David Rohde

Amid the politicking, there’s an overlooked cause of the Benghazi tragedy

For conservatives, the Benghazi scandal is a Watergate-like presidential cover-up. For liberals, it a fabricated Republican witch-hunt. For me, Benghazi is a call to act on an enduring problem that both parties ignore.

One major overlooked cause of the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans is we have underfunded the State Department and other civilian agencies that play a vital role in our national security. Instead of building up cadres of skilled diplomatic security guards, we have bought them from the lowest bidder, trying to acquire capacity and expertise on the cheap. Benghazi showed how vulnerable that makes us.

Now, I’m not arguing that this use of contractors was the sole cause of the Benghazi tragedy, but I believe it was a primary one. Let me explain.

The slapdash security that killed Stevens, technician Sean Smith and CIA guards Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty started with a seemingly inconsequential decision by Libya’s new government. After the fall of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya’s interim government barred armed private security firms – foreign and domestic – from operating anywhere in the country.

Memories of the abuses by foreign mercenaries, acting for the brutal Qaddafi regime, prompted the decision, according to State Department officials.

Once the Libyans took away the private security guard option, it put enormous strain on a little-known State Department arm, the Diplomatic Security Service. This obscure agency has been responsible for protecting American diplomatic posts around the world since 1916.

Though embassies have contingents of Marines, consulates and other offices do not. And the missions of Marines, in fact, are to destroy documents and protect American government secrets. It is the Diplomatic Security agents who are charged with safeguarding the lives of American diplomats.

Today, roughly 900 Diplomatic Security agents guard 275 American embassies and consulates around the globe. That works out to a whopping four agents per facility.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the State Department relied on hundreds of security contractors to guard American diplomats. At times, they even hired private security guards to protect foreign leaders.

After Afghan President Hamid Karzai narrowly survived a 2002 assassination attempt, the State Department hired security guards from DynCorp, a military contractor, to guard him. Their aggressiveness in and around the presidential palace, however, angered Afghan, American and European officials. As soon as Afghan guards were trained to protect Karzai, DynCorp was let go.

But the State Department’s dependence on contractors for security remained. And Benghazi epitomized this Achilles’ heel.

Unable to hire contractors, the Diplomatic Security Service rotated small numbers of agents through Benghazi to provide security, on what government officials call temporary duty assignments, or “TDY.” Eric Nordstrom, the Diplomatic Security agent who oversaw security in Libya until two months before the attack, recently told members of Congress that though he twice requested 12 agents he was rejected – and told he was asking for “the sun the moon and the stars.”

He testified that he replied bluntly to his superiors in Washington. “It’s not the hardships,” Nordstrom testified he had said. “It’s not the gunfire. It’s not the threats. It’s dealing and fighting against the people, programs and personnel who are supposed to be supporting me. And I added it by saying, ‘For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.’ ”

Other State Department officials also say that the reliance on contracting created a weakened Diplomatic Security Service. They said department officials, short on staff and eager to reduce costs, nickeled-and-dimed DS security requests.

“That is not a DS-centric issue,” said a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “That is a Department of State issue.”

Democrats have blamed Republicans for the lack of funding. They point out that House Republicans rejected $450 million in administration requests for increased Diplomatic Security spending since 2010. They say Senate Democrats were able to restore a small part of the funding.

But these partisan charges and counter-charges ignore a basic truth. Resource shortages and a reliance on contractors caused bitter divisions between field officers in Benghazi and State Department managers in Washington.

One agent who served on the ground in Benghazi felt the compound needed five times as many Diplomatic Security agents, according to a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official singled out Charlene Lamb, the Diplomatic Security Service official who oversees security in Washington, for criticism — saying she rejected repeated requests for additional improvements in Benghazi.

These officials confirmed complaints from Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, the former head of a U.S. Special Forces “Site Security Team” in Tripoli, that Lamb urged them to reduce the numbers of American security personnel on the ground even as security worsened across Libya. Wood and his team left the country the month before the attack.

In equivocating, evasive and shameful testimony before Congress in October, Lamb at first said she received no formal requests for additional security from Libya. She then absurdly claimed, “We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi at the time of 9/11.”

Lamb’s superior, David Kennedy, has defended her. He argued that a handful of additional Diplomatic Security guards in Benghazi – or the Special Forces team in Tripoli – would not have made a difference.

To date, no evidence has emerged that officials higher than Lamb or Kennedy were involved in the decision to reject the requests from Libya. Both are career civil servants, not Obama administration appointees.

There is a broader issue beyond the political blame game. Benghazi is a symptom of a brittle, over-stretched and under-funded State Department. Without being able to hire private contractors, the department provided too few guards and hoped a nearby CIA base or friendly Libyan militia would help them. An excellent recent report in the New York Times found that the U.S. military’s Africa Command was under-resourced as well as unable to help.

The investigation by the Senate and House intelligence committees into whether or not the Obama administration misled Americans after the attack or altered intelligence should continue. But the core issue before the attack was a lack of resources and skilled management, not shadowy conspiracies.

Many factors caused the death of Stevens and the three other Americans. But in the partisan free-for-all now unfolding, this key factor must not be ignored.

Within hours of President Obama winning re-election, two faces of the Republican Party emerged. One impressed me enormously. The other deeply troubled me. Liberals, meanwhile, rejoiced at having averted what they saw as a national calamity.

The time, though, is not for gloating. It is for supporting the Republicans who can rein in their party’s far right and help us all. For me, Fox News, of all places, was a hopeful sign.

While Karl Rove questioned whether Obama had, in fact, won Ohio, Juan Williams and Brit Hume courageously admitted the party had lost touch with a changing nation. They embraced exit polls showing that the surge in Latino, black, female and young voters that aided Obama in 2008 was a permanent demographic change, not a one-time event.

“We’re looking at a new kind of politics,” