Romney vs. Obama: Debate Analysis

The first Obama/Romney debate happened what must seem like an eternity ago in this social-media–mad world, but the pace here at earthli News is a bit slower and more contemplative. Well, slower anyway. This article encompasses reactions and articles related to both debates.

On Romney’s positions

I read some articles on the first debate. The most staid and steady of these was the article The US presidential debates’ illusion of political choice by Glenn Greenwald (Guardian), which pointed out all of the issues that would not be discussed, such as the high rate of imprisonment, the excess of executive power and so on. From Greenwald’s article:

“Wednesday night’s debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney underscored a core truth about America’s presidential election season: the vast majority of the most consequential policy questions are completely excluded from the process. This fact is squarely at odds with a primary claim made about the two parties – that they represent radically different political philosophies – and illustrates how narrow the range of acceptable mainstream political debate is in the country.”

I will return to this point later, but Greenwald comes the closest to pointing out that there are two main problems with Mitt Romney’s attacks on Obama: the first is that, for the most part, they are taken out of context, are grotesque exaggerations of minor details or are outright fabrications; the second is that he wastes his time attacking Obama for things that I’m happy he didn’t do. One example from the second debate is that Romney faulted Obama for not reforming social security, even though he’d promised to do so in the first year. Romney pounded away at that point, as if Obama were the only president in history to have failed to come through on a campaign promise. It’s a somewhat legitimate point, but it doesn’t make Obama clearly worse than other presidents—or than Romney himself would be were America to elect him. However, if Romney’s point is that he thinks it’s awful that Obama hasn’t actually reformed social security—as opposed to just trying to get him to admit he lied on the campaign trail or failed to live up to his promises—then that’s horrible. Of all of the problems that America has, social security is so far down the list that it’s laughable. It’s actually a very good thing that Obama didn’t try to do anything about it. I fear that Mitt and his party don’t think so, though, because they’ve drunk prodigious amounts of their own Kool-Aid.

Now, if Romney were to attack Obama for his extra-judicial killing of American citizens, then he would have my attention and perhaps grudging support. If he were to point out Obama’s doubling or trebling of drone attacks on (murder of) at-times unidentified groups of young men, he would be addressing a legitimate transgression for which the president owes America an explanation. But he doesn’t do that, because he doesn’t think that drone attacks are bad. He’s pledged to expand them to other countries if he gets elected. The issue of drone attacks is off the table.

Likewise with Iran: Romney attacks Obama for, well basically he seems to be chastising him for not having helped Israel attack Iran yet. When Obama sensibly says that he’ll “put some daylight” between the U.S. and Israel—and what American wouldn’t want that? Israel has gotten more and more unstable recently and threatens to drag us into a war we don’t want—Romney spits back that he’s a coward who’s willing to abandon our friends in need. That’s not the criticism that I’m looking for.

When they talk about immigration, Romney fails to attack the Obama administration for having deported many more people than even Bush did. It would be quite a riposte to use when Obama starts jabbering about how he’s all for the Dream Act. But Romney doesn’t do it. Why? Most likely because he approves of the increased deportation, so he attacks Obama for not being rapacious enough. Again, not what I’m looking for.

On all of those issues, Obama’s policies of the last four years—despite his rhetoric at times going in another direction—aligns quite well with the policies Romney would enact. Except Romney claims that he would take those policies and run with them, doing it right where Obama just candy-assed around. Wall Street bailouts? Obama didn’t do enough to help small business (Romney has characterized as small businesses what anyone in their right mind would call “pretty f’in big businesses”). A Romney administration would serve up even more of the economy on a platter to the financial sector.

On the social issues, they at least disagree but Romney’s positions are, frankly, appalling. His stance on abortion, women’s rights, homosexuals, religion, all of it is just not what I want to hear.

One caveat: Romney has become quite notorious for changing positions and has, at times, claimed to support positions that I find favorable. It is eminently sensible not to believe him, though. When he expresses opinion A hundreds of times, write papers espousing that position and chooses a Vice President who’s also firmly expressed his support that position, you’d be a fool to believe him the one time that he says that he supports the opposite position B.

