It’s a given now that Mitt Romney performed brilliantly in the first presidential debate, but some less-than-obvious benefits are still emerging. Beyond predictable poll bounces and fund-raising jumps, an added gain is the dilemma Team Obama faces in trying to regroup after the shellacking.
Desperately trying to change the storyline, all the president’s men immediately went into DEFCON attack mode. On the stump and in ads, they charged out of Denver calling Romney a liar and promised that a more combative president would show up the next time.
It was a reaction designed to calm Obama’s left-wing base, which was spittin’ mad after his pathetic performance. But the leftward lurch carries a potentially high price.
Obama’s effort to placate the MSNBC crowd clashes with his need to attract moderate independents who will decide the election. It’s difficult to do both at the same time and Obama’s decision to go ultra-negative and nasty creates another opportunity for Romney in the swing states.
It is Politics 101 that candidates shore up their bases in the primary seasons, then move to the center to broaden their appeal for the general election. Romney and Obama both tried to do it at the debate, but with very different results.
Early on, for example, the president tried to cast himself as a reasonable man. It was an echo of the uniter role Obama promised four years ago but rarely kept after he got into the White House.
But just as Romney touted his work with Democrats in Massachusetts, Obama talked of bipartisanship and praised the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan he had shunned. Instead of using “Republicans” as a pejorative, he mentioned them only in the context of issues supported by both parties.
The president’s weak effort was quickly overshadowed by his tongue-tied stupor, and the fury on the left is scrambling the feint to the center. It’s a problem he didn’t expect to face so late in the campaign. After all, he spent two years pandering to environmentalists, unions, young and minority voters. He figured he had them in the bag.
More pandering now to make sure they vote, especially by ramping up slash-and-burn attacks on Romney, are not likely to woo those independents who weren’t wooed already. Attacks that re-excite his base may turn off moderates and drive them into Romney’s camp.
The contradictory challenge Obama faces stands in contrast to Romney’s double success. He managed to touch all the conservative erogenous zones while, in the same 90 minutes, present himself to independents as a sensible, pragmatic alternative to the president.
Consider that conservatives who never warmed to Romney were calling his performance the best by a GOP nominee in decades.
At the same time, a CBS poll of independent voters found that 46 percent believe he won the debate, with only 22 percent thinking Obama did.
Part of the winning approach that deserves more attention was Romney’s defense against the charge that his plan to cut income-tax rates by 20 percent would drive up the deficit or lead to tax hikes on middle-income Americans.
Romney, who previously insisted his plan would be “revenue neutral” because he would eliminate tax deductions, suddenly made three clear promises that left Obama stumped.
In quick order, Romney promised he wouldn’t cut any taxes that added a penny to the deficit. He also said he would not raise taxes on the middle class no matter what and promised that upper-income families would not see their share of taxes fall.
The combined details add meat to his plan for growth and also make cutting the deficit more important than tax cuts. As such, the formulation undercut Obama’s charge that the “math” of Romney’s plan doesn’t work and would penalize the middle class.
Obama’s furious response after the debate, that Romney’s new tax details somehow make him a liar, is crude and reinforces the image of Obama as unpresidential. The charge is also not likely to succeed. The longer the president sticks with it, the better Romney will look to independents.
Mayoral hopeful leads the tax hacks
The last we heard from Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, he was searching for ways to lower the city’s unemployment rate. Now he has an idea that would almost certainly raise it.
The Democrat, a likely mayoral candidate next year, wants to hike taxes on families earning over $500,000 a year. He says the money would go for pre-kindergarten classes and after-school activities for middle-schoolers.
In typical liberal fashion, he called higher taxes “an investment” and promised to couple them with a push to rein in pension costs for public unions.
Talk about your non sequitur. Unions would see the extra cash, as much as $500 million a year, as a reason not to make concessions. And the tax hike would push the top combined city-state rate to more than 13 percent. As Mayor Bloomberg said, some New Yorkers would surely decamp to avoid the bite.
The city already spends about $20 billion a year on schools, and the idea that more money is always the answer is as innovative as the horse and buggy. De Blasio has to know that his proposal, which would need Albany approval, is dead in the water.
But perhaps passage wasn’t the point.
Higher taxes on the rich are catnip to many Democrats who will vote in next year’s primary, and de Blasio no doubt wanted to get their attention.
How novel.
Such vile squatters
Don’t tell reader Sheri Rosen the Occupy-Pests have gone away. She works in lower Manhattan and has been trying to get City Hall to clean up a “public health concern” in the area near Trinity Church.
“Why are they allowed to urinate, defecate, and nothing is done about it?” she wrote to city officials. “If you don’t pick up after your dog, you get fined $250. Why are these people more important than the health and well- being of hardworking New Yorkers?
“My co-worker and I just came back from lunch, and we witnessed a couple naked and having sex. When did this become OK?????”
‘Political’ defense of ‘Miss Piggy’ bank
Say this for PBS — it never misses an opportunity to reveal its political bias. After Mitt Romney said he favored eliminating federal subsidies of nearly $450 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CEO Paula Kerger called it “stunning” and “unbelievable.”
“This isn’t about the budget. It has to be about politics,” she said.
Actually, it is about the money. That she doesn’t get it reflects her politics.
America’s cup race
Forget the polls — Mitt Romney has a fat lead in the most important race of all. The plastic plebiscite at the Monogram Shop in East Hampton has Romney-Ryan drinking cups outselling Obama-Biden cups.
Since May, owner Valerie Smith has sold 4,711 GOP cups, against 4,056 Dem cups. That more than doubles the lead Romney held before Labor Day.
Smith says sales accurately predicted the last two elections. Apparently, as East Hampton goes, so goes America.