Mitt Romney has turned into such a skilled debater that he could trounce President Barack Obama in their three head-to-head encounters in the run-up to the election, former Democratic Labor Secretary Robert Reich believes.
Romney “is going to be debating somebody who is not nearly as good a debater as his reputation,” Reich tells Atlantic Magazine in its September issue. He says that under live questioning, Obama “can seem kind of wooden” and “at a loss for words.”
Reich, now Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was quoted in an extensive article in the Atlantic by its longtime national correspondent, James Fallows. The magazine’s report was based on an examination of tapes of Romney’s debates throughout his political career.Read the rest of the story HERE.
That first began with three contests against Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy for the U.S. Senate in 1994 and continued with Romney’s successful 2002 quest for the statehouse, his failed 2008 presidential bid and finally with the 2012 Republican presidential primaries.
I agree that Romney will win the debates. However, what we're witnessing here is one of the oldest political tricks in the book. The planting of a seed by the Dems....Low expectations for their guy and high expectations for ours.
The idea is, if their guy comes out and falls asleep, well...that was to be expected. However if he has a C- night, they'll try and apply a grading curve to give their guy a win even if Romney has a great night.
I expect others Democrats to come out now and play down Obama's debating skills while emphasizing Romney's strengths in that area.
3 comments:
I agree. Classic rope-a-dope strategy.
Every time I've seen Obama live, he seems wooden and at a loss for words. This is absolutely true. That's how I correctly figured out long before Obama got the Democratic nomination back in 2008 that English was Obama's second language. When I saw him speaking I picked up that he acted like someone from another country who is struggling with English.
Thing is, when it comes to Obama and anything to do with speaking skills, it's impossible to really lower expectations.
The media has REALLY built up this guys skills, despite the fact that he's laughable once he's away from a teleprompter.
I mean, heck, McCain beat him decidedly in the debates in 2008. The only reason people didn't notice was because the media covered for him, and because the populace in general wasn't prepared to be critical of Obama.
So, I expect debates to be a disaster for Obama, regardless of how they try to tamper expectations.
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