A Second Look at the Race

After Debate #1, America Took Another Look at Mitt, and Saw the Same Twit

by Alec Kohut

It seems so long ago, the first debate. After which it was proclaimed that it was a new race for the Presidency. The pundits declared Mitt the winner, and the liberal pundits, well at least most of them, just went along with the prevailing wisdom of a big debate win for Mitt. I didn’t, Al Sharpton didn’t, and Norman Goldman didn’t. And with the election just five days away, turns out we were right.

The only thought from pundits after that first debate that did hold true was the idea that many would now give Mitt Romney a second look. Well, they have, and just as I said after that first debate, nothing really changed. Unless you were enthralled by Romney’s idea of repealing Dodd-Frank and replacing it with…”trust me,” the debate was pretty boring. It wasn’t a new race, it wasn’t going to be close, it was only going to be easier for the mainstream media to hype. That’s all, nothing more.

But people did give Mitt Romney a second look, and like before, they saw the same thing. They saw the same say anything politician/used car salesman, that will say anything to get elected. And boy did we see it this last week. First, he went to Ohio and blatantly lied about US auto jobs being shipped to China. And yes, America was giving him a second look, and we all saw the lies, and we all saw the auto executives call him out as what President Obama would call, “a bullshitter.”

And America watched a President respond to a natural disaster with resolve and determination. And America watched two men, one republican, one democrat, put aside politics and be the civil servants they were elected to be. And America watched two Americans show us that our greatness as a nation are the things that bring us together, not the things that divide us.

Chris Christie didn’t earn the respect of just Democrats this week, he earned the respect of a nation.

Mitt Romney also made a great effort this week, an effort to ignore what he had said previously about FEMA, and Federal responsibility to Americans in need. He dodged reporters, and staged a phony “relief effort,” but everyone watching knew one clear fact: it’s over. America did take another look at Mitt Romney, and the first debate really changed nothing.

America saw the same man who said 47% of America won’t take responsibility for themselves, that FEMA should be abolished, and a man who lied to Ohioans about JEEP production moving to China. They saw the same Mitt Romney after the debate, that they saw before the debate.

The American people have seen that Mitt Romney is indeed who they thought he was, and were reminded, again, why Barack Obama was elected President in a time of crisis not equaled in many of our lifetimes.

Tuesday, Barack Obama will be elected for a second term as President of the United States. He will be re-elected because we are moving in the right direction, and from the worst recession since the Great Depression, we are coming back, strong. America is coming back in a way few could have imagined four years ago.

And we’ve done it without Republicans. Because we are on the right side of history, and we are on the right side of the economy, and we are the ones who can make America better while the GOP tries to obstruct the economy and progress.

President Barack Obama has proven we don’t need John Boehner, or Eric Cantor, or Mitch McConnell to bring America back. While they have cheered against America, and celebrated poor job reports, President Obama just kept working, kept on keeping on.

And in the end, isn’t that all we really ask of our public servants, whether its Chris Christie, or Barack Obama, just keep on keeping on for us. Not for party, not for politics, but for us.