As Nate Silver, NY Times polling expert put it, “Instant polls conducted after the debate are suggestive of something between a tie and a modest win for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.”
Biden held his own and maybe a bit more. That was important. But President Obama has to do a lot better than that. He has to go beyond the policy wonk to be a moral leader once more. Here’s how Jennifer Granholm put it on her Current TV show video.
On the whole, the public and especially the undecided voters don’t keep track of policy details and which numbers are right. The worst thing the president can do is to just compare details of policy. That just elevates Romney to the status of an equal, who can come back with lies that will sound just as good if not better to most of the undecided.
The TV debates are not primarily about policy details and the numbers in themselves. As Ronald Reagan showed, the debates are about choosing a moral leader. And we do this through a performance.
Reagan didn’t debate policy details and numbers. Instead he did the following:
Those are the basic rules of the performances called presidential debates. The content that goes with the performance is to show that you will be a moral leader. Policy discussions and facts can flesh that out, but those are the ground rules.
Romney was prepped the Reagan way — to project the necessary appearance for this performance. The President was not. President Obama needs to follow the ground rules, especially because he IS authentic, he DOES have the right values, he DOES have empathy.
Moreover, those moral values are really what this election is about. The president sees democracy as based on citizens caring about each other and using a government as an instrument of that care, protecting and empowering us all, equally, through public provisions. America started out with building roads, bridges, public schools, a national bank, a patent office, public records, etc. We now have many more citizen provisions — clean air, clean water, safe food and drugs, sewers, policing, disease control, a federal reserve, basic scientific research, college loans. Now we need, and have, more that is provided for all. Think of a cell phone. It couldn’t exist without what citizens have provided via the government: the computer science research, the internet, the satellite system, the PDF system. Once you have all these things, you have certain basic freedoms — you can live well and maybe start a business, or work for one, on the basis of what your fellow citizens have given you. The issue here is freedom, the real material freedom that other Americans have provided us with. You can only build it starting from what other Americans have built for you.
When the president made his “You didn’t built that” gaffe, he was intimidated out of talking about this truth. But this is the central truth of this campaign. Citizens built all the mechanisms for each of us to access. If you worked hard to build a business, you used all that to start with. The president needs to go back to that deep truth and say it right this time. You, our citizens, have provided all this not just to yourselves but to every American. That’s what makes America America.
You, the citizens, use our common government to make this country what it is.
Consider the 96 percent study by Mettler and Sides at Cornell. It showed that 96 percent of Americans make use of the help provided by their fellow citizens through the government — and most don’t even know that government is involved and that their fellow citizens are helping them. An itemized deduction on your taxes means that your fellow citizens are paying to make up for the amount of the deduction; they are helping you. Most homeowners take a home interest deduction on their mortgages. Your fellow citizens are helping you out with your home. If you take a deduction on college investments for your children, your fellow citizens are helping out your children. If you are out of a job and living on unemployment insurance, or if you are a veteran depending on veterans’ benefits, your fellow citizens are helping you. They are helping you, and you have been helping them. Your government is the intermediary, the one who helps you help or be helped. Most of the time, most people do not even see the government helping, or their fellow citizens helping. But 96 percent of you gladly accept that help — and you deserve it. Who are the other 4 percent? Mostly those of you who are still too young to need it — but you will, and soon. Almost all Americans do.
Conservative radicals — not moderates — have a different idea of democracy: They define democracy as providing the liberty to seek your own interests without any responsibility for the interests or well being of others, and without others helping you. They consider illegitimate all the things citizens do for the citizens of our country as a whole. And under Romney-Ryan, all of that would be eliminated.
The moral difference is clear: Do we have both personal and social responsibility, or just personal responsibility? Are we in this together, or are we on our own? The conservatives say we are, and should be, on our own. Are we the United States or the Separate States — or millions of isolated individuals who don’t care about anybody else?
