Presidential Debates Schedule: The Case for a Romney Presidency and a Democratic Congress

Each debate will be broadcast live on C-SPAN, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, all cable news channels, and will be available for online streaming at PolicyMic.

October 3, 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm Eastern Time: President Barack Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney will debate domestic policy at the University of Denver in Colorado. Jim Lehrer, host of NewsHour on PBS, will serve as moderator for his eleventh presidential debate. Forty-five minutes will be devoted to debating the economy, and then the candidates will debate health care, the role of government, and governing for 15 minutes each.

October 11, 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm Eastern Time: Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan will debate foreign and domestic policy at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Martha Raddatz, Chief Foreign Correspondent at ABC News, will moderate a debate divided into nine time segments of 10 minutes each.

October 16, 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm Eastern Time: In a town meeting format at Hofstra University in New York, Obama and Romney will respond directly to citizen’s questions. Candy Crowley, CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent, will serve as moderator. The citizen participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization.

October 22, 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm Eastern Time: President Obama will return to the debate stage one final time before Election Day. Bob Schieffer, Host of Face the Nation on CBS, will lead a debate on foreign policy at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.

November 6, Election Day: Many states require voters to register by October 6. Be sure to complete your voter registration this week to be able to do your part to participate in the democratic process. Those who don’t at least write in a candidate are in no position to complain about problems in America!

Unsolicited Voting Advice: Even though a growing majority of Americans appear not to like Romney or his campaign, Governor Romney’s record as a data-driven bi-partisan executive should not be understated. In spite of his rhetoric to the contrary, Romney is actually a principled moderate conservative who worked with a legislature that was 85% Democrat while Governor of Massachusetts to close tax loopholes on big businesses, balance the budget, and accomplish significant reforms. The key to Romney accomplishing what the country needs most (comprehensive tax reform) is to vote for Romney and to vote for the Democrats in Congress.

Since 2008, Republican members of Congress have put their desire for power above the best interests of America. As is well-documented, the Republicans' number one goal has been “to make Obama a one term president.” Instead of working to make America strong again, Republicans in Congress have spent the last two years accomplishing worse than nothing.  Republicans in the Senate have blocked 19 jobs bills, of which most were widely supported by non-partisan economists. It’s time to vote them out.

Would Democrats be any better, if Romney wins? Definitely. Many Republicans have adopted a right-wing ideology that thinks all government is inefficient and bad. While governments can certainly grow ‘too big’ and get out of control, recent Republican philosophy is one reason for American decline. Ten other countries are now doing better than America in terms of wealth per person. Many of these countries have learned how to use government as a tool to spur development, and compensate for market failures. For example, Singapore’s GDP grew by 14.5% in 2010 to reach a GDP per person of $60,500; state-owned enterprises make up over half their economy. As a businessman, Romney understands that free markets need government oversight and incentives to protect citizens from abusive business practices. Many other Republicans pretend not to understand these elementary economic concepts.  

In contrast, Democrats favor workers and teachers unions which can cause market distortions of their own. However, in general, Democrats are much more pragmatic and data-driven in their approach to designing government policy, because they believe that government does actually have an important role to play.

This election cycle, do yourself and the country a favor and vote the Republicans out of Congress, and Romney into the Oval Office.

Yes, Mitt Romney is rich, lacks empathy, and doesn’t appear to stand strongly on any issue, except his life-long goal of becoming president. Yes, Romney’s currently stated energy policy is unrealistic and awful, his housing policy is fluff, and most of his other plans are woefully lacking in specifics. Yes, a Romney presidency would reinforce negative international stereotypes of Americans. All this understood, at the end of the day, a Romney presidency would finally clean up America’s disastrous tax code to make our economy more competitive on the world stage. 

Romney’s policies would also clearly create more jobs in fossil fuel extraction and the military. For me, this is a backward approach to growth, as warfare often destroys more value than it creates, and fossil fuel dependency is a short-term fix for a long-term problem. Still, I think the real moderate Romney would be a great president, if Congressional Democrats were crafting his legislation.

On November 6, do yourself and the country a favor and vote for a Congress that works for America.