It’s all a bit confusing, as evidenced by the following video:

Formidable Opponent: Mitt Romney (04:46) on October 11th, 2012 (The Colbert Report)

On Obama’s positions

Obama is a bit easier to pin down on his positions; he tends to be pretty consistent in what he says. He’s also been president for four years and he also tends to be pretty consistent in what he does—or allows to be done in the name of his administration or justice department—and those things—those facts on the ground, as it were—don’t line up with what he says. So, when he says that the financial criminals who bled the country dry—finally blowing up the economy in late 2008, leaving the evil government to pick up the pieces—must pay for their crimes, it sounds nice. I agree that they should be pursued with at least the gusto that we pursue sports athletes who supposedly took steroids and then lied about it. But we don’t. And he doesn’t. Not a single prosecution. Not a single attempt, even. So when Obama once again trots out the trope about taking Wall Street to account, it rings hollow. He and his justice department have had four years; when are they going to start? If anything, his policies have richly rewarded those who should be punished.

But, before Romney fans grin and say “see?”, remember that Romney would have done exactly the same thing. The handling of Wall Street’s crimes is not a point on which Obama’s policies and Romney’s rhetoric disagree. Where Romney faults the President is for even talking tough (even though he never is tough). Romney would have probably thrown all of the banks a parade or something. That’s also why Romney never takes the President to task for his handling of the prosecution side of the great recession: he clearly doesn’t think there should be one.

A notorious critic of Obama’s wrote the article, What the Hell Happened? by Greg Palast in reaction to the first debate. In it, he mentions other parts of the President’s actions that don’t match his rhetoric.

“The truth is, you were ready to raise the retirement age for Social Security and cut back-room deals with drug companies. Maybe in the end, progressive policies are just a marketing niche you’ve found to cover aimless ambition and a yearning to compromise.

“[…]

“Mr. President, if you can’t explain why you are the Commander-in-Chief in this class war against the billionaire bandits attempting to seize our government, then get off the horse and let someone in the saddle who can ride.”

The article The Man Who Would Be Ex-President by Kevin Baker (Harper's) had a slightly different reaction and was written by someone who wants to support Obama (because Romney doesn’t even enter into it for him). He thought Obama looked like he was trying to throw the fight in the first debate.

“Instead, Obama signaled that he wants out. His diehard supporters are already trying to wave away this weirdly awful, unengaged performance as just his latest turn of Zen mastery, but that dog won’t hunt. They should steel themselves for more shocking displays of indifference over the next month on the part of this strangely diffident individual. It’s quite possible that he means what he says, and he really can’t wait to become an ex-president.”

Those who claim to hate Obama are mostly reacting to his rhetoric without bothering to notice that his actions have only rarely lined up with that rhetoric. Or, at least, the programs and policies that he enacted are, at best, watered-down versions of those he promised to fight tooth and nail for. Again, these are people who dislike the President for the wrong reasons, like the execrable Dinesh D’Souza and his film 2016, which can’t seem to attack the President for any real issues and is forced to quote out of context and just make shit up to make the point that Obama’s a really bad man who’s trying to destroy America. Which is utterly ridiculous. It doesn’t matter that this really bad man is actually implementing a lot of the policies that these people claim to support. He’s really bad at it or doesn’t implement them extremely enough—hell, there are still poor people, old people, teachers and other moochers, so he must be doing something wrong. Give Romney four years and he’ll take care of all of those people. At least he looks like us.[1]

On affability

I’m going to be straight about one thing: I don’t see the appeal of Mitt Romney at all. It’s not only that I think his policies are, at best, a joke, it’s that I find him uncomfortable to watch. Wooden, fake, etc.—all of these things have been mentioned by the media as well. But that doesn’t describe all of it, for me.

I have extremely well–thought-out reasons why I disagree with many of President Obama’s policies and why I think he deserves the exact opposite of a Nobel Peace Prize. However, when I watch him speak, joke at the Correspondents’ Dinner or do a bit on a talk show, I find myself liking him despite all my good reasons for not doing so. It doesn’t mean I’m going to vote for him (spoiler alert: I didn’t) but simply that my reptile brain reacts to a basic affability that he either has, or manages to fake pretty well. He seems clever enough to be funny in the right ways.

Clinton had it, too—arguably in far greater amounts than Obama—despite also being utterly unsupportable on most policies. He still has it: when I watch him give an interview and see him ramble his wonky little way toward his point, I find my good old reptile brain agreeing with him and it’s only the ever-vigilant forebrain that jumps in to remind me to ask: “where the hell was that guy when he was president?”