The answer to these questions affects every issue. If Romney and Ryan win, our nation will never look the same. It should be made clear, in every discussion of every issue, that this is the moral value behind the issue: what is our national moral character? When Romney looked at Jim Lehrer, and said, smiling, that he liked him and loved Big Bird, but that he would fire them both, he revealed a deep meanness of spirit that is the very opposite of our national character.
The fate of the nation, and in many ways the world, hangs on this election.
Mr. President, this is a grand performance that means something; it is much more than a policy debate where most people won’t understand or remember the fine details of the policies. We need you to show America what real moral leadership is.
George Lakoff is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972. He previously taught at Harvard (1965-69) and the University of Michigan (1969-1972). He graduated from MIT in 1962 (in Mathematics and Literature) and received his PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University in 1966.
© 2012 NATIONOFCHANGE
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11 comments on "Moral Leadership: What Obama Has to Show Today In the Debate Performance, and for Real"
October 17, 2012 2:12pm
"When the president made his “You didn’t built that” gaffe..."
I love Dr. Lakoff, generally, but this galls me.
This was NOT a "gaffe". It, in fact, was a position originally cribbed (smartly) from the viral video in which Elizabeth Warren told a group of potential supporters at a house party, off-script, that despite the beloved Reaganesque/John Wayne-esque mythology, no one in America "made it on their own" without the support system of a finely developed societal structure and economy.
This tactic, it can be argued, virtually jump-started Warren's very candidacy. Because for the first time in memory, a politician overtly refused to genuflect to the usual cliched American fairy tales, to which all other politicians appear to be shackled, and she actually gave our progressive history (such that it is) the props it was long due.
All the President did was to adopt it and run with it. I certainly don't need to tell you that the James O'Keefe-type editing of the speech by the Romney campaign was the only facet of his making it which can be deemed questionable. And Obama didn't "build that".
So... "gaffe"? Are you kidding?
And what's your recommended remedy for this so-called "gaffe", now? That the President sink back into the shadows, when it comes to defending the progressive role of government, vs. Romney and the right's constant assertion that beyond defense and deregulation, the best government is one that leaves most Americans alone? Or more accurately, to simply go to Hell?
I am nothing beyond flabbergasted that Dr, Lakoff would not comprehend this.
October 16, 2012 9:13pm
If you vote for a 3rd party candidate and allow Romney to win, he will be able to appoint one or two Supreme Court justices. Do you want this to happen? Thnk of Citizens United and what it has done to this election. Think of losing Roe v. Wade.
October 16, 2012 1:53pm
Obama has compromised himself out of convictions and principals.
October 16, 2012 1:45pm
I agree with George Lakoff. The most important issue here is morality and the details are obscuring, or at least distracting us from that fact. There should be no question in anyone's mind that the right approach is offered by Obama and Biden. A true human being will not think twice about which approach to choose - do we protect all people's needs or pave the way for more greed and profit for a small, mean-spirited, obscenely wealthy, anti-social sector of society? Should we choose to cooperate with others and have compassion for our fellow citizens over deliberate non-cooperation, self-interest, selfishness and outright meanness? Should we take a thoughtful approach to our problems or should we act impulsively from our worst feeling instincts & reject the higher thinking capabilities that distinguish us from the animals? Should we seek knowledge or should we be smugly ignorant? Should we invest in our country's infrastructure, education and programs for the disempowered such as the poor, the old and our children or should we invest in war, privatize education (and in so doing abandon families and students to the avarice of the ambitious business man)? Should we cut off the poor from government help they can depend on or abandon them to the the community which may or may not be in a position to help them? Should our foreign policy be based on diplomacy & respect for our allies, with force as a last resort, or should we employ force first, be arrogant about our power & bully the world while disregarding our allies? Should we respect others' personal choices or control their choices? (Aside - The extreme Republicans don't seem to understand social boundaries - that government control of others who are hurting fellow citizens is righteous while controlling citizens who are not hurting others is fascism - a women's right to choose abortion, for