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October 13, 2012

Debate Advice for Barack Obama

By Gregory Paul

Some helpful advice for the POTUS.

::::::::

Here are some items that many may wish the POTUS will deploy against Romney in the upcoming debates.

"Governor Romney, you claim that you will be an effective, job-creating leader of this nation, relying on your experience as a CEO job-maker. Yet as governor of the great state of Massachusetts, you ran for only one term, because your popularity was so low by the end that you knew you could not win reelection, and did not want to go down to defeat. One reason you were so unpopular was because under your guidance, Massachusetts had nearly the worst job-creation record of any state during those years. So why should anyone believe that you would be an effective president when you were so unpopular and ineffective in your own state?

"And while we are at it. Will you finally tell Americans at long last how many people you fired when at Bain? And how many jobs you shipped overseas? And how many small businesses and their mom and pop owners you put out of business with the chain franchises like Staples you promoted? (For discussion on this see click here.) You have been claiming to be a skilled creator of jobs and small businesses, so surely you can show us how many of both you created compared to how many you wiped out, right? Didn't you keep count? If you don't have hard figures, then why should we trust you, when you proved so bad at creating jobs when you governed Massachusetts? In fact you keep going on and on about how we should trust you when it comes to your own taxes, and tax plans for the nation. Why should we? We want the facts. If you can't put up the stats, then stop claiming what you can't show us to be true.

"Dear voters. Think about it. The governor is going to lose the election big time in the state he ran just a few years ago. Why is that? And he is likely to lose in his home state, where his father was a popular advocate of the automobile industry that his son wanted to toss into the ditch a few years ago. Why is that? It is because the people of these states know that Romney might have been good at making quick profits at Bain, but he has no idea to do what I am working at, the long term job of building up the middle class that really makes this nation great and prosperous.

"Governor Romney. You have quite correctly condemned the hateful statement by Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin about how women who are "legitimately" raped almost never get pregnant. But he is still running for the office, with considerable support from your party as it strives to win control of the Senate. Are you willing, here and now, to urge the good people of the state of Missouri to vote to reelect Senator McCaskill simply to keep Akin out of the august body he has no place aspiring to be in? To put principle above political expediency?

"Governor Romney. You are opposed to abortion. Why? Because you think it is murder? If so, then do you really think that women who have abortions are murderers? Do you really think they should be punished as criminals? After all, if you don't make abortion a criminal homicide then you can't ban it. Governor, don't you trust the women of America to make these difficult decisions, in consultation with their doctors? Or do you want big government to tell women what they can and can't do? Please tell us exactly what you actually think, something you often don't do. I will tell the nation exactly what I think about all this. Abortion is not a crime. I know women who have had abortions, and not one of them is a murderer. They are fine, upstanding citizens and persons who had to make a difficult choice. And let me be perfectly clear on this. I trust the women of America to make these decisions without big government threatening them with punishment. Governor, I urge you to join me in ensuring that the women of this nation have their full reproductive rights -- as you once did when you said you were pro-choice -- and won't have to return to the day when they were made criminals and risked their lives when they decided to have an abortion. And I promise the women of this nation that in my second term I will fight to make sure that the reproductive rights of every women are respected in full.

"Who are you, governor? Seriously, you say one thing at one time and exactly the opposite at the other so often that we have to ask. Who is the real Romney? Now, at the last debate, I admit I was kind of befuddled. To the point a lot of the time I had to mull things over more than I liked because I was trying to figure out what you had just said since it was likely to be the opposite of what you said a week or two before. I expected Tea Party Romney to show up. But you had gone all Etch-A-Sketch. The Republican candidate who showed up was moderate Massachusetts Governor Romney. Take how when you were talking in confidence to your fellow one-percenters, you clearly said that 47% of the nation was not your concern. You waved away half the country as being beneath you. Then a couple of weekends ago you said you were wrong. What's that about? A little while ago you were telling Americans that you were going to give them a 20% tax cut. That's an easy path to take. But that would increase the deficit by nearly 5 trillion over a decade, as I pointed out in the last debate. So right then and there you said you were not going to add to the deficit because there would in the end be no overall tax cut. Well which is it? Actually, the experts have crunched the numbers and have found that under your scheme the wealthy will save hundreds of thousands on average, while the middle class will actually pay a couple thousand more because you will have to cut out so many middle-class exemptions to make it balance out. There is no ambiguity about my second-term tax plan. I will raise taxes a modest amount only on the rich who can afford it, so they will pay their fair share.

