Challenges ahead for comeback
kid By Dinesh Sharma
Expectations of a President Barack Obama
revival in the second debate could not have been
higher. After his performance in the first debate,
the "statistically soft" support around him within
the margin of error seems to have dissipated.
Romney was able to turn the tables on him
in the first debate, but not in the second. He may
have caught up in almost every national poll and
swing state poll, according to RealClearPolitics,
but, as Frank Newport from Gallup said, it is a
statistical dead heat at the national and state
level and as a result of the second debate the
numbers may begin to narrow again.
Bill
Schneider, formerly with CNN and now with Al-Jazeera
English, said the minute
Obama stepped on the stage during the first debate
it became a referendum on the Obama presidency,
and the president did not seem to have any fight
in him to defend his past four years. In the
second debate, he came prepared to fight on all of
the issues.
The second debate at New
York's Hofstra University, in a relatively
affluent Nassau county suburb, relied on a town
hall debating format, with a random sample of 82
undecided voters from the local community. The
questions were screened and selected by moderator
Candy Crowley of CNN prior to the debate to cover
a wide range of domestic and international issues.
Nassau county has historically supported
the Republican Party, but with the election of
Bill Clinton in 1992 it began to support
Democratic candidates. Peter King, the only
Republican congressman from Long Island, was
making the rounds in the spin room championing his
candidate Mitt Romney.
The challenge for
Obama was akin to playing in the third quarter of
a basketball game. He was not necessarily behind,
but had lost his early lead. As I have suggested
in my book, Obama tends to perform better in the
later stages of the game. "He is not someone who
shoots from the hip or reacts without careful and
meticulous planning. However, on the flipside, his
constituents may often think he is vacillating on
the issues or taking too long to make decisions."
He may have seemed disengaged in the last debate
but not in Nassau.
The town hall format
was conducive to his strengths. He is a politician
with a singularly high social IQ, again, as I have
argued in my book. "Obama has the 'people smarts',
the hallmark of interpersonal intelligence, an
ability everyone needs but is at a premium for a
politician." Obama was able to better connect with
the audience and closely followed the rules of the
debate, Romney seemed to overstep them on several
occasions.
China bashing On
substantive issues that concern a global audience
Obama and Romney went head to head on China and
Libya. Romney seemed intent on making China the
boogeyman. He labeled China a currency
manipulator, an intellectual property rights
pirate, and a cheat. When comparing himself with
George W Bush, Romney said, "I'll crack down on
China, president Bush didn't. "
Obama
responded, "When he talks about getting tough on
China, keep in mind that Governor Romney invested
in companies that were pioneers in outsourcing in
China, and is currently investing in countries -
in companies that are building surveillance
equipment for China to spy on its own folks.
That's - Governor you're the last person who's
going to get tough on China."
On another
occasion, while talking about energy policy, Obama
said, "Because China, Germany, they're making
these investments. And I'm not going cede those
jobs of the future to those countries. I expect
those new energy sources to be built right here in
the United States."
In order to rouse his
base, Romney went back to attacking China
repeatedly. "We don't have to live like this. We
can get this economy going again. My five-point
plan does it. Energy independence for North
America in five years. Opening up more trade,
particularly in Latin America. Cracking down on
China when they cheat."
According to a
report by Jonathan Alter of Bloomberg news, there
is a real danger that Romney, if elected, would
start a trade war with China. Senator Marco Rubio,
once favored to be Romney's running mate, has
openly broken with him on China.
Benghazi blowback The
politicization of the Benghazi attack seemed to
have brought the strongest exchange between the
two candidates. Romney suggested that the Obama
administration is trying to play politics and
cover up the details of the attack on the US
consulate in Libya. This is a claim also echoed by
Congressmen Darrel Issa of California and Jason
Chaffetz of Utah.
Jason Chaffetz suggested
prior to the debate that there appears to be a
"coordinated effort" between the state department
and officials in the White House to neglect the
security issues at US diplomatic missions in Libya
in the months leading up to the Benghazi attack on
September 11, 2012, which resulted in the death of
ambassador Chris Stevens and three other
officials.
Praising Secretary of State
Hilary Clinton, Obama said, "I'm the president and
I'm always responsible, and that's why nobody's
more interested in finding out exactly what
happened than I do... The day after the attack,
Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told
the American people in the world that we are going
to find out exactly what happened. That this was
an act of terror and I also said that we're going
to hunt down those who committed this crime... And
the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether
the secretary of state, our UN ambassador, anybody
on my team would play politics or mislead when
we've lost four of our own, Governor, is
offensive."
Both Robert Gibbs and David
Plouff, two of the closest advisors to Barack
Obama, agreed this was president's strongest
moment in the debate. It appears the second debate
seems to have achieved the damage control the
president badly needed.
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