example - a gay person's right to be gay and to marry.) I think this is more than a moral choice. It's a choice between what is human and humane and what is monstrous and inhumane. It's a choice between evolution and devolution. Do we want to reach our potential as human beings and strive to develop all our capacities such as our intelligence, compassion, creativity etc. Or shall we settle for something more animalistic like confining ourselves to profit making and greed. Should we use our intelligence to protect the human race and ensure it's survival and advancement or do we use our intelligence to scheme & cheat to maximize our personal profit while destroying others' lives and our habitat in the process? Do we choose to be human and moral or animalistic and corrupt? It's that stark. BTW - if you want to know who Mitt Romney really is, read "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital" by Matt Taibbi (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-...). Don't be fooled - Mitt Romney is the same vicious person. And look at the Koch brothers and other CEOs. Threatening their employees if they don't vote for Republican candidates. How have we come to tolerate such serious abuses of power in a democracy? How can this even be legal? Are there not laws protecting a citizen's voting privacy? The rich business men, like the Koch brothers, keep threatening society holding jobs as their ransom. When will we stop letting these people bully us? And many of the rich, like Romney, who claim to provide jobs for the community do nothing of the sort. They are speculators who create only wealth for themselves through investment such as leveraged buyouts of struggling businesses, often destroying jobs and bankrupting struggling businesses. Read the article cited above to see how Romney and his colleagues do this - through bribery. They're criminals. Romney is not a warm, fuzzy guy who cares about you and your family. Finally, should we be responsible and tell the truth, like Obama does, or should we seek personal power and lie, like Romney does? As far as I'm concerned, if you have a heart, you're compassionate and see your fellow citizens as your friends, you'll vote for Obama. If you're greedy and see your fellow citizens as your enemies you'll vote for Romney. Why anyone would choose the latter is a mystery.
October 16, 2012 12:48pm
Romney etch-a-sketched his positions and flip flopped all over the stage, while Obama countered with policy analysis. Obama needs to renew the passion that we say years ago, and show that Romney's new found compassion is just another flip flop.
October 16, 2012 12:49pm
Sometimes it crosses my mind that we are doomed when the voting public relies on a debate or a TV AD to make a voting choice ..what about understanding the issues and facts from reliable sources. ? .
"Forbes" has reported that Obama has been tighter with a buck since IKE The first year of the Obama presidency the budget was set by GW BUSH where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% —going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. . Indeed, not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bush—and passed by the 2008 Congress—it was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office.
So, how do the actual Obama annual budgets look?
Courtesy of Marketwatch-
In fiscal 2010 (the first Obama budget) spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.
In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.
In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.
Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.
October 16, 2012 10:49am
For too long we have seen the Right wooing the religious Right and claiming a faux moral ascendency while running roughshod over long-held ethical considerations. For too long we have heard the term "unfunded mandates" used to perpetrate heinous acts in the name of "maintaining freedom" and then when those irresponsible acts begin to be paid for, it becomes a policy of "reckless spending".
Throw as much money and word-smithing at the issues as you like, but a lie is still a lie and the farmer, the factory worker, and the average American working man and woman (what few are left by the 'job creators' ) know the difference.
October 16, 2012 10:04am
It takes a severe case of cognitive dissonance not to recognize that there is nothing "moral" about someone who has expanded Bush's ugliest policies in service of the 1%, as Obama has done.
And don't try that "Romney will be worse" mantra with me because--
'Arguments about how "the republicans are much worse" have the sad logic of slaves trying to figure out which overseer will be more generous with the food rations or more sparing with the whip.' -Dan Mage, from OpEdNews
It simply cannot get any more 'evil' than irretrievable loss of human rights, democracy, and the earth, which re-electing Obama will guarantee. Wake Up!
(Jill Stein is on the ballot in 38 states, plus allowed as a write-in in 5 more states- Jill Stein.org/ballot Let's really do it this time in 2012!!)
October 16, 2012 1:58pm
"There you go again," Kathleen.