George Bush Jr. also had it, although to a much lesser degree for me. For many, though, he was the epitome of hilarious. For me, he was only occasionally funny, but I do remember smiling at a few of his comments and having to admit that they were pretty funny.

I have a hard time believing that the people who loved George Bush despite all of his flaws love Mitt Romney in the same way. Romney feels more like he’s in the Dole/Mondale/Quayle/Dukakis camp, although even Dole had more personality, to be fair. Romney’s maybe more like McCain—unnecessarily brusque and mean, thinking that he’s being a hotshot and telling it like it is, giving America the medicine it needs without the spoonful of sugar. It’s a testament to the shallowness of the Republican field that he even made it out of the primaries at all.

I guess what I’m saying is that Obama is at least capable of pretending to have the opinions that I want him to have, whereas Romney can’t even do that.

Do facts matter in a debate? (hint: yes)

In the first debate, Romney was quite rude, but it remained mostly within reason. Obama didn’t really seem to mind as Romney interrupted and berated him. Please note that I listened to it and didn’t watch. I think that makes quite a bit of difference. My impression was not that Romney dominated the debate but that it was boring, filled with prevarication on both sides (but most of the major whoppers coming from Romney; Obama’s more subtle) and ended pretty evenly, despite what the media wanted you to believe.

A Romney TKO was more-or-less expected since he was trailing in the polls and the media desperately needed things to tighten up a bit to get campaign-weary voters to continue to pay attention. Therefore it was utterly expected that the media would laud his performance in an effort to make the next weeks more lucrative. As long as Romney didn’t evince signs of Turret’s or incontinence while on stage, he was going to have his hand raised in the air.

There are those who would disagree, saying that not only did he hold his own, but that he did well. That he is, in fact, a sterling debater. This is not true. He seems to be able to speak English relatively quickly and grammatically, but the semantic content of his statements is mostly bunk. He lies, he holds contradictory opinions—he does not, in short, make much sense. This does not a good debater make.

The article, Presidential Debate Aftermath: Mitt Romney Wins All-Important BS Contest by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone), makes this point in a more colorful manner:

“Romney’s performance was better than Obama’s, but only if you throw out criteria like “wasn’t 100% full of shit from the opening bell” and “made an actual attempt to explain who he is and what his plans are.” Unfortunately, that is good enough for our news media, which drools over the gamesmanship aspects of these debates, because it loves candidates who sink their teeth into the horse-race nonsense that they think validates their professional lives.”

The article Cynicism and Argument by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse (3QuarksDaily) defines the problem more precisely:

“Debates are argumentative settings where one’s performance should be assessed on the basis of the relative quality of the arguments one presents. The quality of an argument depends on the truth of the information presented as premises and the relevance of that information to its conclusion. So if we know that an arguer is employing premises containing important inaccuracies, we should not judge his or her arguments as successful.”

So there. Facts matter. The truth matters. You can’t win a debate by lying, by saying any old thing. Saying “infinity + 1” only works—should only work—on the playground.

The duality of Mitt redux

Since Romney took such liberties with reality in the first debate—and his running mate Paul Ryan followed his lead in his own debate—the moderator (Candy Crowley) was much more on the ball in the second debate.

The article Romney Told 31 Myths In 41 Minutes During Last Night’s Debate by Igor Volsky (AlterNet) contains a pretty comprehensive list of Romney’s…excesses.

“The Washington Post’s in-house fact checker tore Romney’s claim that he will create 12 million jobs to shreds. The Post wrote that the “‘new math’” in Romney’s plan “doesn’t add up.” In awarding the claim four Pinocchios — the most untrue possible rating, the Post expressed incredulity at the fact Romney would personally stand behind such a flawed, baseless claim. […] Romney would actually eliminate the fuel efficiency standards that are moving the United States towards energy independence, even though his campaign plan relies on these rules to meet his goals. […] Romney has beenuncomfortably silent on the issue of pay equity. He has refused to say whether he’d support the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that would allow women to sue for equal pay, and named four of the justices who voted to roll back equal pay in that Supreme Court decision as his models for any of his appointments to the federal bench.”

