Thrilla Against Manila

For what seems like forever, the GOP Presidential field has been engaged in debates. They had two over this past weekend before the voting on Tuesday in New Hampshire. They have not been lovefests. And the probable nominee has handled them well and is only getting better. Even Newt Gingrich's gambit of promising to challenge the President to seven 3-hour Lincoln-Douglas style debates underlined the public's sense that Presidential debates are stagey and contrived. Assuming that Romney does not wrap up the nomination after South Carolina and Florida, these debates are going to go on, and should one of Romney's challengers decide to compete all the way to Tampa, we can expect many more candidate “joint appearances” where one main theme will be attacking the President's accomplishments, leadership, philosophy, and foreign policy savvy.

If Newt can challenge the President to many 3-hours debates with no more structure than a timekeeper, I can't see why the President isn't entitled to challenge the several remaining Republican candidates to let him join their ostensibly GOP nomination debates. They are attacking him, can they really object to an opportunity to make their criticisms right to his face under circumstances where he's there to defend himself.

My worry is simple: the President is not a great debater. He's brilliant at giving a calm, composed, confident, and “presidential” impression – that is, he's fantastic at allaying political, ideological, and racial anxieties voters consciously or unconsciously harbor. This election isn't about voters' comfortability level with a young Black Senator; it's about the leadership qualities and accomplishment of that man. And frankly he needs some practice at defending his record. I happen to think that record is pretty damn fine on paper and exceptional compared to what I am able to imagine John McCain would have done instead.

On foreign policy, where we might have expected excuses and geo-political gobbledygook for maintaining the Bush troop levels in Iraq along with aimless incoherent failure in Afghanistan; instead there is a real draw down of troop levels in Iraq, a focused if not brilliant strategy in Afghanistan, and some quite intricate and cunning maneuvering to establish a situation where killing bin laden would not thereby threaten a fundamentalist revolution in Pakistan.

At home, the US government nationalized a major US corporation, operated it from DC, saved it from bankruptcy, and then turned it back over to its stockholders and private managers. On the verge of thousands of small and medium sized towns and cities experiencing having the local bank close up shop, the banking system, the monetary and financial circulatory system of the economic body was shored up and is now not at risk for a catastrophic failure. The stimulus package, lamentably ill-focused and shatter shot, undoubtedly saved millions of jobs and prevented a level of unemployment high enough to create a downward spiral of consumer confidence – the very intangible factor that has to become stronger not weaker for a real recovery to take hold. There is also the law that may well end up leading to a highly desirable and economically competitive state of affairs – all Americans having health care insurance. This idea was proposed by President Truman in 1947.

Some lovely liberal figures – Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, Mo Udall, Mike Mansfield, Frank Church, Scoop Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Dale Bumpers, Paul Wellstone, Bill Bradley, Eugene McCarthy, Barbara Boxer, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Dick Gephardt, Jerry Brown, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Mikulski, Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell, Bobby Kennedy, Al Gore, Geraldine Ferraro, Terry Sanford, Dianne Feinstein, Abe Ribicoff, Paul Simon, Nancy Pelosi, Pat Schroeder, Mario Cuomo, George McGovern, Ed Muskie, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton – had failed to come through on Truman's idea.

Of course the Republicans would say no; and the politicos guarding the President so they can spring him like a caged tiger would never allow it. Plus it violates an absolutely religious rule in politics – when your opponent(s) are messing up or self-destructing, stay out of their way. I am sure that three hours alone on a sun-drenched state fair platform with Mitt Romney would be all it would take. I see no reason for the President to wait to take this guy down before Mitt wins the imprimatur of his party's nomination and the electorate gets so used to his flip-flopping that it gets less noticeable.