Final Presidential Debate!!

One more debate, and then it's on to the polls......

What Romney Needs to Do

• Finish strong.  Even though the President was a lot more aggressive (and successful) in the second debate, Romney still has a good deal of momentum going for him.  He needs to finish out this debate without making a fool of himself.  If he makes a huge blunder (such as Gerald Ford's gaffe over the Soviet Union) that could haunt him until election day.  He has made gains on the President to be sure, but that can be undone with a major misstep here.
• Romney needs to highlight the Obama Administration's mistakes on Libya, but avoid getting forceful with it.  This will be a really difficult line for him to walk.  The issue will no doubt come up, but I think voters are getting a bit tired of it.  It's not good for Romney because he was essentially correct in his assertions in the second debate, but was incorrectly overruled by the moderator.  So the voting bloc doesn't necessarily understand the gravity of the administration's missteps, but I'm not sure voters want to see Romney going 'attack dog' on the President about this issue again.  But Romney still needs to correct the record about it.
• At the very minimum, remain competent.  Voters seem pleased that he has been competent and presidential in the previous two debates which to me is feeding his surge.  The first two debates covered mostly domestic issues.  If voters believe he can deal with international issues with the same competency, it will only help him.

What Obama Needs to Do

• Obama needs a great performance.  Most people seem to believe he 'won' the second debate, but not as decisively as Romney won the first.  The President needs to come out and prove that he can restore American credibility over seas.  
• The President needs to explain his plan for the next four years when it comes to the Middle East.  He needs a grand vision of what he views America's role in the world as.  People are well aware of the conflicts in the Middle East and the President needs to convince voters has a plan for how American influence will either be used or not used in his grand Middle Eastern strategy.
• It isn't the President's job to rip the challenger apart.  He needs to present a grand vision, and be able to explain how events in the past did not come as a surprise to his Administration.  It won't be enough to talk in grand platitudes as he normally does, he needs to get specific.  Campaign slogans such as "Heal the World" won't work in 2012 as they did in 2008.  Somehow the world seems a much more violent place and the President needs to explain how the past 4 years weren't a result of his bungling, and how the next 4 years will be impacted by his vision.

5 Predictions

1. I don't expect either campaign to follow my advice as if they were reading this to begin with.  So my first prediction is I'll be wrong on my most of my ideas in the above sections.
2. Obama is going to be aggressive.  He'll be driving the tempo of the debate.  
3. Obama will reference Mitt Romney's international trip earlier this summer at least once in an attempt to discredit his ability to be an international leader.
4. Romney will wait for the moderator to bring up Libya.  Hopefully his people are telling him that he needs to avoid coming off as though he is berating the President of the United States, and this would be an easy way to accomplish that.  There is little doubt the moderator will have some sort of question surrounding the Libya ordeal, so it would be safe for Mitt to stay focused on the other questions without jumping to Libya every time.
5. The debate will end in a tie.  I don't expect Mitt will come out swinging, but he will match the President's level of enthusiasm.  If the President starts swinging, Romney will swing back.  To voters I expect that'll come across as a tie.  

Politics is a Strange Business

It's long been believed that President Obama and the Clintons have had a tenuous relationship.  Some point to a contentious preliminary race in 2007 and 2008 as the starting point for the drama in the relationship.  The video below of then-candidate Hillary Clinton's reaction to then-candidate Barrack Obama's print ads is often referenced to as evidence of the friction between the two:

Emotional responses like that aren't necessarily commonplace in the political arena.

As a follow up, Bill Clinton had this to say about then-candidate Obama in 2008:

Offering Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State was, as theorized by some, an olive branch offered by President Obama. Perhaps it really was that cynical, but we also know the President has an affinity for Abraham Lincoln, who in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals was shown to have built his team out of former political adversaries. Perhaps the President wanted to extend an olive branch and mimic President Lincoln at the same time. Whatever the reasoning, he hitched his wagon to the Clinton political machine and has had to deal with it every since.

And the political headaches Obama suffers are real. Recently former President Clinton had this to say while at a campaign stop for President Obama in Ohio: "Governor Romney's argument is "we're not fixed, so fire him and put me in". It is true, we're not fixed." Many see that as a subtle dig at President Obama. Indeed, even offering the former president a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention this summer was met with some trepidation.

According to some sources, Bill Clinton has been labeling the President behind the scenes as "The worst president ever." This hasn't made life easy on President Obama.

