May 23, 2013

October 4, 2012


What Will Happen AFTER Last Night

Notwithstanding other misguided bloggers of recent posting vintage, I think that the media is and will be helping the President via the debates.

You might not think so after debate #1.  I caught a number of liberal laments on Facebook and Twitter.  They were angry (yeah, I know, they’re always angry) that Lehrer didn’t jump in and keep the thing on a safe Indaba plain, where the President could teach and Gov. Romney be curtly tolerated.

Romney seemed prepared for that and his assertiveness last night was a welcome corrective.  But the first debate’s questions were mostly about the economy, the area where the President is particularly weak.  His very first answer was all the hollow stuff about what “I inherited.”  He stopped just short of using the Bush name, and even that would have had more substance than most of his verbal wanderings.

The upcoming debates, however, will need to get into foreign policy and domestic social issues.  By stacking those issues later, the format favors the President.

On foreign policy, the President will cite the killing of Osama bin Laden.  He can also play up the fact that Romney was just a state governor, with no foreign policy experience - although no candidate ever comes into the Presidency with very much of that.  Still, it plays well to have the slayer of international terror masters vs. a challenger with most of his achievements on smallish plots of domestic soil.

Then there are the social issues.  The media could very well end the debates with a question about “the Repbulican war on women.”  GOP candidates are notoriously bad about answering abortion questions, unwilling to take the strong position of affirming the God-given right to life.  They can end up talking all around the issue, trying to toss in a pro-life platitude for their anxious base, and looking pretty much like they would like the whole issue (and maybe the anxious base as well) to just go away.  This sets the President up to make lofty proclamations about freedom, empowerment and entitlements for all.

I could be wrong, but Romney seemed on the edge of a pro-life statement during his closing remarks, then seemed to veer away from it.  He’ll have to be clear when “women’s issues” (will somebody ever explain that life is a human issue?)  come up.

Romney will need to have as much thought and preparation to address foreign and domestic social issues as he did for last night’s economy questions, or it will be the President coming out of the last debate looking “on” as the media hand him back the momentum.


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9 comments

Well, I think Romney has some advantages going forward if he is willing to use them.

Bin Laden - The advantage O held with killing Bin Laden has seriously disappaited in the wake of the killing of our ambassador to Libya.  At least in my very, very humble opinion.  I think it is why the WH has tried to spin this so much.  It shows that the much touted report of that Al Queda is in death throes are greatly exaggerated.  Now the most recent report that the ambassador was there looking for US guns that were supplied to - Al Queda - as the O pushed the Arab spring. 

Plus O’s foreign policies have been costly - in lives and money.  We are more hated in the world than we ever were under any other president.  We have mistreated our allies and winked at our enemies.  Plus Romney took the offensive and ACTUALLY met with the Israeli prime minister rather than attending a fund raiser with Jay-Z and going on Letterman and the View.

On the issue of abortion - the tide has turned in the United States, praise God.  The majority of people no longer believe it is okay to use abortion for birth control.  The majority of people do not believe partial birth abortion should be allowed.  All he really has to do is point out the O’s record on fighting to allow surviving abortion babies to die painful deaths and he should shut that one down.

Again - just my humble opinion.

I still think the real answer is prayer.  Remember, we humans plan and God laughs.

[1] Posted by Jackie on 10-4-2012 at 12:30 PM · [top]

I hope Romney reminds Obama that it was Navy Seal Team Six who took out Bin Laden and not anyone at the White House. The raid was cancelled several times before because of the political concerns of Valerie Jarrett.

[2] Posted by Pb on 10-4-2012 at 02:08 PM · [top]

What Mr. Romney needs to do is dissemble the so called war on women.  He needs to start with the statement that there is no Republican War on Women and then take each point that the Democrats constantly trot out providing a explanation of how that point is not what they are trying to make of it.  As was said above, abortion is a human issue and not a woman’s health issue nor an after the fact form of birth control Birth contol, otherwise, is a private matter and affordable; if Sandra Fluke was in need of it she could give up one meal a month at a resturant to pay for it.  I don’t remember all of the Democrats so called talking points on this but this is the gist of what I think should be done.

