Matters of Church and State

HARRY HOUDINI REINCARNATED

          If one were scoring the debate in Boca Raton Monday night, President Obama clearly won.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure it makes all that much difference.  The President’s poor performance in the first debate allowed viewers to see Governor Romney as Presidential by comparison and the Governor has been riding that rising tide ever since.

In any debate on foreign affairs, the President is expected to prevail.  Moreover, Governor Romney just won points by not giving the impression he was in over his head and could sit next to the President and sound Presidential.  He did that.  Cleverly, he agreed with the President on most issues because he knows that foreign affairs are the President’s strength.

          No wonder the President tried to steer the debate back to the economy.  But, even in his attempts to unveil the clear fraudulence of the GOP’s proposal, I’m not sure the President is not fighting a losing battle there either.  Sure, the math doesn’t work.  It’s basic arithmetic.   It has been widely debunked by fact checkers and independent analysts.

          Then, why is it still on the table?   Because Governor Romney is a consummate magician and escape artist.  Like Harry Houdini, he is able to escape situations that would tie most other people in knots.  But, since he has no core political beliefs, he is free to roam and choose whatever position is good politically for the moment.  So, when challenged to defend his economic package, he just smiles and says, “Sure, the math works,” without providing any specifics.  And he looks aggrieved that anyone could question his integrity. 

And it works.  At least it works politically with a frighteningly large segment of the American voting public which never let facts get in the way of their own political beliefs and dreams. 

          There is a long history for this in American politics.  Some will remember Reagan’s famous campaign pledge in 1980.  He promised to build up the military, cut taxes, and balance the budget.  That math didn’t work then either, and George H.W. Bush running against Reagan in the 1980 GOP primaries rightly called Reagan’s plan “voodoo economics,” a charge he later retracted when offered the Vice Presidential slot on the ticket.

          But, math be damned.  Reagan won by a landslide -- first, because he had the considerable advantage of not being Jimmy Carter and, second, because he promised Americans what they wanted to hear and believe.  For Reagan it was always “morning in America” in that “shining city on a hill.”  (See Reagan’s 1980 campaign brochure and see if it doesn’t sound like Romney has taken a page or two from it.  http://www.4president.org/brochures/reagan1980brochure1.htm ) 

          Once he got into office and realized what his plan was doing to the economy, Reagan raised taxes eleven times while managing to triple the deficit. But it didn’t matter to many, if not most, Americans, leading Vice President Cheney twenty years later to tell Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill: “You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.”  At least they don’t seem to when Republicans are in charge.

          As for the current Presidential race, there is still hope.  First of all, Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan.  And, luckily, Barack Obama is no Jimmy Carter.  Secondly, Obama has a slight edge in some key swing states. 

          Let’s review what’s at stake here:  It took a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, to clean up the deficits that President Reagan left us.  Clinton handed over a record surplus to a Republican President George W. Bush who turned that into a record deficit.  And, now we have another Democratic President, Barack Obama, who inherited a mess, including record deficits, from Republican President George W. Bush.  Despite entrenched GOP opposition to virtually everything he has sent to the Hill, President Obama has done a remarkable job pulling us back from the brink and putting us on the right path for the future in terms of the economy, health care, energy independence, and education.  But the hole he dug us out of was so deep that he needs more time to complete the job.

          If math and logic were the defining factors in elections, President Obama would win by a landslide. Instead, we have an extremely close race that will likely go down to the wire.   Go figure.

          It’s not early morning in America; it’s late in the day.  But it’s not too late and we have a lot of work to do in these last two weeks.  If nothing else, let’s show the rest of the world that a majority of Americans at least understand basic math and can add and subtract.

Gerald E. Lavey