Debates Preview

By all reasonable accounts, Mitt Romney is currently losing the election. Prominent blogger Nate Silver (who is visiting WashU later woo woo) likens Romney’s chances to those of a football team down a touchdown in the fourth quarter. He doesn’t just need a minor victory (like a field goal) – he needs to make a major play. The debates may well be his last chance to change the race. What will it take for Mitt to win?

Unfortunately for Romney, debates rarely affect elections much. And when they do, it is almost always because of a blunder, not an especially brilliant move. Two of the most influential presidential debates were the Kennedy-Nixon debate where Nixon looked sweaty and uneasy, and the Gore-Bush debates where Gore looked awkward and obnoxious. In this year’s primary debates, Rick Perry essentially eliminated himself from the Republican race by coming across as a bumbling nincompoop. Obama is unlikely to appear either terribly awkward or like a moron, and it is hard to think of any times where a masterful debate performance actually helped a candidate much without their opponent having a bad one. Essentially, if Obama doesn’t screw up, he has little to worry about.

Basically, don’t do this

That said, Mitt is in a somewhat unusual position, and can probably help himself quite a bit in the debates. He’s screwed up his campaign so much that the debates might be an opportunity to fix some problems.

Obama has one objective, and that is to not mess up. Here is a list of objectives for Romney:

1. Come across as relatable. Obama did a vastly better job than Romney of portraying a compelling vision of his opponent. The Obama campaign has created an image of Romney as a bloated plutocrat that seems to have stuck better than the image Romney was trying to create of Obama as a clownish big-government advocate who did not believe people “built that”. Romney must come across as a human being to try to defuse Obama’s characterization.

2. Present a clear vision for the future. Romney bet that the economy was bad enough that people would vote against Obama without a clear alternative plan. Clearly that gamble has failed, and Romney has to lay out some policies that will help the economy and stand up to basic math. Admittedly, a debate’s a pretty bad time to do something like this, but Romney didn’t take my advice and do this at the convention, and the debates are the last time lots of Americans will be watching the candidates at a public event. He has few opportunities left.

3. Make Obama appear uncomfortable. Some conservatives have called for Romney to attack Obama. This is a terrible idea, because A. it does not make Romney appear relatable and B. Obama will expect this and have easy responses. For example:

Romney: Can you really say Americans are better off than they were four years ago?
Obama: Yes, because of policies A, B, C, etc. (insert Obama talking points here).

Instead, Romney must somehow throw Obama off with remarks Obama does not expect and is not sure how to respond to. As I mentioned previously, the main way to benefit from debates is if one’s opponent does poorly.

There is a huge problem with these three objectives: Romney has been terrible at accomplishing any of them all race. He has completely failed to appear relatable by making idiotic comments and coming across as a robot. He has not presented any major policy proposals that stand up to scrutiny. And he has been consistently outmaneuvered by Obama, which is why he is losing a race that should have been easy to win. Still, with the public extremely sick of this election, the debates (especially the first one) are Romney’s last chance to right the ship.