October 18, 2012--Debate Post Mortem

Snap polls show that Obama won the debate narrowly, on points. No knockout, no TKO. Just a solid performance, surveyed undecided voters said.

But--and this is a very big "but"--overwhelmingly, by nearly 2-1 margins, those interviewed said that Romney has a better overall plan to fix the economy. And they prefer his tax proposals (as vague and shifting as they are) to Obama's. They also feel Romney would do a better job of reducing the deficit, though nonpartisan analyses conclude his tax proposals would add $5.0 trillion over ten years to the deficit.

In other words--Obama may have won the debate but is in serious danger of losing the policy argument and the election.

Go figure.

On the other hand, maybe Romney and the voters are on to something.

I thought Romney's best moment, perhaps the debate's best moment, was when he succinctly and even a little eloquently spelled out the differences between what candidate Barack Obama promised he would achieve during his first term and what actually happened.

Here it is verbatim:

I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you're going to get. You're going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can't afford four more years like the last four years.

He said that by now we'd have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work.

I wasn't the one that said 5.4 percent. This was the president's plan. Didn't get there.

He said he would have by now put forward a plan to reform Medicare and Social Security, because he pointed out they're on the road to bankruptcy. He would reform them. He'd get that done. He hasn't even made a proposal on either one.

He said in his first year he'd put out an immigration plan that would deal with our immigration challenges. Didn't even file it.

This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he'd do. He said that he'd cut in half the deficit. He hasn't done that either. In fact, he doubled it. He said that by now middle-income families would have a reduction in their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It's gone up by $2,500 a year. And if Obamacare is passed, or implemented -- it's already been passed -- if it's implemented fully, it'll be another $2,500 on top.

There are more people in poverty, one out of six people in poverty.

How about food stamps? When he took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps. How about the growth of the economy? It's growing more slowly this year than last year, and more slowly last year than the year before.

The president wants to do well. I understand. But the policies he's put in place from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank to his tax policies to his regulatory policies, these policies combined have not let this economy take off and grow like it could have.

You might say, "Well, you got an example of one that worked better?" Yeah, in the Reagan recession where unemployment hit 10.8 percent, between that period -- the end of that recession and the equivalent of time to today, Ronald Reagan's recovery created twice as many jobs as this president's recovery. Five million jobs doesn't even keep up with our population growth. And the only reason the unemployment rate seems a little lower today is because of all the people that have dropped out of the workforce.

The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked. He's great as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That's wonderful, except we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just hasn't been able to cut the deficit, to put in place reforms for Medicare and Social Security to preserve them, to get us the rising incomes we need. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans out of work. That's what this election is about. It's about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve.

Put aside for the moment that some of what Romney claims and some of the numbers he cites are either not true or exaggerated. The Obama people can expose that during the next few days. But we cannot put aside that Romney's list of failed promises are pretty much on target.

Since there is no getting around that and these unfulfilled promises are what is dragging Obama down in the polls, he would be politically smart (as well as honest) to acknowledge them. He should say that, yes, as a candidate he did make these promises and projections but because of what he inherited from the Republicans and because they refused to work with him to fix the problems, some of his key promises are still unmet.

If he were to own up to this--take responsibility--this would take Romney's critique off the political table. It would then, with credibility, allow him to describe all that has thus far been achieved--hemorrhaging unemployment has been stemmed and private sector jobs have been growing, the deficit he inherited is slowly being reduced, financial institution re-regulation is proceeding, etc.

But even if he were to do this--acknowledge these shortfalls--it would not be enough because voters still feel he has not presented a plan to show how in a second term he would improve the economy and enhance their sense of economic wellbeing. Romney has an empty five-point plan (Obama was sharp to label it a "one-point plan": more of the same tax breaks and loophopes for the wealthy), but Obama does not have a five-point economic plan of his own and is thus vulnerable to the charge that he is asking voters to reelect him so he can do more of the same.

That will not work.

He should make a major speech this week--before Monday's final debate--in which he outlines what he will do with four more years to turn the economy around. (1) Let the Bush tax cuts for the top 5 percent lapse but retain and expand the tax cuts he put in place for the middle class. (2) Close tax loopholes such as the oil depletion allowance. (3) Cut the tax rate for that 3 percent of small businesses that pay taxes at the same rate as individual taxpayers. (4) Offer tax credits to small and medium-size businesses who hire veterans and recent college graduates. Also, offer tax incentives to companies that repatriate jobs, bring jobs back to America from overseas. (5) Keep us moving toward energy self-sufficently. And (6) . . .

To sum up:

Obama should acknowledge that he did some over-promising five years ago (just like Romney is doing now); but he has a plan for going forward that is based on the experience of the past four years, is designed and targeted to focus on what needs to be done, is realistic, and can be achieved even in the face of Republican intrangigence.