By Charles Krauthammer
Thursday, October 11, 2012
No mystery about the trajectory of this race. It was
static for months as President 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 maybe more.
Democrats are shell-shocked 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 Jim Lehrer’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 —
four and a half 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. Obama had a bad night. He was off his game.
Nonsense. This is 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 not only
believes his own press, he believes his own mythology. He actually said (in
2007): “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know
more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And . . .
I’m a better political director than my 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. Of course, after the debate the entire Democratic party told
him he’s a dud. Wrong again. He’s neither lord nor commoner. He’s just an
above-average politician who needs a very good night in one of the next two
debates.
2. He was weighed down by the burdens of office.
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
ambassador murdered. Like rushing off to New York for a night with Jay-Z and
Beyoncé.
Rocky Mountain altitude is a better excuse than that.
(Thank you, Al Gore.)
3. Reductionism.
Stephanie Cutter and David Axelrod both said (amazing
coincidence) that Romney won on “style points.”
So, the most charismatic politician since Pierre Elliott
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 didn’t win on style. He won on an
avalanche of substance, on a complete takedown of six months of Obama
portraying Romney as enemy of the middle class, friend and footman of the rich.
That was the heart of the Obama campaign. After all, with
crushing debt, chronically high unemployment, and the worst economic recovery
since World 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, and 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, this is his response?
The Middle East is ablaze, the country drowning in debt,
the fiscal cliff looming — and Obama’s great pitch is that only he can save the
$130 million enterprise that is the Sesame Workshop?
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 — and scandalously — about the massacre in Benghazi, I’d be
cautious about the “he’s a liar” line of attack.
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