Romney won the debate but not the war.

True to the longstanding Hollywood tradition, the evil villain was defeated at the end of the show last night but was allowed to survive for another sequel. Yes, Mitt Romney did a good job pummeling Barack Hussein Obama throughout the debate but missed a couple of good opportunities to bury the hatchet deep inside his weakened opponent and finish him off. When Obama twice brought up the approval of his socialized medicine plan by the left-leaning AARP, a group that has since tried to distance itself from the Democrats by asking that they not be mentioned by name, Mitt Romney had the opportunity to reveal that the reason the AARP has endorsed Obamacare was that they stand to make some $30-million dollars in profit from selling Obama's health care plans to its members. Romney also failed to bring up the huge number of AARP members who left the seniors group after the AARP began to align itself with Obamacare.

And when the numbers of unemployed were bandied about, Mitt Romney continued to use the current standard figure of 8.1% and the 23-million head count instead of the much higher totals that include those long-term unemployed who have given up looking for jobs. Just because the Dept. of Labor has twice revised the way unemployment numbers are calculated in the last decade doesn't mean the Republicans have to repeat it. That misleading 8.1% figure just says that 23-million unemployed people are looking for work. It fails to account for the gross number of people who have drifted over to apply for welfare and food stamps. According to current methods of accounting, when a person has exhausted all of their unemployment checks they are dropped from the tally of the unemployed. Had Mitt Romney addressed the unemployment number completely he would have informed the viewers that the true, total numbers of people who are out of work is closer to 20% and not the 8.1% (which is bad enough).

 

When the subject of Obamacare was being discussed both Romney and Obama acknowledged in an off-handed way that there was an unelected board of medical professionals that were going to review medical treatments for individual patients. Romney had the best opportunity to describe that board correctly as the Death Panels it is that the Democrats have been denying for the last two years. And why not take the opportunity to inform the public about the statement made just a few days ago by a Steve Rattner, a top Democrat strategist and donor who served as President Obama’s lead auto-industry adviser who conceded that the rationing of health services under Obamacare is “inevitable.” Steven Rattner advocated that such rationing should target elderly patients, while stating, “We need death panels.”

That board of professionals will be deciding which senior citizens will be given treatment and which will be denied treatment and allowed to die. Those that have been determined to be useful and productive to society will be allowed to live and those that are not will be considered unworthy.

 

And lastly, Mitt Romney failed to mention the 16,000 people that will be hired by the IRS to go around and verify that every citizen has a valid health insurance plan. Those found to be without insurance will be faced with stiff fines.

 

Mitt Romney also needs to be aware of the media bias that surrounds the television production of these debates. The TV cameras frequently focused on Romney's face and as he continued to glance to his left to watch Obama speak, his eyes looked wet and tearful and his facial expressions appeared to lack confidence. This problem is similar to the mistake Richard Nixon made in the Kennedy/Nixon debates when Nixon refused to wear makeup under the harsh studio lights and he looked like he had a dark 5 o'clock shadow. An image that created the sinister appearance of an untrustworthy character.

On the plus side, Mitt Romney had a lot of good factual information to throw at Obama and used those facts and figures as a barrage of jabs to keep Obama off guard. It is too bad he used only jabs instead of knockout punches. 

I would have preferred it if Mitt Romney had unleashed such a barrage of criticisms onto Barack Obama that his over-inflated ego would explode and he would be reduced to a quivering, tearful lump. Maybe Mitt will be encouraged to do so in the next debate after reading of his victory last night.

My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Oldironsides