Posted on 10/03/2012 6:40:23 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
Or better yet, take a page out of Newt’s book and humiliate the moderators. I remember when Newt got that standing ovation during the South Carolina GOP debate:
Hmmmmm...it's one thing to take a stand against John King of CNN, but tonight, it would be risky against Jim Lehrer, executive editor of PBS's "NewsHour".
Throughout the decades Lehrer has set forth a demeanor that is calm, business like, 'grandfatherly'. I would liken it to the perception Walter Cronkite had "as the most trusted man in America". Lehrer would be difficult to 'attack'.
1) Stay the course...
2) Get Real...
My only advice to Romney is to get the thought of Obama being a nice guy out of his head. Obama is NOT a nice guy. If he could, he would have all of us who support the Constitution locked up, never to be heard from again.
Romney needs to appeal to the emotions of the voters. Sounds silly, but it was one of the keys to why 0bama won in 2008. His loosey goosey hopey changey stirred the emotions of people who don’t pay attention to the details of the political system because they are engrossed in “real housewives of somewhere.”
If Romney gets into detailed technical solutions for the political issues of the day, as Republicans do, then 0bama can say something that sounds good but means nothing and it will resonate with the undecided squishy center.
Appeal to the emotions of the lowest common denominator!
First, some assumptions:
1) This debate will be watched mostly by people already interested in politics, including many independents who are leaning Obama’s direction. Those watching could, however, favorably influence friends who aren’t interested enough to watch.
2) Reporters from the MSM will be looking for anything they can portray as a Romney gaffe, as they did on his foreign trip, and have been doing since.
3) Many of those independents leaning toward Obama have heard little of what most of us on the right consider to be outright scandals perpetrated by this administration, including (but definitely not limited to) Fast & Furious, stimulus funds going heavily toward Obama bundlers, the recent Libyan debacle, and, most important of all, his outright disrespect for our laws.
Given the above assumptions, I believe Romney should respectfully address the Independent voters in the audience and tell them that he was going to spend his time informing them of actions Obama has taken over the past four years that they might not be aware of, and that the reason they might not be aware of them is because the mainstream press (and call them out by name) has not done its job for the past four years. The intent should be to inform swing voters while putting the MSM on the defensive, giving them less time to play offense, which they will surely do otherwise.
In other words, address the Independent voter and attack the press. Start with a simple statement that many of you have very likely never heard of Fast & Furious, or about how the Obama administration invoked executive privilege to prevent a Congressional investigation from determining how high into the administration knowledge of the program went. Add that they sent one person involved in it to Iraq to spend his time out of the reach of U.S. reporters, who, incidentally, show little inclination to attempt to locate him. Then point out that Hispanic voters, unlike most Independent voters who rely upon NBC, ABC, CNN, etc., for their news “coverage” (if you can call it that) were recently treated to extensive coverage of Fast & Furious by not ABC, or CNN, but by Univision. Yes, Hispanic voters, and most Mexicans, are now more informed about Fast & Furious than you are as Independents, because Univision did its job.
Sum up with: “Tonight, I am going to ask you to listen as I describe, at every opportunity, facts, not opinions, but facts, that have been withheld from you by your typical, in-the-tank-for-Obama, news sources. When I am done with this debate, those same sources will likely go stark raving crazy in attempting to disprove everything I assert here tonight, but I intend to stick to direct, provable facts. And I believe that, when you realize how much has been withheld from you by your traditional news sources, you will begin to realize why so many of us think that the future direction of our country, and of our children and our grandchildren, depends upon your discovery of what the present administration has been doing these past four years.”
In other words, tell the American people, especially the swing voters, exactly what they’ve not been told by the MSM, and drag the MSM’s name through the mud at the same time. The objective should be to make them realize that they’ve been intentionally misled, and to know, name by name, exactly who has done that to them. Go after the MSM with a vengeance.
Oh, and call out Jake Tapper, Shirley Atkisson, and Univision as a whole, as exceptions to the rule. They’re the only ones that have gone off the liberal MSM reservation in all this.
Then, as the questions proceed, focus on one group after another, from working women, to single women, to union members, to Hispanics, to blacks, etc., pointing out a law ignored, or a policy enacted, that they have likely heard nothing of, but which directly, and unfavorably, affects them directly. There’s certainly no lack of material.
Yes, even blacks. How many black Americans know that Obama doesn’t support the DC voucher program, a program supported by most black parents in DC, for example? Given that, what chance is there that he will actually try to improve the lot of center-city blacks? For that matter, what has he accomplished in the four years he’s had already? And why aren’t you hearing about his position on the DC voucher program? That’s right. You’re getting your news from the “in-the-tank-for-Obama” media. (After using that phrase once or twice, keep using it, but start making quote signs with his fingers as he says it.)
Alinsky: Ridicule works. And the MSM is fully deserving of outright ridicule today. Use this debate, and only this debate, to heap ridicule where it belongs, on the people who’ve abdicated their responsibility to keep the public informed. (I say “only this debate” because it will work once, but will be viewed as piling on if used in the next debate. Gingrich scored once, but failed when he tried it again.)