All of these actual policy positions run counter to claims that Romney made in the two debates. He makes Obama look honest and forthright in comparison (and Obama’s a pretty slippery contender himself). It’s definitely worth looking through the whole list to see the full breadth of the misrepresentation.

The problem that most people have is that they hear Romney say something and they still assume that it’s at least distantly related to the truth. Often, it is not. He speaks quite well, though, speaking quickly and convincingly. If you don’t know anything about public policy, how are you to know that he’s essentially full of shit? That he might as well be promising candy canes and rainbows for all the likelihood that the policies he so confidently asserts will actually work. He nearly constantly derides the President for not having achieved anything in four years, then states that everything will be different under a Romney presidency. Because Democrats will work with him? Or roll over for him? Or what? It sounds like he’ll take us back to the stupidest fiscal policies of the Bush years—cut taxes like crazy and wait for the revenue to roll in—and back to the Stone Age on social policy. He promises that he’ll get it all done—in the first year, as he says in the second debate. He doesn’t say how, though.

Obama: fact-checker

Obama was at least awake in this debate and was willing to point out that the answers that Romney gave were completely different than the ones he campaigned on for almost two years.

“Now, Governor Romney just said that, you know, he wants to help those young people, too. But during the Republican primary, he said, I will veto the DREAM Act that would allow these young people to have access. His main strategy during the Republican primary was to say, we’re going to encourage self-deportation, making life so miserable on folks that they’ll leave. […] Governor Romney says he wasn’t referring to Arizona as a model for the nation. His top adviser on immigration is the guy who designed the Arizona law, the entirety of it — not E-Verify, the whole thing. That’s his policy, and it’s a bad policy.”

At that, Romney responded that his policies aren’t what the President said and he started picking nits and getting very argumentative, devolving into a shouting match about his own and Obama’s investments at one point, bellowing his question of “Have you looked at your pension?” It was pretty sad to listen to and you got the impression that Candy Crowley and President Obama seemed embarrassed for him, trying to calm him down and get him to move on.

The point that Romney was making may have been a decent one in other circumstances, but it was beside the point that they were debating, which was immigration. And what was he trying to say? Sure, the majority of my investments are out of the country and avoiding taxes, but so are the President’s? Does he even know that for sure? Or was he just just alleging it? If you’re a Romney supporter—and a fervent Obama hater—you probably think Obama was avoiding the question because he has something to hide. Or maybe he just didn’t think it was appropriate to answer Romney’s questions when other people were waiting to ask questions. Hell, the Obama finances are wide-open to the public anyway, aren’t they?

But back to the original point: which Romney should you believe is the real one? As a voter on either side? If you liked the Romney from the primaries, do you vote for him and hope this moderate that now stands before you is a sham? If you like the moderate now, can you risk voting him into office and find the raging reactionary rearing his ugly head?

Where the general consensus is that Romney took the first debate—a consensus I explained above that I find mysterious because you can’t win a debate by lying—the media was also clear that Obama won the second debate. The following articles provide some (at times very partisan and jubilant) coverage: Obama Comes Out Swinging in 2nd Debate; Candy Crowley Fact-Checks Romney by Adele M. Stan (AlterNet), Energized Obama Takes Round 2 of Presidential Debates (TruthOut) and The short post, Obama is Back by Robert Reich (TruthDig). Reich cited a few of Obama’s broadsides on battleship Romney:

“That’s been his philosophy in the private sector; that’s been his philosophy as governor; that’s been his philosophy as a presidential candidate. You can make a lot of money and pay lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less. You can ship jobs overseas and get tax breaks for it. You can invest in a company, bankrupt it, lay off the workers, strip away their pensions, and you still make money. […] Governor Romney … was on ‘60 Minutes’ just two weeks ago, and he was asked, is it fair for somebody like you, making $20 million a year, to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse or a bus driver, somebody making $50,000 a year? And he said, yes, I think that’s fair. Not only that, he said, I think that’s what grows the economy. Well, I fundamentally disagree with that.”

For his part, Romney kept hitting his main talking point: that Obama can’t get anything done because he’s not willing to work with Republicans. That there has been no bipartisan legislation passed in the last four years. He says that he will make it happen. This is mostly because he can count on Democrats voting his way when strong-armed enough whereas Republicans are bloody-minded enough to just let the world burn instead of voting with Obama even once.

