Debate preparation trumps 2012 campaigning Sunday

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama makes phone calls to vol­un­teers at an Orga­niz­ing for Amer­ica field office with Alexa Kissinger, left, Sun­day in Williams­burg, Va. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Car­olyn Kaster)

JULIE PACE

STEVE PEOPLES

Asso­ci­ated Press

BURLINGTON, Mass. — As Mitt Romney’s cam­paign claimed new momen­tum in the race for the White House, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s polit­i­cal advis­ers on Sun­day promised the incum­bent would unleash his more aggres­sive side in Tuesday’s debate to pre­vent their Repub­li­can rival from deliv­er­ing another “mag­i­cal and the­atri­cal performance.”

Obama and Rom­ney hun­kered down in pri­vate debate prepa­ra­tion for much of the day as aides offered a pre-debate spar­ring match on television.

They dis­agreed on much, but agreed that Rom­ney bested Obama in their first meet­ing nearly two weeks ago — a per­for­mance that shifted the direc­tion of a race that had favored the pres­i­dent but has since tight­ened in national and bat­tle­ground state polls.

“He knows Mitt Rom­ney had a bet­ter night at the first debate,” Obama spokes­woman Jen­nifer Psaki said of the pres­i­dent. “The Amer­i­can peo­ple should expect to see a much more ener­gized Pres­i­dent Obama.”

Ed Gille­spie, senior adviser to the Rom­ney cam­paign, quipped that the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor would be pre­pared regard­less of Obama’s adjust­ments: “The pres­i­dent can change his style. He can change his tac­tics. He can’t change his record.”

Obama spent the day with aides in swing state Vir­ginia, while Rom­ney stayed close to his Boston-area home ahead of Tuesday’s prime-time, town hall-style debate at Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­sity in Hemp­stead, N.Y., exactly three weeks before the Nov. 6 election.

Romney’s advis­ers sug­gested the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee would con­tinue to mod­er­ate his mes­sage — in tone, if not sub­stance — as he did in the Oct. 3 meet­ing to help broaden his appeal to the nar­row slice of unde­cided vot­ers. In recent days, Rom­ney has promised his tax plan would not ben­e­fit the wealthy, empha­sized his work with Democ­rats as Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor and down­played plans to strengthen the nation’s abor­tion laws.

He told an Iowa news­pa­per this week, for exam­ple, that he would not pur­sue abortion-related leg­is­la­tion if elected. That’s in direct con­flict with last year’s pledge to the anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List, to cut fed­eral fund­ing from Planned Par­ent­hood and sup­port leg­is­la­tion to “pro­tect unborn chil­dren who are capa­ble of feel­ing pain from abortion.”

“I think Mitt Romney’s per­for­mance was, indeed, mag­i­cal and the­atri­cal. Mag­i­cal and the­atri­cal largely because for 90 min­utes he walked away from a cam­paign he had been run­ning for more than six years pre­vi­ous to that,” Obama senior cam­paign adviser Robert Gibbs said of the first debate.

While the debates have proved crit­i­cal, they are one ele­ment in larger cam­paigns that involve exten­sive ground games in vir­tu­ally every state across the nation and a tele­vi­sion ad war that may con­sume $1 bil­lion before Elec­tion Day.

Through Mon­day, either absen­tee or in-person early vot­ing has begun in 43 states.

Rom­ney on Sun­day released a new tele­vi­sion spot show­cas­ing footage from run­ning mate Paul Ryan’s first and only face­off with Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden last week. The ad fea­tures clips of Ryan say­ing the gov­ern­ment “can’t keep spend­ing money we don’t have.”

The com­ments are jux­ta­posed with video from the debate of Biden laughing.

Ryan returned to his home state, Wis­con­sin, to help raise cash for Sen­ate can­di­date Tommy Thomp­son. Wis­con­sin hasn’t voted for a Repub­li­can for pres­i­dent since Ronald Rea­gan in 1984, but Ryan said recent vic­to­ries, includ­ing the failed recall of Gov. Scott Walker, have it poised to deliver for both Rom­ney and Thomp­son in just over three weeks.

“When we do that, we will look back at this moment as the day Wis­con­sin com­pleted its jour­ney,” Ryan said in Mil­wau­kee. He planned to hold a pub­lic rally Mon­day morn­ing in nearby Waukesha.

Obama aides said the pres­i­dent was clear-eyed about the need to have a bet­ter show­ing in his sec­ond debate with Rom­ney. After a list­less first per­for­mance, Obama was focused on deliv­er­ing more pointed and aggres­sive responses.

He was ensconced in hours of debate prac­tice Sun­day at Kingsmill Resort, a lux­ury vaca­tion spot in Williams­burg, Va. The pres­i­dent was shut­tling between a house on the cam­pus where he is stay­ing and the resort’s main build­ing, where aides are set up for debate practice.

The cam­paign picked the river­front Vir­ginia resort in part to get the pres­i­dent away from dis­trac­tions at the White House. Some of Obama’s offi­cial duties, includ­ing the attack in Libya that led to the death of four Amer­i­cans, forced the pres­i­dent to can­cel or cut short some of his prep ses­sions ahead of the first debate, and aides acknowl­edge he entered the first face-off with less prac­tice than they had hoped.

Vir­ginia was also a polit­i­cal strate­gic pick for Obama. While he has no for­mal pub­lic events there, his mere pres­ence in the com­pet­i­tive swing state is designed to drive local media cov­er­age just over three weeks from Elec­tion Day.

Aides said Obama and his team were both study­ing up on pol­icy and hold­ing mock debates, fea­tur­ing Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., play­ing the role of Rom­ney. Anita Dunn, a for­mer Obama aide brought back to help with debate prepa­ra­tions, was play­ing the role of debate mod­er­a­tor Candy Crowley.

For Obama, the chal­lenge is to be more aggres­sive in com­bat­ing his Repub­li­can rival dur­ing the town hall-style debate, which often requires can­di­dates to also show empa­thy with the questioner.

Cam­paign offi­cials insisted they were more focused on sub­stance over style.

“The ques­tion is not just which can­di­date con­nects with the ques­tioner, but who has the bet­ter poli­cies for the Amer­i­can peo­ple for the next four years,” Psaki said. “On that front the pres­i­dent has a great advantage.”

But Romney’s team claimed the advan­tage on Sun­day, cit­ing polls that sug­gest the race is essen­tially a tossup.

After attend­ing church ser­vices Sun­day morn­ing, the Repub­li­can can­di­date devoted sev­eral hours to debate prac­tice at a hotel near his sub­ur­ban Boston home. Rom­ney, who has been set­ting aside time for debate prac­tice since June, was joined by his senior strat­egy team, includ­ing Ohio Sen. Rob Port­man, who has been play­ing Obama.

“I think the wind is at Gov. Romney’s back and we’re clearly on momen­tum,” Gille­spie said. “This is going to be a close race. I knew that when we were behind in the polls. I know it now when we’re ahead in the polls.”

Gille­spie made his com­ments on “Fox News Sun­day”; Gibbs appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Posted by AP News on Oct 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.