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President Obama and the Elusive Knockout Punch: A Critical Review

Count down To the Third and Last Debate and the Unending Governor Romney's Deceptions: A way Out!

When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  Act 3:3-6. New International Version

As political events unfold, it is becoming more and more apparent that Governor Romney is not waging a clear-cut campaign. He has become brazenly deceptive and exuberantly irresolute - abandoning one policy position after another with impunity and deploying every shady and diabolical tactics unknown in modern Presidential campaign. There is no harm in being pragmatic, but at least, a true leader, especially one who is campaigning to become the Presidential of the only surviving superpower on earth must be highly principled and steadfast in his core beliefs given the enormity of the responsibilities and challenges inherent to the Oval Office that he is laboring to occupy. Governor Romney is not being pragmatic; he wants to be all things at the same time. His grand scheme is obvious: First, you must attack and trivialize your fellow competitor/opponent's position with dubious claims, then convert most of his ideas as yours where possible, and finally, try and sway the electorates into believing that you have great ideas/knows how to create jobs, without actually supporting your claims with ascertainable facts and figures/no evidence and no record of job creation. It is called "DECEPTION." It is called LIE. It is vintage Mr. Romney and his campaign team. And it is un-Presidential.

The second debate came, and as expected, President Obama, won convincingly. However, on the question of who Americans trust to do a better job on the economy, according to the poll result taken immediately after the second debate among the undecided voters, Governor Romney won. Few days earlier, or prior to the debate, the reverse was the case - the President was on top in every category. The question then remains: what policy statement, specifically on the economy did Governor Romney develop or initiate to engender the confidence; to wit he knows how to create jobs? None, okay, absolutely none. He did not develop or craft any policy statement during the debate to elicit or warrant the alleged confidence on the job question. He was simply being Mr. Romney: brazenly devious and on a fraudulent mission intellectually. 

On the issue of the 'Auto Industry Bail Out,' he told the audience that President Obama did exactly what he, Governor Romney, proposed. In other words, President Obama stole his bankruptcy idea and saved the auto industry in the process - a calculated lie and blatant misrepresentation of facts. Unfortunately, there was no rebuttal from the President in the debate. Adding to that, the President did not make the distinction: for the avoidance of doubt, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” (a total close down approach reminiscence of Bain Capital/Romney’s model) enunciated and openly canvassed by Governor Romney in an op-Ed piece in the New York Times is, with all intents and purposes, different from the systematic and steady (staying alive while continuing funding) approach adopted by President Obama and his administration that ultimately resurrected the auto industry. Making such a distinction in the first debate and in the second debate would have been very helpful to the President and his campaign. 

Adding to that, Governor Romney repeated ad infinitum, albeit rather deceitfully throughout the first and second debates that he knows how to create jobs. Sadly, the President did not provide a rebuttal or refute the Governor’s job creation hogwash. The truth is that, while Mr. Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts; the Commonwealth was   at the periphery in jobs creation.  By simply declaring ad nauseam the job creation lies, he succeeded to a certain degree in convincing more people that he is a better candidate to manage the economy than the President. That's what is sustaining Governor Romney right now in the campaign - unfounded assumption of ability he does not possess. Therefore, the outcome of this election now depend on the ability of President Obama and his campaign to manage and put an end to that open lie. And it won't be his last. As we said in a previous piece: once a liar always a liar. 

What is true and in fact verifiable is that, while he was at Bain Capital, he sent more companies into bankruptcy and more workers into unemployment lines contrary to what one would reasonably expect of a CEO or a Presidential candidate who professes a spirit of compassion and philanthropy. In addition, that the state of Massachusetts ranked 47th in job creation out of the 50 states during Governor Romney era is no longer a secret. But for the unwillingness of the President to go the distance with him on the job creation claim and "Let Detriot Go Bankrupt" declaration during the debates and refute the lies instantly, and to his face, Governor Romney would have been history by now politically. 