By the way, I know it’s ludicrous to expect Romney to read threads like this. It’s not, however, ludicrous to expect his staff to read it. In fact, I would expect it, so I don’t think time is wasted putting forth ideas here. One just might stick.
To “win” the debate he needs to inject the post-debate commentators with truth serum. We all know the media grades these things with even less objectivity than that of an East German judge at the Olympics.
In lieu of that, Romney needs to show passion. Show that he is a fighter and really wants to win the Presidency. Ironically, with the media saying for weeks now that Obama has this election in the bag, that actually affords Romney the opportunity to be aggressive without coming across as a bully, since people expect underdogs to be scrappy.
Yet he needs to avoid looking like he did in some of the Republican debates, where at times it seemed like he wanted to throttle his opponents. Hopefully he can adopt more of a Giuliani style: hit hard but do so in a likeable way.
Specifically, he needs to remind people again and again that just about everything Obama promised 4 years he would do as President he has failed to do even though his own party controlled the House and Senate his first two years, an advantage not many Presidents have enjoyed in recent decades. He then needs to ask why voters should trust Obama’s new promises when he failed to deliver on his old ones.
Just remember you are debating a Con Man, and all those asking the questions are in on the Con.
Bring up obama encouraging companies to break the law requiring them to notify workers 60days before a layoff, just to hide the issue until after the election. It shows how hypocritical Obama is in his “support” of workers.
I couldn’t disagree more. Don’t bore them with policy options. If you do, you actually stand a better than even chance of turning off a chunk of your base with each point you tick off. (For example, I suspect you and I would have a good argument about free trade.)
This election is about the incumbent. He’s done a terrible job. Romney needs to inform swing voters of Obama’s actual decisions, and how they’ve turned out, rather than attempting to focus on what he would do instead.
Remember, too many people have no idea of what Obama’s been up to the past four years, or of how many laws he’s either violated, ignored, or upended with executive orders.
Romney needs to inform swing voters about Obama, because they don’t know him. In fact, it wouldn’t be so dumb to put in a plug for the movie “2016 Obama’s America.”
He could say, for instance: “If you want a good example of how little you know about President Obama, take a couple of hours and go see “2016 Obama’s America.” You’ll come away realizing how sheltered you were when you relied upon just the mainstream media for your information last election. And it’s a lot worse this time around. For example, you recall that “gaffe-laden” foreign trip I took? Do you know that I was virtually endorsed by the leaders of both Israel and Poland during that trip? Yes, Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement in Poland, highly admired by President Reagan.....etc. Do you know why you weren’t aware of that? Because the ‘in-the-tank-for-Obama’ media didn’t want you to hear it, so you didn’t hear it. Instead, you heard multiple manufactured gaffes I supposedly made.”
Summing up my previous two posts:
Stick to facts about Obama and his treatment by the MSM. There is more than enough material to fill the hour and a half, and most swing voters are ignorant of those facts.
The election is about the economy, not really the incumbent.
I agree that he needs to point out Obama’s failings and it wouldn’t hurt to point out the media failings either. But he also needs to give voters something to vote for. And he hasn’t done that. Right now, he’s this year’s Hope and Change candidate. Relying entirely on an anti-Obama vote is going to be a mistake.
Re: I do not think you could be more wrong. Worrying about policy details is a left brained type B bureaucratic liberal mindset from the outset.
It is the liberal who believes the average American is not smart enough to think for himself.
Allen West: Obama is doing well in the polls because his failures aren’t being articulated well
Here’s the zinger: “Barry, if you promise to quit blaming your predecessor, I’ll promise not to blame mine.”
He needs to sit down with Newt and be ready to slap down the media when they go for the cheap shot—like Baine Capital and the Dog on the Roof story.
For someone who wants the details, you are not paying attention. Not to me, not to West, not to others. Track with me here:
I was making the point that you were thinking a bit like a liberal, being obsessed with “details” and so on. Your words, “policy details.”
The West video is talking about general themes, NOT DETAILS. West said nothing about “policy details.” He said ARTICULATE.
Rush always talks about articulating conservatism, which means thematically, not in micro policy details. Reagan did not talk about policy details.
Policy details are NOT how you campaign. They are NOT how you change minds. You ARTICULATE what conservatism IS and what liberalism IS and once people understand that, they will automatically know what policies are what.
You're NOT going to get that from Romney. He's NOT a conservative.
He needs to explain his plans other than his plan to spell his name differently.
Each and every time Romney mentions the Obama Administration add the word ‘failured/failed’ to it.
The ‘failure’ of Obama to cut the deficit in half.
The ‘failure’ of Obama saw the first reduction in our nation’s credit rating.
So after the debate you will not be able to think Obama without the word ‘failure’ attached to it.
I didn’t say what we WOULD get. I was talking about what we SHOULD get.
But that’s besides the point: a wonkish detail of his plans will not work, nor is that what Allen West was saying either.
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