From what I can gather, Romney’s contribution can be summarized as follows:

1. He will create jobs where Obama has not. Those 23 million missing jobs? Gone. No longer missing.
2. Obama is a good guy, but can’t get anything done because he’s not willing to work with Republicans.
3. Romney’s business experience will get ‘er done
4. All of America’s problems started just four years ago. Mysteriously. George Bush Jr. never existed.

   We just haven’t tried trickle-down hard enough yet. Tax breaks galore equals more money for capitalists, who will know where to invest it by making jobs and then the government has more revenue through the taxes paid by those new workers. Easy-peasy. Example:

   “That’s why I want to bring down the tax rates on small employers, big employers, so they want to be here. Canada’s tax rate on companies is now 15 percent. Ours is 35 percent. So if you’re starting a business, where would you rather start it? We have to be competitive if we’re going to create more jobs here.”

Which small business owner considers local tax rates before starting a business? Do people really think about moving to Canada to start their hair salon because of the tax rate? Or is that just a consideration that “small” business owners like Romney think is important? And what is the likelihood that capitalists will provide the things that people actually need to survive? Going by past experience—the basics of Romney’s plan have been running as an experiment for several decades now—the chances are slim to none. Somehow enough people are convinced that letting the rich decide which services our society will provide is better than letting a democratically elected government do so. Not surprising, considering the amount of propaganda we hear promulgating this concept.

On rudeness

Clearly Obama was much more…present…at the second debate and took Romney to task right off the bat. Romney did not react well. At all. He seemed immediately petulant and, quite frankly, spoke to the President as if he was an underling rather than the leader of the free world.

In the first debate, Jim Lehrer was only notable by his virtual absence. Romney took full advantage to interrupt and directly address the President in what can only be termed a rude and respect-less manner. Obama was more respectful in that regard, affording the nearly fact-free Romney one benefit of the doubt after another without putting him in his place. Perhaps that was why people thought him timid: because anyone else would have told Romney to shut his lying mouth for half a second and to stop yelling.

The second debate was much worse in this regard. Romney badgered Obama like he was an errant child instead of affording him the respect he deserves as President of the United States. Not that he can’t call him a liar when he’s lying, certainly not. But at one point, when Romney asked Obama by how much the Obama administration reduced available permits and licenses on federal lands, he hounded him like a bad Southern lawyer badgering a witness.

From the Full Transcript of the Second Presidential Debate (NY Times):

“MR. ROMNEY: In the last four years, you cut permits and licenses on federal land and federal waters in half.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Not true, Governor Romney.
MR. ROMNEY: So how much did you cut them by?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s not true.
MR. ROMNEY: By how much did you cut them by, then?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Governor, we have actually produced more oil on —
MR. ROMNEY: No, no, how much did you cut licenses and permits on federal land and federal waters?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Governor Romney, here’s what we did. There were a whole bunch of oil companies —
MR. ROMNEY: No, I had a — I had a — I had a question —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, you — no, you — you — you want —
MR. ROMNEY: — and the question was how much did you cut them by?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — you want me to answer a question, I’m —
MR. ROMNEY: How much did you cut them by?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: — I’m happy to answer the question.
MR. ROMNEY: All right, and it is?”

Romney was just relentless and it came across very badly, with the final petulant “and it is?” being the icing on the cake.

Again, I listened to it without watching it, but the level of rudeness seemed intolerable, with Romney constantly interrupting Obama—who was trying to provide background to answer Romney’s question—to berate him for “not answering the question”. The question, however, as posed was a typical bullshit gotcha question in the vein of “have you stopped beating your wife?”, so answering as Romney desired would only have been walking into his trap.

Instead, Obama answered with a more useful answer that provided context.

“Here’s what happened. You had a whole bunch of oil companies who had leases on public lands that they weren’t using. So what we said was, you can’t just sit on this for 10, 20, 30 years, decide when you want to drill, when you want to produce, when it’s most profitable for you. These are public lands. So if you want to drill on public lands, you use it or you lose it.”

