Thanks to a fellow Tai Chi student who didn't take Obama's groan-inducing performance (if you're a progressive) at the first 2012 presidential debate as seriously as I did, today I learned about a Taiwanese animation that takes a humorous view of the Romney-Obama bout.
Have a look. And a read of the subtitles, unless your Chinese is a lot better than mine.
It was healing to smile my way out of the pain I've been feeling as, day by day, Obama's re-election chances take another downward tilt on Five Thirty Eight. He's down to 68%, a big drop from the 87% of a week ago.
In a blog post right after the debate, I prognosticated that Obama would be at 80% or higher today. Obviously my political intuition sucked just as much as Obama's debate performance.
The best why? analysis I've read about Obama's lackluster demeanor is by Maureen Dowd, a woman with perceptive psychological skills. Her "Barry trails off…" contains both some encouraging and discouraging insights for progressives like me.
It was a perfect psychological storm for the president. He performs better when his back is against the wall; he has some subconscious need to put himself in challenging positions. That makes it hard for him to surf success and intensity; he just suddenly runs out of gas and stops fighting, leaving revved up supporters confused and deflated. “That’s just his rhythm,” said one adviser.
OK, now Obama's back is decidedly against the wall. Hopefully this means that he'll come out swinging at next Tuesday's debate with Romney.
But then there's this:
At a fund-raising concert in San Francisco Monday night, the president mocked Romney’s star turn, saying “what was being presented wasn’t leadership; that’s salesmanship.”
It is that distaste for salesmanship that caused Obama not to sell or even explain health care and economic policies; and it is that distaste that caused him not to sell himself and his policies at the debate. His latest fund-raising plea is marked “URGENT.” But in refusing to muster his will and energy, and urgently sell his vision, he underscores his own lapses in leadership and undermines arguments for four more years.
Exactly.
Like I said a few days ago, I don't appreciate getting panicked emails from Democratic fundraisers that put the pressure on donors like me to stem the rising Romney tide. The Obama campaign has enought money to win the election.
What they need is a candidate who will step up at the next two debates and fight to win.
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