So it looks like the presidential debates will be the deciding factor in this election. Romney has experienced a massive bump in the polls as a result of winning the first debate.
The latest Ipsos poll puts Obama and Romney at 45 per cent each - a dead heat.
The latest Gallop poll shows Romney ahead 49-47 per cent, and a Pew Research Center poll shows Romney ahead 49-45 per cent.
This might just be the most spectacular (political) PR crash and burn that we've seen in my lifetime. Obama was crushing Romney in all the polls, with a lead ranging from 2 per cent to 10 per cent in some swing states. Among women Obama had something like an 18 per cent advantage over Romney. All of those leads are now gone, including among women, where Romney and Obama now split the vote with 47 per cent each.
What does this mean?
Just like some were ready to shovel the dirt onto Romney's grave, they are now ready to do the same to Obama. Truth is, Obama isn't dead yet. The second and third debates will swing voters just as much as the first one did.
It's safe to predict that Obama won't shoot his foot off a second time, so the real question becomes can Romney avoid doing so himself?
If Romney can simply hold his own in the next two debates, then the election will be very close come November. If Romney beats Obama in either the second or third debate, then he will most likely win the presidency in my opinion.
Obama will have to crush Romney in both the second and third debate to regain momentum and regain re-election.
Obama goes negative?
Obama released an ad attacking Romney using Big Bird from Seasame Street the other day.
This was just dumb dumb dumb. This is the kind of thing where a bunch of PR folks sit around and think they've come up with a clever idea, when in reality it's a horrible idea.
Does the Obama camp think that things out there in the real world are so fine that people are looking for a chuckle? He just gave a debate performance that made everyone think the guy doesn't take things seriously (like prepping for a debate) and then he comes out with this childish ad that is something you'd expect to see out of a high school multimedia class.
To make things even worse, Big Bird has asked that Obama stop running the ad. You know you've screwed up big time when Big Bird has to ask you to stop what you are doing.
I think most undecided voters will view the ad and think 'WTF is this? The country's falling apart and we're talking about Big Bird?"
If the economy was good then it might be funny - but things are not good.
What should Obama do?
The problem we are seeing with Obama right now is the same freakin problem we've seen from him since day one. When a crisis hits - as it has in the polls after his debate - Obama reacts to it by remaining aloof. He puts on a smile and acts like everything is fine.
Now, don't get me wrong, you don't want a leader who losses his cool. But you do want someone who get serious when the shit hits the fan.
I'm reminded of the speech given by Michael Douglas in the movie American President with the line "This is a time for serious people Bob and your 15 minutes are up." (mark: 4:30) That's the type of attitude Obama should have right now, not this Big Bird crap.
Obama's problem is that he's tried to spin for over the past year that things are getting better. Yet people in the real world know that things aren't getting better. They may not be getting worse (although just wait until next year, when kicking the can down the road no longer is feasible), but they aren't getting better.
So what Obama should do is fess up to the state of things. He needs to come out and say:
So while people cheer when Obama brings that up, the reality is that most people don't care about it in that they themselves did not benefit from it in anyway.
Simple Formula
Obama needs to follow a very simple three phase formula for getting back on top:
The latest Gallop poll shows Romney ahead 49-47 per cent, and a Pew Research Center poll shows Romney ahead 49-45 per cent.
This might just be the most spectacular (political) PR crash and burn that we've seen in my lifetime. Obama was crushing Romney in all the polls, with a lead ranging from 2 per cent to 10 per cent in some swing states. Among women Obama had something like an 18 per cent advantage over Romney. All of those leads are now gone, including among women, where Romney and Obama now split the vote with 47 per cent each.
What does this mean?
Just like some were ready to shovel the dirt onto Romney's grave, they are now ready to do the same to Obama. Truth is, Obama isn't dead yet. The second and third debates will swing voters just as much as the first one did.
It's safe to predict that Obama won't shoot his foot off a second time, so the real question becomes can Romney avoid doing so himself?
If Romney can simply hold his own in the next two debates, then the election will be very close come November. If Romney beats Obama in either the second or third debate, then he will most likely win the presidency in my opinion.
Obama will have to crush Romney in both the second and third debate to regain momentum and regain re-election.
Obama goes negative?
Obama released an ad attacking Romney using Big Bird from Seasame Street the other day.
This was just dumb dumb dumb. This is the kind of thing where a bunch of PR folks sit around and think they've come up with a clever idea, when in reality it's a horrible idea.
Does the Obama camp think that things out there in the real world are so fine that people are looking for a chuckle? He just gave a debate performance that made everyone think the guy doesn't take things seriously (like prepping for a debate) and then he comes out with this childish ad that is something you'd expect to see out of a high school multimedia class.
To make things even worse, Big Bird has asked that Obama stop running the ad. You know you've screwed up big time when Big Bird has to ask you to stop what you are doing.
I think most undecided voters will view the ad and think 'WTF is this? The country's falling apart and we're talking about Big Bird?"
If the economy was good then it might be funny - but things are not good.
What should Obama do?
The problem we are seeing with Obama right now is the same freakin problem we've seen from him since day one. When a crisis hits - as it has in the polls after his debate - Obama reacts to it by remaining aloof. He puts on a smile and acts like everything is fine.
