Hello friends!
We’ve all seen the polls. We’ve gone from an almost sure win, to about a 60% chance of a win in the presidential election. There’s been a lot of sadness and doubt going on here. I should know. I’m one of the ones dealing with those feelings lately. I think some people have been giving good advice on how to deal with those feelings. Phone bank, canvas, talk to your friends and neighbors. Make sure they vote!
Now, I know what comes next. “It won’t be enough if the president doesn’t do well enough on Tuesday.” Well now, I believe that does have some truth to it. However, I have great faith in my president. He’s hunkering down doing debate prep as I write this. He’s got Clinton and Springsteen set up to campaign for him in Ohio. He’s going on the Daily Show on Thursday. He’s got his amazing wife, Smilin’ Joe, and Joe’s wife Jill all out campaigning for him. Yes, I’d still like him to knock it out of the park on Tuesday. With that it mind, I’ve got a list of things he should do during the debate to firm up his base, win back independent voters, and showcase Romney’s turd of a record.
#1. Bring up women’s issues.
The only time women’s issues have been brought up was at the end of the vice presidential debate when the candidates were asked about how their religious views (Catholicism) impacted their views on abortion. Almost everyone says Biden won that question saying that his religious views should not impact another woman’s choice. Obama needs to bring up the fact that Romney supported the Blunt amendment, that he wants to overturn Roe Vs. Wade, that he thinks birth control should not be available on health insurance without your boss’ permission, that he waffled on his views. This is a winning issue for the president! Women want to like Obama, but when he doesn’t talk to them as a group, like he didn’t during the first debate, it doesn’t look good. Go after Romney on this, Mr. President! Go after the whole Republican Party on this!
#2. Remember names, use personal stories.
This is a town hall debate. Don’t underestimate Romney. He’s done these plenty of times in the recent past. Thankfully, the president is pretty good at these as well. How can he gain an advantage? Remember the questioners name. Use it in your answer. Talk about the individual families you’ve met on the campaign trail. Talk about your own personal struggles growing up or before you had money. Talk about your family. Don’t just give a scientific or encyclopedic answer like the last debate. It won’t work here.
#3. Talk about the economic improvements of the last month!
We’ve had lots of reports of economic improvement in the last few weeks. Drop in unemployment rate to 7.8%, lowest amount of people asking for unemployment checks in a long time, home prices going up, home sales going up, manufacturing doing okay, consumer confidence at 4 year high… All this is at his disposal. Use it to show we’re turning another corner. Make people know that you know that they probably haven’t felt this yet, but that things are getting better. Also make sure they know that Romney, while governor, was responsible for one of the worst rates of job growth in the United States.
#4. Go for the younger voter, not just seniors.
Your biggest fans are younger voters. The problem is getting them to go vote. This will be easier to do if you actually talk about things that matter to them, like Pell Grants and getting engineering and science degrees. Now, they may not come up in the questions, but that’s never stopped a candidate from going off on a tangent in these things. Do it!
#5. Don’t be afraid to multi-point your answer.
Now, by this I mean work other issues into your answers other than the issue questioned if possible. If asked about Medicare, don’t be afraid to do a shout out to those below 55 who would be effect by the Romney/Ryan Medicare plan. Talk to those 50-54 year olds who will have the worst luck. Talk about how younger people will no longer be guaranteed Medicare, who will have to pay more out of pocket. When asked about Iran, make sure people know that Romney seems to want to rush into wars whenever we’re offended. Make a Bush comparison (But do so sparingly, please.)
#6. Show Romney for what he is.
If you do this right, you can force conservatives to look at Goode or Johnson instead. You can get your independents back. Show that you can’t trust Romney. That he’s made so many flip-flops that he doesn’t even know where he stands at any given time. (Bring up the abortion flipflop from last week.) Make him make sense of himself. Bring up 47%, and ask why it took him like 17 days after it was made public to apologize for it. Bring home that it wasn’t a misspeak. Remind people he stood by it at first. Remind people of what he said when he was in the primary. Bring up immigration views! That’ll bring up your Hispanic support! Don’t worry what conservatives will think of your views on the subject, you won’t win them anyway.
Oh, and a point to bring up to you guys.
#7. Don’t let the conservatives spin the debate results.
This happened after the vice-presidential debate. Remember? We all thought Biden won. Then the news people said it was a draw. The conservatives said Ryan won and that Biden was disrespectful. We can’t let that happen again. We need to be behind the president if he does well. Go to twitter. Bombard the news stations twitter accounts. (Remember that after debates, they do the twitter crawls on the bottom of the tv screens too.) Make sure everyone knows not to trust the CNN poll, as it’s been rigged both times this year. Post to Facebook! Make sure your friends know we won. Remember, a conservative will gloat on Facebook in a heartbeat. Don’t be afraid to do so as well.
Those are my points to Obama. I hope he does these things, as they seem common sense to me. Anyone got any other ideas? Are my points good ones? Let’s have a discussion here. I’m starting to have a good feeling about Tuesday.