Obama needs an agenda after debacle in debate
Charles Krauthammer says the president’s re- election campaign is foundering because he has no solutions for the nation’s problems.
Nomystery about the trajectory of this race. It was static for months as President Barack Obama held a marginal lead. Then came the conventions. The Republicans squandered Tampa; the Democrats got a 3- to 4- point bounce out of Charlotte.
And kept it. Until the first debate. In 90 minutes, Mitt Romney wiped out the bump— and maybemore.
Democrats are shellshocked and left searching for excuses. Start with scapegoats: the hapless John Kerry, Obama’s sparring partner in the practice debates, for going too soft on the boss; then the debate moderator for not exerting enough control.
The Obama campaign’s plea that the commander in chief could find no shelter under JimLehrer’s desk did not exactly bolster Obama’s standing. Moreover, the moderator’s job is not to control the flow of argument, but to simply enforce an even time split.
Lehrer did. In fact, Obama took more time than Romney— 4 ½ minutes more — while actually speaking 500 fewer words. Romney knew what he thought and said it. Obama kept looking around hoping for the words to come to him. They didn’t.
After the scapegoats came the excuses.
1.
Nonsense. This Obama’s game. Great at delivering telepromptered addresses to adoring Germans and swooning students. But he’s not very good on his feet.
His problem is that he doesn’t think so. He believes his own press. He actually said ( in 2007): “I think that I’ma better speechwriter thanmy speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue thanmy policy directors. And … I’ma better political director thanmy political director.”
Obama is a man of considerable intelligence. But he’s not half as transcendently smart as he thinks he is. He needs a servant in his chariot reminding him that he’s not an immortal.
2.
Ah yes, the burdens of office. Like going on “The View” while meeting with not a single foreign leader at the U. N. Like flying to a Vegas campaign rally the day after a U. S. consulate is sacked and the ambassadormurdered. Rocky Mountain altitude is a better excuse than that. ( Thank you, Al Gore.) 3. Stephanie Cutter and David Axelrod both said ( amazing coincidence) that Romney won on “style points.”
So, the most charismatic politician since Pierre Elliot Trudeau was beaten by an android— on style? I concede that Obama’s reaction shots were awful. But he lost on radio, too. And in print. Read the transcript. This wasn’t about appearances. Romney won on an avalanche of substance, on a complete takedown of six months of Obama portraying Romney as enemy of the middle class.
That was the heart of the Obama campaign. After all, with crushing debt, chronically high unemployment and the worst economic recovery sinceWorld War II, Obama can’t run on stewardship. Nor on the future. He has no serious agenda. Nothing on entitlements, nothing on tax reform, nothing on debt, nothing on the fiscal cliff.
So when Romney completely deflated that six- month “kill Romney” strategy — by looking reasonable, responsible, authoritative in demonstrating how his policies would help the middle class by stimulating economic growth— what did Obama have left?
Big Bird. The stupidest ad in memory. Has any president ever run an ad so small and trivial? After an unprecedented shellacking in a debate about very large issues, is his response? That only he can save the $ 130million enterprise that is the SesameWorkshop?
An inspiring second- term agenda: subsidies for Big Bird and free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke.
Obama has two debates to come up with something better. If he can’t, he will double down on his “Romney the menace” line. It might still work. But a word of advice: Your administration having prevaricated unceasingly about the massacre in Benghazi, I’d be cautious about the “he’s a liar” line of attack.