Citizen Romney Must Take Charge of the Presidential Debates

Mitt Romney needs to accomplish three objectives at this Wednesday’s debate with President Obama. First, he needs to show that he can relate to average Americans, and that he is indeed one of us, with the same concerns, doubts and fears about the future of our country. Second, he needs to induce the President to answer questions about his economic policies and take responsibility for his numerous failures during his first term. Third, he needs to accomplish one and two by neutralizing the debate moderators that are, for the most part, egregiously biased in favor of the President, and likely to lob him creampuff questions and/or accept answers filled with rhetoric and pabulum.

Mr. Romney can accomplish all three objectives by not merely being presidential candidate Romney, but also Citizen Romney. Americans need to see him as a concerned citizen first, and a political candidate second. Romney needs to refocus the President’s narrative to answer the tough questions about the economy and get the answers we as Americans need to make an informed decision on Election Day. Candidate Romney must then layout his economic plan and vehemently and specifically contrast how the American economy and how middle class Americans will benefit from the new economic policies of a Romney administration. Americans are frustrated with the lack of serious media coverage of the shortcomings of this administration or its Republican challenger’s ideas for improving our situation, and Mitt Romney will be performing a great service to us and our political system by cutting through the president’s rhetoric and the mainstream media bias against him by engaging the President in a serious substantive debate about the economy and our future.

Mr. Romney needs to channel a bit of Newt Gingrich, when Mr. Gingrich challenged debate moderators and highlighted the liberal media biases during the Republican primaries debates, and a bit of Jorge Ramos and Maria Salinas, Univision TV anchors during a recent interview, when they relentlessly demanded that the President answer tough questions about immigration. A bit of respectful pushback against the media and the president will go along way to shedding some desperately needed light and balance on what has thus far been a dangerously one-sided narrative in favor of the president.

Without compromising too much of an otherwise even-keeled demeanor, Mitt Romney needs to approach this first debate with extreme urgency, not only because his political career may hinge upon it, but because the fate of our country and indeed the free world may also depend upon it. If Mr. Romney follows this prescription, and repeats it in subsequent debates later this month, he will succeed in winning the hearts and minds of undecided American voters.