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October 9, 2012

The Two Romneys

By Cliff Schecter

So, President Obama, come out strong in your next debate. Bring the fire. And remind people that there are two different Mitt Romneys: The public Mitt, and the one behind closed doors. And God help us if we give either of them a chance to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

::::::::

Cross-posted from AlJazeera

Obama needs to go into the next debate with a simple theme -- one which happens to have the benefit of being true. 

"There is the Mitt Romney you see in public, and then there's the Mitt Romney behind closed doors," says author [AFP]

With a few days' perspective since the Rumble Filled With Jumble, I've gained some additional perspective on the first presidential debate. And that perspective has led me to one inescapable conclusion: Nothing's changed -- President Obama was terrible.  

Now I could go through all the things he did wrong in taking on the Forbes 500 Fabricator, but most of them, such as the never-mentioned "47 percent," Bain, Mitt's man-sized Cheney safe where he keeps his tax returns, social issues and naming one of his kids Tagg, well, that's water under the drawbridge you need to cross to get to each of Romney's estates. 

But I am here to tell Barack Obama (and to a lesser extent Vice-President Joe Biden) what he should do in the coming debates, when taking on someone who takes more positions than yoga guru Bikram Choudhary, and will likely continue to bob and weave like he's Big Bird trying to escape Rick Santorum's teeth.

Now let's give credit where it's due, this idea comes from my wife's immediate reaction to the big debate the other night -- and as she has at least a 100-IQ-point head start on me, she gets it right as always. 

So here it goes: President Obama needs to go into the next debate with a simple theme -- one which happens to have the benefit of being true. There is the Mitt Romney you see in public, and then there's the Mitt Romney behind closed doors.  

Public Mitt Romney loves all of humanity like it's a baby cuddled close to his breast for protection. Private Mitt Romney thinks 47 percent of us are moochers who are not worthy of his attention because we don't support his candidacy, as we're somehow not bedazzled by his heartlessness towards children of undocumented workers, attacks on women's rights and serial abuse of hair product.  

Public Mitt just hates offshoring. Behind-closed-doors Mitt used to attend secretive meetings while at Bain where he invested in a company that pioneered new methods for taking American jobs to China. Public Mitt just loves, (loves I tell you!), Medicare. The more private Mitt is meeting with his vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, to figure out how to voucherise it.  

Finally, you have public Mitt chastising President Obama for not being more "transparent." Yet, Private Mitt thinks he should have the right to only share one year of his tax returns with those who would make the most powerful person in the land -- breaking a tradition his father started and all modern presidential candidates have adhered to (although, in his defense, it may be because he got tax amnesty for 2009 and earlier, for using UBS accounts to avoid paying taxes for years -- and that could make him look like a rich brat who lacks respect for the laws of the US, or something).

The President picked up on this theme somewhat in a speech in Denver the day after the debate. He pointed out that he didn't know who was up on the stage with him, because his opponent looked like Mitt Romney, but said things that didn't match reality about his tax plan, Medicare plan, offshoring and the like. This is also known as lying, something Mitt Romney does like it's a bodily function. Don't expect that to change anytime, well, ever. 

So Mr President -- if you're reading this, and I'm sure you are -- I have a real problem with your lack of action on the gun violence plaguing our country. Your seeming embrace of Simpson Bowles is nothing short of terrible policy and politics. Your decision to go after whistleblowers confounds me, and frankly is morally wrong. 

But you have done many good things, particularly when it comes to healthcare, the Supreme Court, minority rights, the auto bailout and knocking off that bin Laden guy that Mitt Romney would've -- by his own words -- spent less time worrying about than finding new offshore homes for his lucre. You, Mr President, are the man for the job.  

So please don't let this prevaricating Ken Doll come in next time and get away with re-writing his history for what, the 4th time? 5th time?  

The man thinks Russia is our biggest foreign policy challenge, the poor are doing just fine and that airplanes should remove their windows in flight. We can't afford that in the White House. We tried that in 2000, and I give you five words: 9/11; Katrina; economic crash. 

So come out strong in your next debate. Bring the fire. And remind people that there are two different Mitt Romneys: The public Mitt, and the one behind closed doors. And God help us if we give either of them a chance to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.



Authors Website: http://www.cliffschecter.com

Authors Bio:
Cliff Schecter is an author, pundit and public relations strategist whose firm Libertas, LLC
handles media relations for political, corporate and non-profit
clients. In 2008, his first book, The Real McCain: Why Conservatives
Don't Trust Him--And Why Independents Shouldn't, was published by
PoliPoint Press and became a political (#2) and non-fiction (#17)
bestseller at Amazon. As founder and President of Libertas, he has
counseled Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), Chaired by New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and The Alliance For Climate Protection, run by
former Vice-President Al Gore. Other clients have included IBM, The
American Association for Justice (previously The American Trial Lawyers
Association), Global Strategy Group, Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, and
the Earth Day Network.



Schecter was an analyst at polling firm Penn & Schoen in 1996,
helping re-elect President Bill Clinton. As a political and media
strategist overall, he has helped advise the Democratic National
Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as
the campaigns of former Virginia Governor and current U.S. Senator Mark
Warner, former New York Attorney General and Governor Elliot Spitzer,
former Connecticut Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont and former Ohio
Congressional candidate Paul Hackett, among others. Schecter's been a
lecturer for the U.S. State Department--delivering briefings on U.S.
politics to diplomats, journalists and academics in countries such as
South Africa, Australia, Romania and Malta.



Schecter is a weekly columnist for Al Jazeera English, reaching almost
400,000 readers, 80% of which reside in North America. He is a
contributor to The Guardian Online and Huffington Post. Previously,
Schecter had columns syndicated nationally by United Press International
and Knight Ridder Inc. His writing has been featured in the San
Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Daily News, Miami Herald, USA Today,
American Prospect, Salon.com and Washington Monthly Magazine. His ideas
have been quoted in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore
Sun, and he's been profiled in U.S News & World Report, Wired.com
and the Huffington Post.



Over the past decade, Schecter has been a regular guest on PBS, MSNBC,
CNN FoxNews, BBC and NPR. He was an on-air political analyst for the
Sinclair Broadcast Network in 2004, syndicated on 60 local
broadcast-news affiliates to 38 media markets around the country. He
served in a similar capacity for Al Jazeera in 2008, with his analysis
reaching countries spanning the globe. Currently he is a regular
panelist on Your Voice, a Sunday morning public affairs show broadcast
on Fox and ABC in the Columbus, Ohio area.



Schecter is a graduate of the Columbia School of International and
Public Affairs (MA), where he concentrated in International Journalism
and Public Relations, the University of Pennsylvania (BA), where he
studied American History and Legal Studies, and the Institut de
Francais, where he received a French Immersion Certificate. He is ABD
(all but dissertation) in his studies for his Ph.D. in American History
from American University in Washington, D.C.

He has a wife, a young son and two cats. He likes all of them a lot.

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