Our opinion here is not an afterthought or a recent development.  We said so in June. And last Tuesday, October 16, 2012 (the morning before the second debate) we had this to say in an article, titled “Governor Mitt Romney: What the Presidency is Not About” posted on this Blog and also, posted on my Facebook Time Line for everyone.

“Also, if Governor Mitt Romney is truly a job creator, he should explain to the audience why Massachusetts (during his term as Governor) was at the 47th position out of the 50 States in the country in terms of job creation. The Massachusetts experience is a true indicator of what the undecided voters should expect or should be aware of in a Governor Romney's presidency.”

“He told the Massachusetts electorates that he is a Business man who knows how to create jobs. They fell for it. But he went away, without completing his term or creating the jobs as he promised. That is not an attribute of a true leader we can trust and depend on. And that is not what the Presidency is about.”

“What is true, and in fact, according to the information in the public domain, is that he knows how to make money for himself and his investors. He would borrow largely from the Government and the Banks and inject the new money into the companies that he acquired, making himself, the management team and his investors richer - essentially on the borrowed money. Most often, he would cash-out unceremoniously leaving the companies under-capitalized and on borrowed time to contend with bankruptcy as the last resort.”

“That is the ill of the over-leveraged capitalism that Mr. Romney and his management team have perfected so well. At the end, it is the employees that bear the brunt - the pink slip and the disappearance of benefits and health Insurance coverage.”

Going through the transcript of the second debate, the President only alluded to the issue covered in the last two paragraphs - something the New York Times headed "Corporate raiding" the morning after the second debate. But Mr. President completely left out the first two paragraphs dealing with the Massachusetts job lies. We are not here to pass blame, but to set the record straight - why the Presdent is performing below expectations in the debate and what he must do to overcome the Governor's surge.  

Be that as it may, to the extent that the President is seemingly loathe to going for the killer punch each time occasion calls for it, Governor Romney will not lose steam. We hope and pray that  President Obama will take care of business in the third debate and make Governor Romney laughable. 

From all indications, Mr. Romney has nothing substantively beneficial to offer the electorates; he wants you to elect him President, because the name of the incumbent is Barack Obama. There is no way to reasonably explain his shameless inconsistencies, vagueness and intellectual dishonesty over the past five months and hope that he will be the next President of United States.

CONCLUSION

Given that the debate is only about 90 minutes, you can successfully emasculate your opponent by deploying calculated lies and frivolous statics as long as viewers take you for being assertive. That, my friends, is the reason Governor Romney is gaining steam. And that is his modus operandi in the on-going debates and campaign. Therefore, President Obama and his campaign team should concentrate on Governor Romney's answers and dubious claims, and rebut and refute them as appropriate and decisively.

We anticipate dirty campaign and vilification of the President by the vast coalition network of the Republican Party and the numerous PAC Karl Roves. Also, we were very apprehensive of the fact that most influential Democrats, pundits and opinion leaders were intent, and in fact, about burying the President and his campaign team alive politically in May and June. Thus, our involvement was clear and simple: To provide  Democrats and the Presidential Campaign Team a framework for attack and defense - reminding them that they have achieved a lot, in spite of the Right Wing intransigence that they should be proud of. Also, that Bain Capital, Let Detriot Go Bankrupt, Big Business or Wall Street are part of the game and that the President and his Campaign Team cannot, contrary to the views of pundits and opinion leaders, adequately define Governor Romney without integrating them into the equation. And it works.  But what we did not anticipate during the first debate was that the President will resort to lecturing rather than confronting his opponent with facts and bullets and repeat concisely the usual lines that worked effectively in the past. In addition, we never in our wildest imagination expect that Governor Romney would descend so low as to abandon his extreme ideological position and lay claim to principles and ideas once alien to his core beliefs. It is a gamble that Mr. Romney cannot win.

