President Barack Obama who is running to be reelected, and
Governor Mitt Romney who is challenging him for the job had a debate last
night, October 16, 2012 in a town hall kind of setting. Members of the audience
asked the questions, the moderator Candy Crowley kept the encounter civilized,
and the debaters fought a vigorous battle.
The difference between the two opponents being that the
President has a record to defend while the Governor has a vision that needs to
be explained, I expected to see Romney raise questions about the Obama record;
and I expected to see Obama press Romney on the details of his plans for America . What
happened instead was that Romney attacked the Obama record to disparage it and
not to ask for clarifications. As to Obama's performance, he did press Romney
to explain his plans but the latter did not respond in any straightforward
manner.
The general thinking being that the world has gone through a
turbulent time during which America
was shaken by economic circumstances that began to unravel in 2008, I was
hoping to see Mitt Romney speak more broadly about economic matters, especially
in terms of the world economy and how America relates to it. This, in my
view, is an important topic at this time because the consequences of what
happened in 2008 are felt in the rest of the world, most notably Europe . As well, North Africa started to convulse shortly
after the events in America ,
and that resulted in consequences which continue to influence the neighboring
Middle Eastern region.
Events like these ought to have motivated someone aspiring
to be in charge of the lives of others, to be serious when it comes to drawing
plans for the future of the nation. But it seems that Mr. Romney failed to do
so. He did not pause to give himself the time to think of a way to conserve and
consolidate the gains that were achieved in the past. He did not reflect about
what happened that led to 2008, or how to chart a way forward to get on the
road to a more certain future and remain on it. And he did not reorganize his
priorities to make sure that what he may do will result in creating the most
good to benefit the largest number of people.
Having scored low marks in all these areas, I wondered why
Romney wanted to be President of the United States in the first place. I
grew up with the notion that there comes a time in the life of an individual
when he seeks a moment of calm to collect his thoughts, rejuvenate his mind and
renew his vision. And when the ambition is to lead the nation, renewing the
vision becomes an important endeavor especially after an episode that put into
question many of the old assumptions about the nation, and what needs to be
done to get it back on track. I looked for a sign that Romney had undergone such
a moment of reflection but found none and were disappointed.
And while I deemed that Romney had scored a failure, I could
see that Obama had succeeded in avoiding the distractions that would have
veered him away from the goals he envisaged for the future of America . He
seemed to have developed the skills he needed to navigate his way through the
mountain of noise that Romney was throwing at him. He stayed with what he knew
was genuine stuff, and thus made his points with utmost clarity. And so I asked
myself: What was behind Romney's performance, and what did he manage to achieve
in the end?
Well, I have come to believe that the Romney distractions
were generated because he has a cause that may well be his own, but a cause
that is also of the people who bankroll his campaign. Their collective goal
would be to harness the political, financial and military potential of the
American nation, and make that potential work for causes which are not what the
American people want for themselves.
May the people realize this truth before they go to the
polls.