You know Jill Stein can't win this election. Don't you? Is there some kind of resurgence of Green Party voters that no one knows about but you?
Then you don't see any difference between the Democrats and the Republicans? Who gave us Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, the G.I. Bill, and Unemployment Insurance? Was it the Republicans?
You're smart enough to know the answer to that.
Was it the Green Party? You also know the answer to that. Well, it's like this, Kathleen, I'm a retired senior and I DO CARE (though you obviously don't!) about Social Security and Medicare, and though, in my lifetime of working, I never had to use Unemployment Compensation, I'm still glad it was there for me and everyone else who needed it. (Even Rush Limbaugh used it!)
You seem to be looking for some kind of political purity you can't find in the real world, Kathleen. And you hide your head in the sand and say vote for Jill, when you know damned well every vote she gets will only help Romney/Ryan to win. You want that? You want to dismantle the "safety net" that has saved many Americans from starvation or living on the streets? If you do, why?
Again, if you work for a living, you can thank the Democrats for the 40-hour week and Overtime Pay. And the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Voting Rights Act.
Who's more likely to try to strengthen these programs and preserve them, the party that opposed them all, or the party that initiated them?
Look, I voted for Green Party candidates here in NM. I wasn't happy with the alternatives, and I wanted to make a statement. And once I voted for Dick Gregory, because he was the only anti-war (Vietnam era) candidate on the polls in New York. I'm not a lock-step party member, and I hate it when the Democratic party takes my vote for granted.
But even Bernie Sanders, my very favorite man in the whole Congress, a progressive Independent, advises us to vote for Obama, because TOO MUCH IS AT STAKE in this election.
You make a lot of charges against Obama but you never seem to detail what you're speaking of. You never get specific about how Obama/Biden will be just as bad as Romney/Ryan. You just paint with a broad brush and huff and puff your righteous "mantra."
I don't idolize Obama. He's human, has many faults (like most of us, unless you're the exception), and I wish he did certain things differently. But there's no way, Kathleen, I'm going to do anything to help Romney/Ryan get elected. I've already voted, and I'm not ashamed that I voted for the Democratic candidates on the ballot. Sure, I could've voted for Jill Stein, but I don't even know who she is, and this is not the time to be making self-righteous statements.
Maybe you don't care about Social Security or Medicare. Maybe you're so well-off you may never need them; or maybe you don't care about family members who are already receiving their benefits. You'll have to square your vote with your conscience. You know Jill can't win, and you also know this is not the time to be riding high on your horse and pretending you're too pure and righteous to vote for the Democrats.
Just feeling a strong emotion is no reason to vote for anything or anyone.
October 16, 2012 12:25pm
Kathleen - could you provide specifics please. What ugly Bush policies are you referring to? What "irretrievable loss of human rights, democracy and the earth are you referring to?" And how is Obama responsible for all of this? Consider the vow of non-cooperation among Republicans the day Obama was elected. From where I'm sitting, Obama is trying to defend human rights while the Republicans are endangering the earth, through irresponsible business practices, and are threatening women's, labor's and immigrant's rights to name a few.
October 16, 2012 7:51am
Second Fact Check On Spending
The last budget of Bush spent 3510B
Actual spent in fiscal 2012 was 3540.
The 2013 budget projects spending at 3800B.
That indicates that Obama will increase spending
from 3510 to 3800 or 8.3% for four years.
Compare to Reagan 80% and Bush 90% (1830 to 3510)
One big problem is failure to tax to get revenue to pay our way
thereby creating the horrid debt burden.
In fiscal 2012 we borrowed 1100B. A shame. While corporations made record profits and richest got much richer. We have the income to pay our way.
The revenue in fiscal 2012 was 2450B is why we rank below only Chile and Mexico as Least Taxed in OECD nations. The 2450 is 17% of our National Income.
Runaway unfunded spending is in Medicare and Pentagon.
We must cut the runaway spending and tax wealth more to start paying down the debt.