So, Mr. President, Governor Romney is not a job creator. He simply made Americans to believe he is. Massachusetts and Bain Capital tell different stories. It is your responsibility to tell the World about his exploit at Bain Capital (bankruptcy unlimited and the fact that Massachusetts ranked 47th in job creation during Governor Romney's time). Granted that Republicans and Governor Romney’s campaign team would be reading this, but let your words be against his. It is that simple. Leaving him completely unchallenged in his bogus mudslinging is catastrophic to put it mildly.  He killed jobs as CEO OF Bain Capital. He bankrupt companies as CEO of Bain Capital - it was a no-mercy-business-dealing. He has no inkling of American reality. He did not support the Auto bail out. He wants DETRIOT TO GO BANKRUPT. He said so. He does not know how to create jobs. He did not create job anywhere. Most importantly, he is never consistent. It is about trust. He doesn't have it. Mr. President, put an end to all his lies right now and walk away taller.  Any job worth doing is worth doing right. Good luck in the third debate and in the election.

Governor Mitt Romney: What the Presidency is Not About.

The Presidency is about service to humanity, not a profit making venture for a privileged few. 

Governor Romney has more explaining and more factual analysis to do in the next debate than the usual rigmarole that he has perfected so well over the years. Therefore, the debate must be on those issues and policies that he has enunciated and rejected, without regard to objectivity, common sense and the basic principle of leadership - trust - throughout his political life.

Mr. Romney does not stand for anything economically beneficial to the middle class and those struggling to make it in God's own country. He should explain "let Detroit go bankrupt."  From all indications, a man of the people will not go that far. The Presidency is about the people - it a service.

If I may ask, at what point in your life time do you start to empathize with the poor, the middle-class, the forgotten and the less-privileged in the society?  Must it be only when you are about to run for a political office or aspiring to become the President of the United States of America? It’s all about empathy. Mr. Romney doesn’t have it, judging from his utterances, gaffes, and conduct throughout the Republican primaries and beyond.

President Barack Obama abandoned a lucrative job opportunity in New York City and moved to Chicago to take up an assignment as a Community Organizer – helping the under-served, the less-privileged and the almost forgotten Americans in the South-Side of Chicago and beyond to organize and make a meaning out of their existence. That is empathy.  And that is Public Service that one must be very proud of.

Also, if Governor Mitt Romney is truly a job creator, he should explain to the audience why Massachusetts (during his term as Governor) was at the 47th position out of the 50 States in the country in terms of job creation. The Massachusetts experience is a true indicator of what the undecided voters should expect or should be aware of in a Governor Romney's presidency.

He told the Massachusetts electorates that he is a Business man who knows how to grow business and create jobs. They fell for it. But he went away, without completing his term or creating the jobs as he promised. That is not an attribute of a true leader we can trust and depend on. And that is not what the Presidency is about.

What is true, and in fact, according to the information in the public domain, is that he knows how to make money for himself and his investors. He would borrow largely from the Government and the Banks and inject the new money into the companies that he acquired, making himself, the management team and his investors richer - essentially on the borrowed money. Most often, he would cash-out unceremoniously leaving the companies under-capitalized and on borrowed time to contend with bankruptcy as the last resort. 

That is the ill of the over-leveraged capitalism that Mr. Romney and his management team have perfected so well. At the end, it is the employees that bear the brunt - the pink slip and the disappearance of benefits and health Insurance coverage.

In a nutshell, taking advantage of tax loopholes, filing for bankruptcy, closing down factories, and sending workers to the unemployment lines are not what the Presidency is about - that is not how to create jobs that Governor Romney often talk about. It is a service to the people. It is knowing how and when to care for the middle class.

To be candid, it is not enough to assert that you are compassionate, when your antecedents tell a different story. It is doing the right thing and serving the needs of the employees working at the companies that your acquired.

Similarly, Governor Romney had the opportunity as the Governor of a State to create jobs, but he blew it. He had the opportunity as a Business man to improve the wellbeing and living standard of workers of the companies that he acquired, but he was more interested in the bottom-line and how to make more money for himself and makes his investors richer. He sent more Americans into miserable condition of living and more American companies into the oblivion by his activities at Bain Capital.

He would tell you that he did everything right in the book. However, that is not what the Presidency is about. And that was the reason he failed so badly in Massachusetts - he couldn't replicate Bain Capital’s business model. The obsession and the craze for the bottom-line awesome numbers prevalent at Bain Capital - legal or illegal - are alien or inconsistent with purposeful governance and public service approach. So, the difference is very clear between Governor Romney and President Obama.

