A Republican President

I am loath to make predictions, but I think there’s a better-than-even chance we’re going to have a Republican president.

A lot of it has to do with timing. The Obama forces made plenty of hay with Romney’s “47 percent” remark. But remember – that statement was made to a closed group of supporters last May, and only surfaced fairly recently. Many pundits called it a fatal error. It may have hurt, but it wasn’t fatal. That was then, and this is now, and Americans live in Short Attention-Span Theater, to borrow a title from Comedy Central.

Mr. Obama has had some significant victories: killing Osama Bin Laden, bailing out the auto industry – even getting his healthcare plan passed. The first two are clear victories, the last win is a matter of debate – but again, those were then.

Now, we have his perceived loss in the last debate, coupled with the strange scenario over what happened in Benghazi, Libya, when Ambassador Chris Stevens and several others were killed. I still don’t get this one. First, there was an angry mob, then there was no angry mob, now it’s a terrorist attack, and Stevens was insufficiently protected, even though he or someone in his camp requested more help. It’s a total mystery to me why the administration can’t get a better handle on how to manage the public relations of this thing. The mother of one of the victims says she has been assured by Messrs. Obama and Biden personally that she will get answers – and she’s had none. And the Republicans are successfully beating up the administration with it.

Mr. Romney will say almost anything to get elected, true – but he says it with absolute confidence, whether it’s right or wrong. I used to work in radio, and we had a rule for reading copy. If you encountered something you didn’t know how to pronounce, like the name of some foreign dignitary, you had to pick a pronunciation and deliver it with confidence. Even if you were wrong, only half the audience – actually, much less – would know you were an idiot. If you stumbled, everyone would know it.

Vice President Joe Biden’s “these kids today don’t know anything” pose may have worked for him in his debate with Paul Ryan, but it wasn’t the clear victory that Romney scored over the President. Now we have another debate coming between the top two. Will Obama overcompensate by being too aggressive an attack dog? If he’s perceived as “losing” this next one, in my view, he’s done. There are too many people taking advantage of absentee ballots and early voting. They’re not going to wait around for the third debate.

The first bit of good news in all this is that, in my view at least, this country will probably be no worse off if either man wins next month. If President Obama is re-elected, the issue of Republicans in Congress stopping at nothing to defeat him will go away. He won’t be able to run for another term, and the Republicans will figure out they have to work with him, or lose their own seats if gridlock continues. If Romney wins – and this again is my personal view – whatever you think about Mormons, they are terrific managers. Every Mormon I know who runs a business – without exception -- does it successfully. And a little management from the top – with an eye on perceptions – wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now.

The second bit of good news, for those of you who have read this far and don’t like it, is that my predictions are usually wrong.