It's said that politics make strange bedfellows. And perhaps at some point President Obama will regret bringing Hillary Clinton into his cabinet. Perhaps in the future he'll think it might have been best to divorce himself from the Clintons. But in the meantime it looks like the new Democratic political machine is colliding with the old Democratic political machine, which has made life difficult on the President. To be honest, I don't think President Obama was ready to confront the duplicitousness of the Clintons. It makes me think of a scene from The Prince of Egypt, the Dreamworks movie from 1998:

When it comes to backstabbing and angling for personal glory in politics, it seems President Obama really is 'playing with the big boys now.'

The President and Governor joke at the Al Smith dinner

For those of you who enjoy political humor...

Pre-2nd Debate Quick Hits

What Romney Needs to Do

• Keep the momentum going.  To do this he needs to respond to voter's questions succinctly, with facts and details.  He needs to show that he empathizes with the common voter.  
• Be Presidential.  Continue to show himself as a viable alternative.  
• Keep the focus on Obama.  Obama is the one with the record and he needs to be pushed to defend that record.  Romney needs to keep the focus on high unemployment, a slow recovery, and the confusion in the middle east.

What Obama Needs to Do

• Stop the bleeding.  He needs to show people he actually desires to have a second term.  In the first debate he came off as apathetic, and can't repeat that performance.
• Be aggressive, but do not bully.  People like Obama, which is something he has going for him.  What he doesn't have going for him is his record, so he needs to keep Romney on the defensive by being aggressive.  Keep this argument about Romney so people don't think too long about the economy or the middle east, especially the chaos around Libya.

What I Expect from Romney

• I expect Romney to repeat his first performance.  He will attempt to be steady, and keep the debate about Obama's record.  
• Romney will be cordial but assertive.  He'll continue to lay out his plan (expect to see him count his policies on his fingers, a la 'point 1', or 'first we'll do this, then we'll do that' comments). 

What I expect from Obama

• I expect Obama to dance the line between aggressiveness and bullying.  He'll keep his head up and look at Romney.  Two things he did not do in the first debate.
• President Obama would prefer to talk about Romney than himself.  He has grand visions, but his 4 years in office hasn't provided the strongest platform to run on.  He will bring up Bain, the 47% remark, the $5 Trillion in new taxes he says Romney will levy, and maybe even Romney's mistakes on his overseas trip.  He'll attempt to hit Romney early and often.

Who is going to Win?

• Unless something happens I don't expect, such as Biden being belligerent, I don't think anyone will come out of this a 'winner'.  Certainly nothing as decisive as the first debate.  Conservatives love to believe that Obama is lost without his teleprompter.  While that may be true, it shouldn't manifest itself in a town hall format debate.  He'll have time to respond to people, he'll be able to use his body language because he'll be able to walk around, he will look cool calm and collected.  If he were being questioned by a panel of conservatives I'd expect something different, but he should handle himself ok.  Romney should be steady, and I expect the same man we saw two weeks ago.  He does a good job defending his record, and he has a good 'debate face.'  I'd be surprised if he were caught on camera making any of the facial expressions Joe Biden was caught making.
• I'm more interested in the post-debate discussion.  How is the press going to react?  They were obviously stunned and distraught over Obama's last performance, so how will they react to this debate?  If Obama performs sub-par, will they report it as sub-par or will they pass it off as a miraculous comeback?  If Romney stumbles even slightly, will they exaggerate his missteps?  If Obama has a clear decisive victory will they be able to report it as such without going overboard?  If not will their gloating come across to the viewer and if so, will the viewer react to that negatively?  And if Romney wins, will they be able to report that or will they attempt to temper 'Romney-enthusiasm'?

VP Debate Reaction

Biden needed to stop the bleeding.

Ryan needed to be competent.

Did either succeed?  Lets get right to it....

Ryan wins on style.

When the economy is horrible people evaluate a contender to be reassured that they're capable of replacing the incumbent.  They're looking for a reason to jump from the incumbent but need to be comfortable making that jump.  In that regard Romney set the ball, and Ryan spiked it.  He looked presidential.  He listened to Biden, was political in his answers, and held his ground.  He didn't need to wipe the floor with Biden.  He didn't need to make Biden admit his own failings on every issue.  He just needed to hold his ground and convince people he isn't a weak link, and he won in that regard.

