Romney 1, Obama 0

Mitt Romney scored a comfortable victory over President Obama in the first of three US presidential debates.

The media consensus after the first of three US presidential debates appears to be that Republican challenger Mitt Romney scored a comfortable victory over President Barack Obama. This is partly because Romney has been so inept in his campaigning that expectations for him were at rock-bottom. Even this, however, is unlikely to be of much help to Romney. Previously considered a moderate, Romney has had to tack sharply to the right just to earn the trust of his party and is now committed to positions that simply aren’t very popular. His ‘47 per cent’ gaffe, in which he wrote off half the country as essentially being leeches, has reinforced the impression of Romney as an unfeeling capitalist.

The first debate was focused on domestic issues with the most time, unsurprisingly, spent on discussing the economy. Romney had to defend his tax plan, which sounds wonderful in theory but simply does not add up. He has proposed across-the-board tax cuts, which he claims will not affect the budget deficit because he will eliminate all tax loopholes and deductions. Independent studies have found that even allowing for massive economic growth, there simply isn’t enough money to be saved by plugging loopholes to finance his tax cut. And that is the biggest problem for the Republicans today. They act as budget deficit hawks when, in fact, their guiding policy is a commitment to cutting taxes, especially for the richest segment of society.

President Obama, meanwhile, has been far more modest in his ambitions. Instead, he was forced to defend his record over the last four years, especially his healthcare reform. Romney’s resistance to that is how much it cost and, philosophically, he is opposed to the idea of government intervention in healthcare. But President Obama can always point to the fact that under his healthcare bill, more Americans will be insured than ever before. Ultimately, both candidates will likely find that their specific plans have no hope of making it through the legislative process. The partisan gridlock in Washington is unlikely to end anytime soon, making governing highly difficult for either candidate.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2012.