[3] Posted by BillB on 10-4-2012 at 04:20 PM · [top]

The only thing Obummer has going for him is social policy, not that I agree with him.  He, and Democrats in general, are very good at class warfare, etc.  But his fiscal policy is laughable and foreign policy is a disaster.  I completely fail to see what a presumably educated adult sees in him.

His SOLE foreign policy accomplishment was that “he” got OBL…NOT!!  AS has already been pointed out, he lost every inch of traction when he failed to protect his ambassador in Libya.  He’s got NOTHING else going on for him overseas.  Based on his management of the Olympics, Romney will walk into the WH with more experience in foreign affairs than Mr. Hopey Changitude.

With respect to the OBL strike, did anyone pay attention to the arrangement and body language in the Situation Room during the assault?  Glorious Leader was not sitting at the table!  A general took the head seat.  Hilary and Doofus Biden had both seats and laptops for the operation.  Barry’s seat was squeezed into the corner.  That is not the picture of a man who matters taking charge.  Step aside kid and let me show you how it’s done!

[4] Posted by Nikolaus on 10-4-2012 at 06:49 PM · [top]

The Obama record on foreign policy and domestic issues is even worse [if you can believe that] than the economic issues.  I think Romney has plenty of material to use to bury Obama even deeper than he did last night.  One word to help Romney: Islam.  Two words to put a focus on that: Radical Islam.

[5] Posted by Capt. Father Warren on 10-4-2012 at 08:13 PM · [top]

I hope that Romney has an opportunity to point out that expenses for providing birth control pills, abortion pills and possibly abortion services will probably make it less likely that women (or men) with serious and pre-existing illnesses will be able to afford the health services they need in order to live.

We should be more concerned about women (and men) who have current and pre-existing serious illnesses which incur overwhelming medical and drug expenses, many of these women (and men) pay INSURANCE PREMIUMS, MEDICARE part 2 PREMIUMS and TAXES. They also pay CO-PAYMENTS, for medicine and medical treatment.

Please correct me if I am wrong, (I sincerely hope I am wrong) but as I understand it, under Obama Care , Birth Control pills and Abortion pills, will be classified as PREVENTIVE CARE and women will NOT even have to pay CO-PAYMENTS for birth control and abortion pills.

When you or someone you know gets a serious and expensive illness, it may be too late to wonder why so much health care money is being spent on healthy women who don’t want to have children and there is so little left for seriously ill patients.

[6] Posted by Betty See on 10-5-2012 at 11:33 PM · [top]

Thank you, Betty See.  That’s the kind of forthrightness the country needs.  We spend too much time in a haze of slogans.

[7] Posted by Timothy Fountain on 10-6-2012 at 07:30 AM · [top]

The most harmful thing about Obama Care is that the activists who devised it would have us believe that the women who take these birth control and abortion pills are taking medicine that is beneficial to “Women’s Health Care”.
Nothing could be further from the truth, birth control and abortion pills have well known side effects, interactions and health consequences. It is pretty clear that the new abortion pills will bring even more health dangers to the women who take them. They in no way provide women’s health care and in the long term they are often harmful to women’s health.
I could understand if these activists and government advocates came to the American People and said forthrightly that they wanted tax payers and insurance plans to cover the cost of these drugs for real reasons - but - I really object to their promotion of these drugs as beneficial to “Women’s Health Care”. In my opinion they are defrauding a whole generation of young women.

[8] Posted by Betty See on 10-6-2012 at 09:44 AM · [top]

but - I really object to their promotion of these drugs as beneficial to “Women’s Health Care”. In my opinion they are defrauding a whole generation of young women

Betty, you may not know it but you are providing further validation for Rush’s first rule of politics, namely;

Liberal lie!  They have to because no sensible person would buy what they were selling otherwise.

[9] Posted by Capt. Father Warren on 10-6-2012 at 07:10 PM · [top]

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