First Presidential Debate Provides Much of the Same Rhetoric

Aggressive Romney Vision Short on Truth and Details

 By:  George Addison

Article first published as First Presidential Debate Provides Much of the Same Rhetoric on Technorati.  

Now that the first Presidential debate is over, many political pundits would do better to forget their talking points and look closely at the fine print of Romney’s debate comments. Once you get beyond the aggressive tone and style of his performance, there is little in the way of truth and fact to support his vision.

Aside from launching an attack on “Big Bird” and promising to end subsidies for PBS, Romney went on to play it safe by reiterating and substituting Republican talking points as his vision with few real details.

Unfortunately for President Obama, these debate formats along with the quick interactive response of Tweeter and other social media sites, do very little in supporting his desire for an elevated discussion on the issues. Perhaps the president was restrained by trying to be polite, factual and/or presidential. The left wants him to be a pit bull and not get bogged down by policy talk.

The next debate moderators could learn a lot about what not to do from debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, who did little to bolster his selection as moderator, or to contain Romney and Obama as it related to question context or time restraints.

Romney has made it clear that he does not believe insurance companies should have to cover people with pre-existing conditions who do not have continuous health care coverage.

Yet during the debate he said, “Number one, pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” And, he asserted that 5 million people would lose health care – a number cherry picked from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate. He failed to mention that by all accounts more people “today” lose coverage then even the highest CBO figures. Romney also claims Obama-care will kill jobs and that health care costs will rise $2,500 for families under Obama are not accurate.
These are just a few examples of the type of false assertions he’s willing to imply according to CBO, fact check organizations and other data.

Which Romney will Americans get if elected in November: one who refuses to represent 47 percent of the American populace or one who owes his allegiance to corporations and the wealthy? His bob and weave approach to truth and fact during the Republican debates and this Presidential debate, thus far, has been amazing to watch. What’s more amazing is the number of people seeing his vision as fact not fiction!   It does appear that people are more concerned about style versus substance.

President Obama, on the other hand, has to recognize that for better or worse he needs to tell the truth and not stretch it by saying things like” I put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. Its on a website. You can look at all the numbers. What cuts we make and what revenue we raise.” This statement clearly does not hold up when fact checked.

In the end, many of the debate aesthetics do little to impact the race or the candidates’ future vision for the country. However, there are a few things you can be certain of: first, although Republicans are gleeful at the moment, Romney will find a way to drop the ball at least one more time between now and the election.

Secondly, this will be a dogfight for Obama to the finish as he fights for the hearts and minds of the masses. He must be careful not to lose the election in the waning moments or have it stolen.

Ultimately, the American public will elect a president they deserve.