1. 10 debate questions for President Obama and
Mitt Romney
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81682.html#ixzz2JT6lXJEH
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney no doubt have it rough at the first presidential debate next
Wednesday. But what about moderator Jim Lehrer?
His job is to make two of the most scripted and steady debaters in politics break stride and make
some news when they face off in Denver.
It’s not easy, but it can be done — by lobbing questions the candidates themselves would hate to
hear. Not exactly “gotchas.” More like the bona fide head-scratchers they’ve struggled to answer
through the whole campaign — either because their usual talking points don’t fly or because they
can’t quite square past positions with current stances.
(PHOTOS: Presidential debate moderators)
Here is POLITICO’s list of the 10 questions we’d love to see Lehrer put to Obama and Romney.
For President Obama:
1. What do you say to the millions of Americans who might have jobs today if you had
made the 2009 stimulus package bigger, as many leading liberal economists argued it
should have been. You came to office promising bold action, and in the eyes of many of
your supporters, blinked — with devastating effects on the economy.
This is a hope-and-change meets reality question, and Obama could decide to blame
Republicans, as he has throughout the campaign. But Obama has some reasons to take credit for
a legitimate accomplishment early in his first term.
Many economists agree that his $787 billion stimulus package — Obama’s first big achievement
as president — helped save the economy from imploding. What it didn’t do was create a robust
recovery, and the country will be shaking off that hangover for years to come.
Nor did the stimulus dramatically decrease the unemployment rate as Obama’s advisers
predicted, though, and stimulus has become a dirty word for most Americans.
Liberals in Obama’s own administration pressured the president to go bigger, and pumping more
money in might have given the economy a bigger boost — or lessened the long-term pain. If
Obama believes the stimulus worked, then wouldn’t a bigger stimulus have worked better?
Obama had the congressional majorities to make it happen, but he offered a smaller compromise
number in part to win Republican votes. Ultimately, every House Republican voted against the
$787 billion number. So it seems like maybe the compromise wasn’t worth it.
2. Washington seems as toxic today as it was the day you took office. The country was
looking to you to unite it, and you yourself admitted recently that you failed. In retrospect,
do you feel you overestimated your own ability to bridge divides in Washington, and how
do you answer people who say simply: Obama let me down?
It might be hard for the president to confront the ghost of Obama past, and any answer that
comes down to “It’s all the Republicans’ fault” might sound defensive and tinny. But that’s
where the president tends to go.
“Obviously, the fact that we haven’t been able to change the tone in Washington is
disappointing,” Obama said at the Univision town hall in Florida. “We know now that as soon as
I came into office, you already had meetings among some of our Republican colleagues saying,
‘How do we figure out how to beat the president?’ And I think that I’ve learned some lessons
over the last four years, and the most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change
Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.”

2. Republicans have pounced on this admission, which seems to undercut the rationale for Obama’s
2008 candidacy.
Obama will seek to convince voters he’s still hopeful even though he hasn’t been able to cut any
big deals with Republican leaders. But if he couldn’t get it done in 2008, why would anyone
think he could get it done in 2012?
So Obama’s under pressure to assure voters that he could somehow break the gridlock in a
second term — especially if, as looks likely, Republicans keep control of the House and
government stays divided. Obama’s challenge is to play the blame game without looking like
he’s not taking responsibility.
3. People lost jobs in the recession and lost their homes. Why haven’t you done more to
help Americans facing home foreclosure?
Obama’s approach to the housing issue has been called cautious and carefully calibrated. His
liberal base expected him to target mortgage lenders and banks more aggressively and to throw
more money at the problem. But the painful slide in housing prices has continued.
“We will not roll out an aggressive housing plan,” the president reportedly told Sen. Dick Durbin
(D-Ill.) in early 2009, according to Bob Woodward’s new book.
The president has defended his measured approach, telling “60 Minutes” that he’s “helped
several million homeowners avoid foreclosure and [made] sure that the terms of their mortgage
were ones that they could pay.”
But Romney has attacked Obama hard in swing states like Nevada, which has suffered a steep
decline in home prices. But the Republican is vulnerable on this issue, something Obama is sure
to point out. “Don’t try and stop the foreclosure process,” Romney told the Las Vegas ReviewJournal last year. “Let it runs its course and hit the bottom.”
4. How can you promise to protect entitlements when you’ve put them on the table?
“No. 1, I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security,” Vice
President Joe Biden said in Virginia last month. “I flat guarantee you.”
But Obama has been receptive to changing Social Security and Medicare under the right
conditions — both rhetorically and during the debt ceiling talks in the summer of 2011.
On the trail, Romney has accused the president of cutting more than $700 billion from Medicare
as part of his health care overhaul. Obama will say Paul Ryan’s budget ends Medicare as we
know it by creating a voucher system. This debate has also played out on the 2012 airwaves.
But the truth is more complicated. Republicans and Democrats seem to know some form of
entitlement savings is necessary in order to cut the deficit.
If the president is pressed on the issue, he might find himself on the defensive.
5. Why haven’t you shown leadership on gun control?
The July movie theater massacre that killed 12 and injured 58 others happened just a half-hour
away from the debate site in Denver. The president called for “common-sense” rules that would
prevent a “mentally unbalanced individual” from getting an assault rifle, but he has not been out
front on the issue since. He wrote an op-ed after the shooting of then-Arizona Rep. Gabby
Giffords in January 2011, but he never pushed new legislation.
Many Democrats believe Al Gore’s support for gun control cost him dearly in 2000, and Obama
would prefer not to talk about the issue. But gun laws play well in some suburban areas.