Biden lost on style because he came off worse than Gore in 2000, if that's possible.  The media won't want to focus on it out of their desire to avoid handing the Obama administration its second 'loss' in as many debates, but judging by the amount of news time Gore's smirk got in 2000, Biden's grins, guffaws, and sighs should generate significant reaction.  It isn't an exaggeration to say that every time Ryan spoke the camera caught Biden laughing, smirking, reacting confused, shaking his head, or any other type of incredulous reaction you can think of.  I imagine his base loved it, but I'm not sure how the rest of Americans received that performance.  Contrast his tendency to interrupt Ryan and call him a liar with Ryan's generally emotionally even performance, and you might have a recipe independents won't be able to choke down.

Biden wins on controlling the flow of the debate.

Biden knew he had to be aggressive.  Ryan knew Biden had to be aggressive (and even said so during the debate, quipping "I know you're under a lot of pressure").  According to some counts I saw, Biden interrupted Ryan 82 times!  Eighty-two times!!!  If you're doing that you're controlling the flow.  You'll lose some style points (see above), but you're definitely controlling the pace of the debate.

Ryan got side-tracked too often.  Biden's answers would list 8 different points (not always related to the topic at hand) and Ryan would address all of them in his response.  Often he seemed to get so side-tracked he forgot to answer the original question.  This happened during his reply to the question about the soldier upset with the tone of American politics.  I really don't think Ryan actually answered that.  Instead, he jumped into a litany of Obama missteps in foreign policy.  Not sure how that played off with independents, but it definitely played into Biden's hand.

Neither won on substance.

I'm conservative so I obviously agree with Ryan's position about generating taxes through broadening the tax base, but I can't award him any points on that because he didn't explain it well.  Instead he let the moderator imply he wasn't actually answering the question.  The Moderator's bias was exposed during this tax discussion.  The conservative position is to broaden the tax base by reducing taxes for all and through closing loopholes, which would be done via negotiation with the Dems.  But Raddatz kept pressing for more and more details, which loopholes specifically.  Obviously she wasn't understanding his position of 'Negotiate with the Dems'.  See, Liberals don't understand 'broadening the tax base'.  If a conservative were moderating, they'd have understood Ryan's response.  But that wasn't the case here, so Ryan needed to do a better job explaining it so Raddatz would get off his back.  He didn't rise to the occasion, and came off looking like he was avoiding the issue.  And that's just not the case.

Biden was quoting everything six ways from Sunday, but if you noticed he was mostly quoting Romney/Ryan positions.  That's because substantively it is difficult to defend 7.8% unemployment, $16 Trillion in debt, no plan to grow the economy, and a foreign policy that is failing before our eyes.  So most of the night he stayed on the offensive.  Rather than describing why Obama/Biden deserves another go around, he was trying to explain why Romney/Ryan doesn't even deserve a shot.  In that regard he missed his opportunity to convert voters and bring them back to Obama/Biden.  In a down economy the incumbent needs to convince voters that they deserve four more years, and you can't do that by spending all your time attacking someone who doesn't even have a record yet.

And the winner is....

The American people, who have one less debate to watch.

In all seriousness, it's about as close to a draw as I could imagine.  I would say Biden won because he obvioulsy controlled the debate, but he hurt himself by becoming emotionally unhinged.  I'm sure his base was energized quite a bit, because they too would want to yell at Ryan if they were debating him.  But if I'm independent and I'm analyzing this thing, do I really want to see one side getting angry, petulant, and disrespectful?  I can't imagine that helped him.

In the end Biden did what Biden needed to do: he injected life into the Obama campaign.  He avoided defending the Obama/Biden ticket, but he might have stopped the mass exodus of voters from the Obama ticket by effectively putting Ryan on the defensive all night.  Ryan did what Ryan needed to do by standing on his own two feet.  He is obviously presidential, he can carry himself well, control his emotions and is well versed on the issues.  Based on this performance, voters can see him as the Vice President.

The real question for me is what will the media latch on to?  Will they focus on Biden controlling the pace, or will that move backfire with the media focusing on Biden's obvious disdain for Romney/Ryan?  Which 'facts' will the media decide to expose?  Only God knows.  I'm sure MSNBC is reporting that Biden won hands down, and I'm sure Chris Matthews is already getting back that tingle in his leg.  Hannity over on FoxNews is probably giddy with all the Biden sighs and looks of exasperation that I'm sure he's compiling them into a nice little 30 second bit as we speak (Biden quipping "I always say what I mean" means we're going to hear all his gaffes re-lived over the next week, such as "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.... I'm not joking").

