History shows how Obama will debate Romney
theGRIO REPORT- Cosmetics aside, President Obama, as his first debate with Mitt Romney nears, speaks and debates in a remarkably similar way to when he first arrived on the national scene in 2004...
The former Massachusetts governor, like Clinton back then, has been casting Obama as a hopeful idealist whose record does not match his rhetoric. And Romney, like Clinton, is viewed as less likable than Obama with voters. Romney must attack Obama but not make voters like him even less, something Clinton struggled with as well.
Obama faces two obvious challenges. Back in 2004, President George W. Bush seemed surprised and angered by the barbs that came from his opponent John Kerry in the first debate. Being elected president guarantees people treat you with a heavy amount of deference for three and half years, and Romney may criticize the president in a way he has not heard in years.
“Presidential incumbents are not used to someone challenging them and saying things to their face,” said Samuel Popkin, a University of California, San Diego professor who advised Jimmy Carter during his debates against Ronald Reagan in 1980. “They have spent four years in office and they think they know everything. When you’re president, you think you’re hearing from people how they’re really feeling. You’re not.”
But Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist who has advised a number of the party’s presidential candidates on debates, said, “I don’t think the president will get irritated in this debate. I am sure his team is prepping him for that.”
What Obama may have to guard against most is an unprompted aside that draws attention away from the issues. In one of the 2008 debates, Clinton was asked why voters seemed to like Obama’s personality better. She said, “I don’t think I”m that bad.”
Unprompted, Obama then declared “you’re likable enough Hillary,” a comment some took to be a sarcastic jab at Clinton.
“I don’t think we are going to see that (in 2012) because he is very conscious of the environment in which the debates are taking place and he is conscious of that fact that this race is so close,” said Corey Ealons, a Democratic strategist who worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign.
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