He should defend his positions over the years on taxes and taxation, and outsourcing of jobs to China. If he really loves this country, he should defend his Cayman Islands and offshore Banking activities. Even though operating an offshore account is not illegal, with Mr. Romney, the purpose is clear: to evade paying capital gain tax back home. The negative impact of that is very clear as well. The economy stagnates, leading to a drastic cut back in government services to the people. Now you know the genesis of his disdain for the 47 percent of you. That again is not what the Presidency is about.

This country was built on the strength of the American people. Not on perfection of tax loopholes and sending American jobs overseas as perfected by Governor Romney's business interest. Not on sending workers to the unemployment lines after borrowing hugely on their behalf and making yourself richer in the process. Not on inducing companies that you acquired into filing for bankruptcy after making yourself richer from the money that you borrowed in their names and on their behalf. The Presidency is for the people, a service and a fiduciary responsibility. Not profit and huge end-of-year bonanza for a privileged few, while a greater majority wallows in uncertainties, abject poverty and miseries.

Mr. Romney, the difference is clear; your utterances, your actions, your policies, and your goal do not comport well with the expectations of the American people. The Presidency is about service, not profit for a privileged few. It is not a get-rich-quick endeavor reputed of Bain Capital that Governor Romney helped catapult to a money making machine status at the back of the middle-class and the less-privileged.

President Obama: The Danger of Changing a Winning Formula

Undoing the Damage of the First Debate! 

"Taking a stand for President Barack Obama's re-election is a stand for what is right, just, and equitable, because he wants the very best for every American family judging by what he has done so far and attempted to do.  I stand for the President because it is the right thing to do. Above all, a stand for President Barack Obama is a stand for the truth, audacity, creativity, and innovation. Republicans want him to fail, not necessarily on account of what he is doing wrong, but because of resentment rooted in hatred and unwillingness to embrace the likelihood of American history recording the first of his kind as a "Great President". Now that the political system is overwhelmed with corporate money, Americans should brace for surprises, lies, and misinformation from Karl Rove and his plethora of Super PACs." An excerpt from "OBAMA: Citizen United, Invisible Resistance, and the Hacking Of American Democracy", posted June 08, 2012.

Dear Mr. President, if you have forgotten, the above quote was the introduction to the article that changes the dynamics of the 2012 Presidential campaign towards the end of June 2012. Prior to its publication, most Democrats were tepid and lackadaisical identifying with their accomplishments in the past three years. In addition, the wisdom in town then was that Democrats and your campaign should not talk about Big Business, Wall Street, and Bain Capital. 

We disagreed vehemently, and made a compelling case for their adoption as campaign headlines in the article, titled "OBAMA: Citizen United, Invisible Resistance, and the Hacking of American Democracy." To our greatest joy, your honorable self and your campaign listened and did the right thing. And then, there was a surge. As expected, a bandwagon effect developed and the pundits follow suit. That was the beginning of the definition of Governor Mitt Romney.

What saddened me (though, I'm still very confident that you will make a good come-back in the next few days) during and after the debate was your seeming unwillingness to use one single punch line in that article throughout the duration of the debate. In spite of everything, what saddened me the most is that Republicans and the Romney campaign team are presently regular visitors to this blog and have been flipping and using the information here to their advantage, especially Mr. Romney during the debate.

For instance, you did not talk about trickle-down economics, but Governor Romney did, using it indirectly to castigate the government. He opined that government did not trickle down - a fabrication and outright misrepresentation of quality fact. The Auto industry has resurrected and General Motors is once again, on top of the Auto World. 

Also, there is a boom in the ancillary sectors, resulting in improved job growth in and around the State of Ohio. There is improved healthcare coverage, and a repeal of don't ask don't tell. Indeed, the government did trickle down. It was the tax break for those who do not need it that did not trickle down – they did not create jobs as expected. That, no doubt, was the underlying factor for the tax break initiative in the first case.

