be wearing Obama down as well as the strain of steering the ship of state at this crisis-filled moment in current international politics. On stage Wednesday night was a gifted man with a tired mind, a tiredness already prefigured in the several policy mistakes along the campaign and the uninspiring performance at the Democratic Convention – moreso when he caused everyone to gasp on Wednesday night by saying that he agreed with Romney on health care! Their positions have been strikingly different throughout this campaign. His closing statement was flat and lacking in conviction and eloquence.
It was hard to watch as Obama seemed mentally inert while Romney reversed himself on education, health care and taxes, among other issues. There was no probing to elicit the contradiction. And the picture of Obama unable to defend his record, which had been done in so many campaign ads was surprising, strange and incomprehensible.
Obama stabilized the American economy after the onset of the worst depression since the 1930s, saved the auto industry, added millions of private sector jobs, improved education, and passed a health care bill, which presidents since Franklin Roosevelt had failed to do. But Obama would not defend this record in the face of Romney’s prosecutorial forays. Then there is the question of style. Obama kept looking down; at what or why no one seemed to know.
At one terrible mom-ent it ap-peared that Romney, his finger jabbing the air in rebuttal, was lecturing a wayward child. Then mysteriously there was no attack on Romney’s dismissal of 47% of the population as beggars; and no assault on policies attacking women. At the end there was a tepid acknowledgement of the consequences of the extreme legislative and economic policies of the Republican Party.
Mitt Romney is an enigma. A highly educated man, he can be embarrassingly incompetent. This was evident in the way that he has micro-managed his campaign to the distraction of the Republican Party grandees. But anyone who has seen Romney during the debates in the Republican primaries would have realized that he is most comfortable in close settings, such as public debates. And on Wednesday night he was on his game. Well briefed and prepared, he launched an early assault on Obama’s economic policies. He spoke with vigour and precision; he was polished and in command of the facts, as he saw them. There was the illusion that he had a plan and a programme. But if he spoke eloquently he did not tell the truth. The words of the New York Times of October 4 put it eloquently:
“The Mitt Romney who appeared on the stage at the University of Denver seemed to be fleeing from the one who won the Republican nomination on a hard-right platform of tax cuts, budget slashing and indifference to the suffering of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. And Mr. Obama’s competitive edge from 2008 clearly dulled, as he missed repeated opportunities to challenge Mr. Romney on his falsehoods and turnabouts.
“Virtually every time Mr. Romney spoke, he misrepresented the platform on which he and Paul Ryan are actually running. The most prominent example, taking up the first half-hour of the debate, was on taxes. Mr. Romney claimed, against considerable evidence, that he had no intention of cutting taxes on the rich or enacting a tax cut that would increase the deficit.”
Apart from misrepresenting the facts, Romney engaged in questionable tactics. He simply pushed the moderator around. Several times he was allowed to have the last word when he was not supposed to. And here Romney must also be given credit for coming to the debate, prepared to tease out every possible advantage he could in the situation in which he found himself in on Wednesday night. It is symbolic of the evening that while Romney was prepared to disregard the moderator, President Obama obeyed his every command. Even here Obama did not push back, even when what was being done to him was manifestly unfair. Maybe it is true that he did not want to appear to be an “angry black man.”
It has to be admitted that that the Republicans have gained a major psychological boost from Romney’s victory at the very moment when they needed it most. They have come through a really horrible summer when they were excoriated by the press and stumbled from one mis-step to another. Sometimes it seemed that they could not get anything right. It remains to be seen, however, whether Romney and his party can now convert his success into support from the American electorate. The experts believe that the race will further tighten in such states as Florida, Virginia and other “swing” states, with the possibility that Romney might move ahead. The latest polls will not be available until next Tuesday. Obama and his team will have at least several days of anxiety.
But the game is not over. A battle might have been lost but the war goes on. Next week Vice-President Biden debates Paul Ryan. If he does well he can begin to help to rebuild the hopes of the Obama camp. And there is the question of the remaining two presidential debates. I cannot imagine that Obama will fail again. I expect him to learn his lesson and return to the fray “a sadder but wiser man.” Most of all his handlers will have to programme him in such a way that he can recapture his energy and refresh his mind.