Now, don't get me wrong, you don't want a leader who losses his cool. But you do want someone who get serious when the shit hits the fan.
I'm reminded of the speech given by Michael Douglas in the movie American President with the line "This is a time for serious people Bob and your 15 minutes are up." (mark: 4:30) That's the type of attitude Obama should have right now, not this Big Bird crap.
Obama's problem is that he's tried to spin for over the past year that things are getting better. Yet people in the real world know that things aren't getting better. They may not be getting worse (although just wait until next year, when kicking the can down the road no longer is feasible), but they aren't getting better.
So what Obama should do is fess up to the state of things. He needs to come out and say:
- Yes, the economy SUCKS (it's not just bad, it SUCKS)
- Yes, unemployment SUCKS (not 7.8 per cent sucks, but 14.7 per cent sucks)
- Yes the Middle East is still a total mess
- No I did not deliver on my Hope and Change platform
- And yes, I FAILED to end gridlock in Washington
- BUT, we have stopped the worst from happening and stabilized a situation that George Bush put us in.
Now do you think anyone surrounding Obama is going to tell him to say those things? Not a chance in hell. What they will say is that all those things... economy, unemployment, Middle East, and Washington gridlock are still 'problems' but that we've made progress.
The problem with this strategy is that if you don't start from a place of honesty, from acknowledging the truth that everyone sees, then nothing you say will resonate.
It's like a doctor telling you that your pneumonia is a cough. You know what a cough is like and if you have pneumonia you know it's NOT a cough. So from that moment forward anything the doctor says you will treat with extreme suspicion.
Playing down how bad things are simply hampers your ability to establish trust with your audience.
Now, IF Obama had the courage to come out and tell it like it is - to fall on the sword if you will - then he could do what he currently can't do (effectively), which is go for the Republican's jugular.
He could come out and make statements such as:
- George Bush caused all this - both the economic mess and the mess in the Middle East
- The gap between the have's and the have not's has grown to epic proportions and Republican policy will see it grow even further
- It was the Republican congress that stonewalled Obama for four years straight
- Romney is anti-American, shipping jobs overseas and keeping his money in offshore accounts to avoid taxes
But you see, Obama can't use those talking points effectively if he doesn't first take responsibility for the poor job he's done. Without first doing that, anything he says sounds like he's merely blaming others for his failures.
And the Republicans have done a good job of hammering Obama every time he brings up George Bush by saying you can't blame the last president forever.
Heck, if Obama REALLY had guts he'd even throw Bill Clinton under the bus. For all the love people have for Clinton today, he played a major role in creating the housing crisis (once again, with Alan Greenspan as the head of the Fed).
What people want are solutions and the first step to providing them with solutions is to first impress upon them that you understand the problem. Once you show them that, then you can present solutions and they will listen attentively.
But Obama simply refuses to take responsibility for his first four years. He continues to push things like the GM bailout as examples of his success. Here's the problem though, even if you think the bailout was a success, there are 350 million Americans and maybe 100,000 people benefited from that bailout.
So while people cheer when Obama brings that up, the reality is that most people don't care about it in that they themselves did not benefit from it in anyway.
Simple Formula
Obama needs to follow a very simple three phase formula for getting back on top:
- Acknowledge the REAL state of things
- Present solutions
- Attack your opponents solutions
That's it. Simple.
The reason Obama doesn't use this formula though is because he simply refuses on any front to acknowledge that he's failed horribly to live up to the expectations the voters had of him.
And because he doesn't do this, nothing he says in the other two phases will resonate with voters.
Obama's last hope...
And so we are back to where we've been before, that for Obama to win, Romney has to self destruct.
Romney was self destructing quite nicely throughout September, but after the first debate he's now surging.
The odds that Romney is going to crash and burn in the next two debates I think is very low (maybe a five per cent chance, if not lower). Romney's a business guy and once he figures out what works, he'll be very effective at continuing with that winning formula.
Which means I think Obama is taking a huge risk simply counting on Romney to hand him the election.
What Obama needs to do is reconnect with the pain and suffering people are experiencing (and their fear of the pain and suffering they will experience in the future). The only way to do that is to be honest with them - to have a 'come to Jesus' moment followed by a 'the truth shall set you free' moment with the voters.
What will Obama do?
My money says Obama won't do what I've suggested because it's just not in the DNA of most politicians. The last thing a politician ever wants to do is admit they did a bad job.
Nope, instead Obama will most likely simply go after Romney's character. He'll bash him for his offshore accounts, for his past flip-flops, for his time at Bain, for his taxes, etc. (all things he's already done and which have failed in light of Romney's debate performance).
If that's all Obama brings to the table, I think he'll lose this election.
And perhaps five or ten years down the road he may garner some distance from being President and he'll realize that the reason the voters didn't listen to him was because they didn't trust him, and they didn't trust him because he wasn't honest with them. He won in 2008 by being the anti-politician and he'll lose in 2012 by being the stereotypical 'attack ad' politician.
Obama's only paths to victory in my opinion are:
1) Romney self destructs
2) Obama re-establishes trust with the American people through honesty
I think the odds of either of those things happening at this point are slim and so the outlook for Obama, I think, is getting darker by the day.
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