Time to Focus on What's Important

In the last five days, as I watched both Republican debates as well as the news coverage of the upcoming New Hampshire primaries, I was struck by how much attention is being given to the unimportant and how little to what is actually critical to the nation. At the debates, peripheral questions about things like banning birth control, gay marriage, personalities, opinions on who is "electable" and the like too up over half of all the time for questioning. Foreign relations other than Afghanistan got very little coverage, and even the war in Afghanistan was treated more like an afterthought than a national issue. Even the most important current issue, the terrible Obama economy, received little focus. No candidate got the chance to say more than three sentences about his economic plans. We heard that the Wall Street Journal called one plan timid or that one candidate or another had "created" jobs in his state while governor. We never heard the candidates speak about actual economic policy. None of the so-called journalists who moderated the debate ever asked a question like "Tell us please the three most important specific steps that you would take to help grow the economy."

News coverage of the election like the debates has veered away from substance. How many reports do we need to hear about the size of the crowds or which candidate is negative and which positive. Do we need gotcha reports about something one candidate said that sounds bad if twisted out of context? Where is the news organization that is presenting the highlights of the economic programs of the candidates?

The sad thing is that the coverage has moved from substance to nonsense. In fairness, we have just had three years of a presidency which has had no real substance on many points. Obama has had no economic growth plan since early 2009. Ask yourself right now, what has Obama told us he wants to do with regards to the economy in a second term? There is no answer since Obama has been silent on this point. Indeed, Obama has no plan about what to do with the economy now. Do not confuse raising some taxes on the wealthy with an economic plan. Raising taxes does not cause growth, and no one contends that it does. Similarly, do not confuse extending the payroll tax "holiday" as an economic growth plan. We had that in place for 2011, and it did not work -- growth was less than 2%.

It is time for the Republican candidates to get back to the main focus that Americans want to hear about: what they would do to fix the economy. At the next debate, if the question of gay marriage or contraception or the like is raised, the candidate asked should say something like this: "We spoke at length about that subject at the last debate and the one before that. I think that America knows our positions. It makes more sense for the subject of the economy to be discussed at length here. Too many Americans are hurting in the current Obama economic slowdown to give short shrift to the subject. Accordingly, let me tell you my plan for ..............."