Obama's Rope-a-Dope

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Oct. 5, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

         Hitting President Barack Obama with everything but the kitchen sink, 65-year-old GOP nominee former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney flogged a more passive president, refusing to trade punches.  Romney unloaded his arsenal blaming the 52-year-old president for today’s high unemployment, massive budget deficits and chaotic foreign policy.  While most pundits scored the debate for Romney, the former Massachusetts’s governor emptied his clip, leaving himself utterly vulnerable in round-two Oct. 16 at Long Island’s Hofstra University   Mitt went for the jugular, faithfully repeating many of his rehearsed campaign attacks, ripping Barack for putting health care over the nation’s jobless rate.  Obama’s professorial responses in concert with PBS moderator Jim Lehrer opened Romney up to some complicated answers when round-two shifts to the town hall meeting format.

            Lehrer got Romney to admit his plans to privatize Social Security and Medicare for future generations of beneficiaries.  Aging baby boomers rapidly approaching retirement have real problems with Mitt and his VP pick Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) attempts to change the nation’s biggest entitlement programs.  Lehrer got Mitt to admit more clearly than before that he intends to shrink the size of the federal work force to accommodate his whopping tax cuts planned for the nation’s aristocracy.  Calling Romney a “very spirited fellow,” Obama joked about Mitt’s aggressiveness and hyperactivity, appearing like a caged animal ready to pounce.  Smirking at Obama’s responses, Romney kept the heat on Obama throughout the debate, leaving the impression Barack didn’t come to fight.  For those looking for a street fight, there was only one person throwing punches.

          Responding on the campaign stump in Denver, Barack made light of Romney’s spirited performance.  “When I got onto the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” said Barack, after Romney dissed Barack’s health care program as bad for the country.  Mitt claimed it placed too little trust in the private sector to provide quality affordable health care.  Mitt couldn’t explain why the private insurance industry has gouged consumers over the years, excluded individuals with pre-existing conditions and left some 40 million U.S. citizens uninsured.  Mitt emphatically stated he believes in the private sector, the same private sector that rips off consumers at the pumps, fleeces hapless investors, denies sick people medical insurance and that lays off millions of workers when times get tough.  Romney has nothing but contempt for the role the government plays in helping citizens.

            Obama’s supporters wish he would have stood up to Mitt’s unanswered attacks.  “We know for sure it was not the real Mitt Romney because he seems to be doing just fine with his current accountant,” said Barack, referring to Romney paying only 14% in taxes.  Promising to create 12 million new private sector jobs and generate more tax revenues that way, Romney insisted he could cut taxes on the wealthy without exploding the federal budget deficit.  Ranting about the trillion dollar deficit, Mitt lambasted Obama for pushing his health care program when so many folks were out of work.  Mitt doesn’t see the expansion of the health care business as the best way to generate thousands—if not millions—of new private sector jobs.  Insisting Obamacare should be repealed, Mitt promised to create his own health care program, much like he did while governor of Massachusetts.

            Without giving the specifics of how he’d fix the economy or deal with today’s whopping budge deficits, Mitt admitted he’d go after public radio and TV.  “I like PBS.  I love Big Bird . . . .But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it,” said Romney, showing his true colors.  He’s, as president, would give not priority to the last remaining objective source of information available over the airwaves.  Without public broadcasting, the airwaves are polluted with only corporate interests like conservative Fox News or liberal MSNBC.  Mitt finds no priority in funding things like public broadcasting for the public good even where it costs precious U.S. tax dollars.  Romney has no problem with government spending on the defense or oil industries, just not paying for public works projects, public broadcasting or individual entitlements.

            Obama let Mitt have his way in last night’s debate, much the same way he did four years ago when he faced off against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).  McCain gave Obama a beating of the first order four years ago, repeating the same strategy with Romney.  Between now and Oct. 16, former Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) will have his work cut out for him preparing Mitt for a more reciprocal debate.  Mitt showed he can dish it out but gets rattled when he’s the bull’s eye.  “I really hope that was a strategy to make Romney look the bully he is, an attack dog.  But I don’t know if that’s what it’ll all work out,” said 64-year-old homeopath Mary-Ellen Turner, worried that Barack should have defended himself.  Obama’s strategy lets Romney win the battle but the war is far from over.  Barack still leads by big margins in key battleground states where the election’s won or lost.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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