I wish it were more definitive, but all in all I don't think this debate will cause an exodus of voters to one camp or the other.  Which is probably what we should expect from a VP debate in the first place.

My Plan for Job Growth

Jobs come from business.  The easiest way to ensure your job is safe is for your employer to do well.  If your employer is doing well, and you're not spending your entire day on Facebook, then you've got a pretty good chance of maintaining employment.

I'd like to believe that statement would be self-explanatory, but with the recent rash of government sponsored programs aimed at increasing employment obviously it isn't understood as well as it should be.  Sure you can print off an $800 Billion stimulus, but even if you manage to create a million jobs all those people will have to be fired once the $800 Billion runs out (at which point you'll have all that new debt to contend with as well).  The only way to stay employed is to be employed by someone who is generating wealth, as they are the only ones who can afford to keep paying you with new money.

If I may I'd like to share what I think are four points which, if followed, would lead to massive job creation in the United States.  I'll also assign an advantage after each point to the candidate I believe is positioned best to take advantage of each point.

Business-people like to make decisions based on information, but information isn't any good if it changes every five minutes.  This is why my first two points are based upon injecting stability into the economy.

Pass a Freakin' Budget!!

Congress hasn't passed a budget since 2009.  A budget is mostly symbolic as the absence of one doesn't mean the lights in the government go dark (unfortunately).  It would be easy to blame President Obama for this oversight (don't we blame Presidents for everything these days), but he isn't entirely at fault.  Congress is tasked with passing the budget.  While the President can (should?) set the country's direction, he can't just pass a budget by himself.  It might be a sign of a leadership void, but it's really the fault of Congress that we haven't had a new budget since 2009.

Passing a budget would send a message to the world that we're not just aimlessly wandering in the dark when it comes to our finances.  It would mean that yes, we realize we're spending too much, but at the same time signal that we take it seriously and are working to correct it.  Right now there is no reason for any businessperson to think the US government is going to do anything but continue to turn a blind eye to our coming economic apocalypse.  Businesspeople would love to see a sign that Federal Government isn't completely absent.  

Advantage: Romney

Fair or not, only one budget has passed during Obama's presidency and he gets the blame for failure to lead.  He was nearly the only president to ever go four years without passing a single budget.  The fact that the last time one was passed was when the Democrats controlled Congress and the Executive Branch is an indictment of his leadership.  Considering that Romney was able to get Romneycare through the Mass legislature when it was comprised of mostly Democrats is a reason to want to see him try on the Federal level.

Reduce the Federal Deficit

Do you currently have a job?  Awesome.  In five - ten years you won't.  Or at least half of us won't.  The deficit (and resulting Debt in total) is the single biggest threat to America right now, and a huge reason Businesses aren't currently hiring.  

Suppose for a minute that you make $100,000 a year.  Two years ago you not only spent all $100K, but spent an additional $75,000 on credit cards.  One year ago you spent $70,000 on credit cards, and last year you spent $60,000.  In fact, you've been doing this for so long that you currently owe more than $800,000 in credit card debt.  How long do you think it'll take before the banks come and take all your possessions to collect?

The US is in a very similar situation.  The only difference is we are the bank's biggest customer, so they can't come collect right now, at least not easily.  As the US economy goes, so goes the world economy.  As a result we have had the freedom to go on a spending binge the last 12 years.  President Bush added $4 Trillion in debt over his 8 years, and Obama more than doubled down on that with more than $5 Trillion in 4 years.  The Federal Government works on $2 Trillion in revenue, but has been spending over $3 Trillion for the last four years.

The world is currently working to replace the dollar as the reserve currency.  China is looking to other markets in India and the Middle East to replace their markets in the US.  China wants to stop lending us money to feed our debt without losing their #1 market, something they currently can't do.  It isn't a question of if the world will adapt to live without the dollar, it's a question of when.  And when that happens, we can expect a major decline in the value of the dollar.  Even without the world replacing the dollar, it is only a matter of time before inflation and interest rates go up to previously unseen levels.  We can't just print $5 Trillion without severe consequences.  Think Germany before Hitler.

This is a very, very bad thing and people aren't thinking about it enough.  It is perhaps the #1 reason not to vote for Obama (whoops, does that give away who my 'Advantage' on this one is going to?).  Some economists are even predicting 50% unemployment not even two years out.  This is scary stuff.