"You are now saying we should arm the Syrian rebels. But when I intervened in Libya you first condemned me for doing that. Don't deny it; it was recorded. Now you back our getting involved in Libya? Why should American's trust you to be their president when your positions shift with the prevailing winds?

"Governor, you need to be entirely clear to America about this. After you repeal the Obamacare that you know we based on your Romneycare -- actually the best idea you ever had -- is it not true that you will allow the insurance companies to exclude those with serious preexisting conditions? People who have lost their insurance because their job has been shipped overseas or lost due to downsizing? And just what are these people supposed to do, governor? When you were governor you understood that we can no longer rely on emergency rooms to handle the uninsured. Its kills people and costs us all too much. One way or another everyone needs to be insured if we are going to enjoy the low cost, highly effective health care that every other advanced democracy enjoys. You know that, so why don't you admit it? And why is it a good idea for the people of Massachusetts to enjoy Romney Care, while the people of say Mississippi are left at the mercy of the insurance industry? What do you have against the good folks in Mississippi, and Montana?   When I am reelected I will make sure that all Americans get the health care they need.

"Governor, do what I did, and what your father did. Release your tax filings for this century. Don't demand that the voters trust you, show them whether they can trust you.   

"Dear fellow Americans. If you want a man who had one of the worst job-creation records as governor, vote for Romney. If you want a president who showed tremendous skill at making enormous profits for his clients on the backs of the workers whose jobs he eliminated or sent overseas, vote for Romney. If you want a president who will continue the Republican libertarian scheme of using the government to benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class, vote for Romney. If you want a president who will continue the Republican way of deregulating the financial industry to the degree that the rich rig the system for their benefit while making it so unstable that it will again crash, vote for Romney. If you want a president who will work to make women who have an abortion a criminal, vote from my challenger. If you want a president who is relying upon many of the same Bush advisers who got us into questionable wars, vote for Romney.

"With me, you know what you get. So if you want a president that when he came into office stopped the nation from plunging into outright depression, and has since overseen the steady creation of millions of jobs, then vote for me. If you think the financial industry should be kept from again spinning out of control, give me four more years. If you want a president who will work for the bedrock of our nation and economy, the middle class, then give me four more years. If you want a president who will keep our nation strong, and will pursue a prudent foreign policy, then give me four more years. If you want to ensure that abortion remains safe and legal, vote for me. Are you opposed to the Supreme Court being packed with conservatives? I will see to it that it is not. If you want a president who will not do what Romney wants, to convert Medicare to vouchers that benefit the insurance industry while ripping off the elderly, vote for me. If you want a president who will not allow the Republicans to do what they have always dreamed of, convert Social Security to investment schemes that will fill the overseas bank accounts of the financiers while leaving seniors holding the bag, then give me four more years.

"Candidate Romney is not part of the solution. He is part of the problem. He is part and parcel of the very financial system that has been hurting the middle class for decades, and got us into this mess in the first place--A mess I have been cleaning up for the last three and a half years. It is hard to believe that a national party nominated a person who is part of the problem and then wants us to actually believe he has any idea of what the solution is. What are they thinking? The Republicans never seem to learn, they keep going back to the same right-wing ideology of the government giving the gifts to the top percent and hoping the middle class gets some of it, a fantasy that has never worked. Let's finally put a stop to the Republican incompetence. They are stuck in the 1920s, they have no idea how to run a modern government. Reelect the sensible, middle-of-the-road Democrat. Give me four more years."   

(A final comment. Obama needs to stop saying "ummm" and "uh" so much. Seriously. It is a bad verbal tick no one seems to have gotten him to knock off. Makes him sound indecisive.)



Authors Bio:
Gregory Paul is an independent researcher interested in informing the public about little known yet important aspects of the complex interactions between religion, secularism, culture, economics, politics and societal conditions. His scholarly work has appeared in Evolutionary Psychology, Journal of Religion and Society, The Journal of Medical Ethics, Philosophy and Theology. Popular essays are at Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post/On Faith, Edge and one of the most widely read Washington Post op-eds (5/29&30/11). Coverage of Paul's research has appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, The Guardian, London Times, LA Times, MSNBC, FoxNews.

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