Romney Wins First Debate

Mitt Romney won the first presidential debate, by all accounts.   Mitt appealed to the plain Americans in the middle, the undecided Geralds and Gladyses of Ohio, and the Rustys and Britneys of North Carolina, the ones who are not necessarily inclined to go to the president's campaign website, as president Obama, ever the intellectual, in contrast, implored them to do, to study his economic plan or anything else.   No, Mitt appealed to their yearning for a strong America, where jobs are once again in abundance, where its citizens are prospering and where the Chinese are being beaten back.   In fact, Mitt sounded a lot like Ronald Reagan (save for the remark about PBS and Big Bird), with the same straightforward, folksy way of communicating and bonding with the television audience.   In fact, he even stole Reagan's economic plan, it seemed to me.   Here was Mitt describing trickle down economics -- voodoo economics to some -- the way Reagan did in 1980.   Where did this come from all of a sudden?

The one thing you can count on with Shifty Mitt is that he will tell undecided Americans what he thinks they want to hear because his only goal is to win.  Unfortunately for those undecideds it makes it tough for them to determine what Mitt Romney really stands for.   Is it what he officially says in public debates, for instance, or is it what he does, such as pay as little personal income tax as he can get away with.  Is it how he acts in public, all smiles and hugs, or is it how he dismisses non tax-paying Americans -- the so-called 47% -- like he did behind closed doors at one of his fund raisers?

And why did Mitt change his explanation so many times about that damning "47%" comment?   Why didn't he and his campaign team craft a smarter response soon after the fund raiser video was leaked that fateful Monday night in September?   Why didn't Mitt say, right from the start, that what he meant by his remark was that he was focused on capturing the votes of the 53% that pay taxes, given that so much of his campaign revolves around tax relief for America, and not that he was disinterested in helping the other 47%?   I have to conclude that, either Mitt's team let him twist in the wind, or Mitt didn't listen to them in damage control sessions, or that Mitt hadn't yet truly latched onto trickle-down economic theory.

Anyway, Mitt has been so inconsistent, so devoid of details, so hypocritical in his actions, that most Americans, including the Geralds and Gladyses in Buckeye country, will remember what another former president, one George Dubya, said (or at least tried to say): "Fool me once, shame on you...."(Fool me twice, shame on me!).

They won't be be fooled by Romney's latest attempted incarnation: that of the late Ronald Reagan.  Which is why the polls are still on Obama's side.