Well, shit, that sounds like it makes a lot of sense. Whether the numbers are temporarily down in the short-term or not, it’s hard to argue that what the President described isn’t the sensible thing to do. But Romney made sure to note later that Obama wasn’t answering his questions. Perhaps Romney forgot that the format was that the people at the Town Hall were to ask the questions, not himself. It’s an easy mistake to make when you’re usually the most important person in the room. Obama didn’t forget that, though (or at least not nearly as much).

The article Romney’s Disguise Falls Away by E.J. Dionne (TruthDig) also thought that it was nearly impossible not to cringe at Romney’s rudeness:

“Under pressure this time, the former Massachusetts governor displayed his least attractive sides. He engaged in pointless on-stage litigation of the debate rules. He repeatedly demonstrated his disrespect for both the president and Candy Crowley, the moderator. And Romney was just plain querulous when anyone dared question him about the gaping holes in his tax and budget plans. […] Romney was saying: Trust me because I’m an important guy who has done important stuff.”

Romney kept shouting over Candy Crowley, who was way better than Jim Lehrer, and did not concede control. Perhaps Romney may have just been pissed that he wasn’t allowed to run the debate again.

As I noted at the beginning of this long screed, it wouldn’t have been half as bad if Romney’s question was actually about something the President had actually done wrong. I would have much more sympathy if he was yelling at the president about having people killed without trials and without even identifying them first. But he wasn’t. He was trying to get him to admit to the veracity of some made-up, bullshit, context-free, Republican talking point about how the Obama administration is trying to starve the country of oil when, in fact, it sounds like the administration was actually working in the public’s interest to wrest control of public land back from private companies. It’s no wonder Mitt Romney no likey, but you can only get away with being a rude jackass if you’re actually right. Unless your target audience is also a bunch of ignoramuses, in which case…hello, President Romney!

Maybe that’s what the intellectual vacuum that is America considers to be “strong debatin’ skills”. In a society where information is malleable, everyone’s opinion is a valid viewpoint and nothing is provably true, the weight of an argument is determined by the degree to which the purveyor of said argument believes in it rather than anything about its factual content. The number of times the argument is repeated and the volume level at which it is delivered are also very important.

Final thoughts

Whatever you may think of Obama, he shouldn’t put up with this kind of behavior from Romney. Hell, I don’t support the guy at all, but even I was rooting for him to call in the secret service to pound Romney into the ground, the rude prick.

It’s not like I’m happy that Obama won that point by proving that he’s “drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration…and the previous President was an oil man. And natural gas isn’t appearing just magically, we’re encouraging it.”. If that’s a win, then I’d rather he lost. At least he didn’t brag about how much he supports fracking (which is hinted at by his support for natural gas).

Wrapping up, Obama listed his accomplishments, which were mostly on target, though sprinkled with some … exaggeration:

“I told you I would cut taxes for middle-class families, and I did. I told you I’d cut taxes for small businesses, and I have. I said that I’d end the war in Iraq, and I did. I said we’d refocus attention on those who actually attacked us on 9/11, and we have gone after al-Qaida’s leadership like never before, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

“I said that we would put in place health care reform to make sure that insurance companies can’t jerk you around, and if you don’t have health insurance, that you’d have a chance to get affordable insurance, and I have. I committed that I would rein in the excesses of Wall Street, and we passed the toughest Wall Street reforms since the 1930s. We’ve created 5 million jobs, gone from 800,000 jobs a month being lost. And we are making progress. We saved an auto industry that was on the brink of collapse.”

The part about Wall Street reforms may be technically true, but it’s morally a lie. But what does Romney do? He trots out his standard refrain about how Obama hasn’t repaired the entire disaster of the eight-year–long Bush reign. He says that Obama didn’t reform this and didn’t reform that and wonders why he didn’t get to those things. Well, perhaps a hostile Congress and Senate led by Romney’s party had something to do with it. Maybe the inertia of the Bush years take a little more time to turn around.

And Obama isn’t even using the policies that would be the most effective. That’s what Romney should attack. Instead, he attacks from the other side, saying he hasn’t dismantled regulation enough. He’s basically saying that Obama’s biggest mistake was in not continuing the spectacularly successful policies of George Bush. If he’d only left everything the way it was and listened to the Republicans, everything would be rosy and unicorns would be farting rainbows everywhere. Well, elect Romney and he will try to pick up the pieces of the shattered Obama presidency and put the Bush train back on track. You betcha.