On the issue of healthcare Insurance, it is not just enough to say that Paul Ryan and Governor Romney want to transfer it to a voucher program, and tell the American people what is at stake. In other words, let the American people know that there is a price tag or price limit on the voucher, and once the patient's healthcare cost exceeds the amount on the voucher, she is on her own. In a nutshell, that is not health insurance.

Finally, Mr. Romney wants to balloon Defense Budget, but he wants to cut federal spending and services simultaneously. How he is going to do he can not explain. He wants to grow the economy, but he doesn't consider it conscientious to tax the Millionaires and the Billionaires who have no need for the tax break. 

Good Luck, Mr. President in the next two debates.

Governor Mitt Romney: Once a Liar, always a Liar.

How can you reasonably and objectively debate someone - a presidential candidate for that matter - who is not principled enough to take a stand on any issue and be steadfast about it?

Truth is VERY VERY important, especially when you are aspiring to become the President and First Family of God’s own country.  Governor Mitt Romney misrepresents facts deliberately and relentlessly during his first debate with the President. He purposely and knowingly propagates falsehood in order to assume a new and clean profile that is patently bogus, even before the deaf and the blind. We want to know who Governor Romney is. Presently, he is no longer the extreme conservative, tea party loving /sympathizer guy who ran with the Republican extremist right-wingers, propagating hawkish and 'government is the enemy' baloney throughout the primaries. All of a sudden, he wants to become the liberal Republican who ran against Senator Kennedy in 1994.

Granted that President Obama was a little bit professorial during the debate, but he is consistent. We know who he is; he does not pander to right-wing or left-wing talk heads on radio and TV in order to appear relevant. He told us exactly what he would do if Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan and the Pakistani government fails to apprehend him or cooperate with American forces to apprehend him. And he did exactly as he promised. That is a fact no Dick Cheney or any Republican propaganda machine can distort.

Governor Romney does not stand for anything. He ran away from the Healthcare policy that he helped to put in place in Massachusetts, because President Obama embraced it at the national level.  Now, he wants to be a part of it. He lambasted American 47%, now he is embracing them.  He never subscribe to Reagan's School of thought, now he is a Reagan lover. He used to be an advocate of women’s right (pro-choice), now he is pro-life. He wants Detroit (auto industry) to go bankrupt, now he is telling the people of Michigan and Ohio that he is one of them. And he had the audacity to declare during the debate that Government did not trickle down under President Obama. He questioned hiring Police Officer, Fire Fighters, and Teacher, yet he is telling the American people that he is a lover of the middle-class.

He wants to give tax break to millionaires who do not need it, yet he wants to invade Iran, while fighting two wars. How do you grow an economy, if you do not invest, and those in position to pay taxes to Government are not doing so? You want to cut spending in those essential areas of our lives that make American what it is today! So far, Governor Romney has not been able to tell the American people the areas he is targeting. And it better not be the Department of Education.

Truth is, Mr. Romney is too detached from American reality and he is depending on pundits on radio, TV, and Newspaper to goad him.  And they are goading him real good on the choices he makes.  Now you know why he flips-n-flops like a butterfly contending with extreme weather condition. President Obama has been very steady, despite the right wings resolution to frustrate him.  That’s a President we need - a steady-mind. 

The race has just begun and Governor Romney has plethora of unanswered questions to answer before the American people. President Obama did more than he promised the electorates in 2008, the economy has regained its lost glory and job health has improved tremendously. That is a statement of fact, whether the Jack Welch and the conspiracy theorists out there like it.

Victory is for the just and the meek. Victory is ours. President Obama will be vindicated and he will be elected again to another four years by the American people to be able to complete the bold ideas and transformation mechanisms he has engineered. 

Finally, I do not have any problem with members of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) or their consultants embracing our progressive thoughts and rephrasing them to suit their purpose, but certainly not the Romney Campaign stealing and twisting our ideas purposely to burnish the distorted image of their flag bearer who is not and cannot be described as "firm of purpose". That is roguish and intellectually dishonest.