But it can be reversed.  If you balance the budget, not only does it strengthen the dollar on the world market, (thus removing the threat it'll be dumped as the standard) but it'll signal to business that it is a good time to start expanding.  It'll be a sign to business that you're not considering upping their taxes, that you're not going to keep fining them when they don't provide health insurance for their employees, that they don't have to worry about costs creeping up that'll affect their bottom line.  

Balancing the budget would strengthen the appeal of the United States at a time when Europe is unraveling.  The Euro is on the brink of collapse, and countries like Greece and Spain are actively punishing success.  You want to see a glut of new job creation?  Hold up a sign that says "The #1 economy in the world is STABLE!" and wait to see what happens when every single business in the world looks at the US and says, "I want to do business there, where I know I won't incur costs based on the whims of politicians."

Advantage: Romney

President Obama has added an almost impossible to grasp amount of money to the debt.  Not only has he added $5 Trillion in real debt, he's added another $10 Trillion in unfunded liabilities (like Obamacare).  He promised to cut the debt in half, but instead he doubled it.  While Romney hasn't added to it or reduced it, he maintains the advantage here mainly because when you see someone fail like President Obama has, you need to replace them.

Reduce the Corporate Tax Rate

If you can reduce the federal deficit, this is the icing on the cake.  The worlds #1 economy being stable already gets attention, but if you reduce the Corporate Tax Rate (something both candidates are fans of), it'll encourage an influx in jobs here as companies begin to relocate.  This is the easiest point to explain, there's not much more to say about it than that.

Advantage: Obama

They both pick 25% as the sweet spot.  Obama gets the advantage because he's actually in office (though one wonders why he hasn't already done this, if he believes in it so much).

Become Energy Independent

Becoming Energy Independent is on every one's mind, but both parties offer distinctly different paths.  President Obama wants to become independent by funding Green energy initiatives and restricting coal/natural gas/oil.  Governor Romney wants to build the Canadian pipeline, and open up oil/natural gas drilling on public lands.

Lets be honest: both plans have their pluses and minuses.  Perhaps the only person who doesn't want to see us get more responsible with our energy consumption is Rush Limbaugh.  Outside of him, the majority of us can agree we want to move in the direction of using more Green energy.

However you cannot force the issue.  You can encourage it, but if the science isn't there, it isn't there.  And right now, it isn't there.  So we have two options:

Democrats want to restrict our current consumption of fossil fuels by cancelling refineries, refusing to build a Canadian pipeline, raising taxes on fuel consumption, and place fuel standards on cars that make both gas and cars more expensive.  At the same time, they wish to encourage Green energy not just by giving tax breaks for people moving to those technologies, but also by providing billions in subsidies.

Republicans wish to transition to Green energy as well, but on a course they would call 'natural' rather than forced.  Instead of restricting current consumption of fossil fuels, they want to make those resources cheaper while simultaneously encouraging the migration to Green tech through tax breaks.  They wish to open up drilling on public lands (which has been restricted by the President), and build the Canadian pipeline so we can use more Canadian oil as opposed to Brazilian or from the Middle East.  Migration to Green tech would be the result of tax credits, but not subsidies.  The benefit to that would be jobs created in the fossil industry would be maintained by the funds generated by the sale of those goods, whereas the jobs created in the Green industry would evaporate when the subsidy money ran out.  

Advantage:  Romney

Romney's support of drilling on public land alone would give him the advantage here (as far as job creation is concerned), but his support of the Canadian pipeline and additional refineries puts him way over the top.  Not only would they generate long term employment, but they'd make us more energy independent, which is a necessary defense initiative at a time the Middle East looks to be unstable.

Conclusion

Obviously there are other ways to create employment, but I chose four ways I thought would be most successful and at the same time exemplified major differences between the campaigns.  For instance you could also stimulate employment by repealing Obamacare (companies such as Cook Medical have already cancelled plans to build manufacturing plants here because of added costs from Obamacare).

In the end Romney gives us the best chance to not only foster employment, but to tap into a seldom discussed resource:  It is estimated that US company's are sitting on $2 Trillion in liquid assets just waiting to inject that into a stable market.  Imagine getting the benefit of a $2 Trillion stimulus package without having to fight the debt later.  That would be a major boon for our country at a time when the rest of the developed world is floundering.