Topic category:  Elections - Politics, Polling, etc.

The Good

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shined. He was the only debater who appeared presidential. He demonstrated competence, concern and command on the facts and the stage. He exploded myths about him promoted by Team Obama and its liberal media establishment allies. He was not intimidated by the moment, or President Obama, or moderator Jim Lehrer. He came to win, respectfully, and he did. When Lehrer tried to give the President both the first and last word, Romney politely but firmly stopped him. Romney even exploded the myth promoted by other Republican presidential hopefuls that Romney could not effectively make the case against Obamacare and rebutted the criticism on the right that he had not been doing more public appearances. He was fully prepared for the first debate. From start to finish, he was great.

The Bad

The President was bad, and he was supposed to be celebrating his twentieth wedding anniversary. For him, it was downhill after he opened by mentioning his wife and their anniversary. Professor Larry Sabato gave Romney "a full A" and the President a generous C-. The President did not implode, and he didn't commit the Bush 41 gaffe of looking at his watch, but he was clearly overmatched and seemed even more eager for the debate to end than Bush 41 had. The President had no comeback when Romney said that as President he was entitled to a plane and a house, but not his own facts. Even Bill Mahrer, a million dollar Obama donor, conceded that the President needed his teleprompter. The President was so bad that Chris Matthews conceded that Romney won and Rachel Maddow called it a draw. That's REALLY bad for the President.

The Ugly

Even though Romney clearly demonstrated superiority and the President embarrassed even his ardent supporters, the President may lose the popular vote and still be declared the winner. Beware: Team Obama has been playing the Electoral College game very well, the President remains ACORN's guy and ACORN morphed, it did not die.

On October 1, 2009, Page Six of the "New York Post published this item under "Pimping for Franken" (www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/item_qiJQcBv5YWh3IaRomneyOCANhvmI)

"EVEN the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery. The disgraced, pimp-friendly community organizing group claims it registered 43,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1 percent were fraudulent but survived the recount process, that's 430 votes, almost all cast for Franken, who won by just 312 votes. Asks Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 'Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected -- a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?'"

After the debate, in which Romney directed addressed what he called the President's inaccuracies, the President is left relying on incumbency and personal likeability.

Romney can't change the President's incumbency, but he can and should deal with the President's undeserved personal likeability, by highlighting some ugly facts.

Recently an old videotape surfaced in which the President acknowledged that he's a redistributionist and a 2007 videotape of him playing the race card in Louisiana surfaced.

Romney should highlight the President's ACORN ties and lies and this Obama audio (www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFSY2dnTSZQ)of Obama:

"...I definitely welcome ACORN's input. You don't have to ask me about that. I'm going to call you even if you didn't ask me.

"When I ran Project Vote, voter registration drive in Illinois, you know, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it. Once I was elected, there wasn't a campaign that ACORN worked on down in Springfield that I wasn't right there with you. Since I've been in the United States Senate, I've been always a partner with ACORN as well. I've been fighting with ACORN, alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career."

For the President the ACORN family is still there, and it does not play fair.

The presidential election will be ugly, and Team Romney needs to make sure that the election is not stolen instead of suggesting that the President is a nice guy.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.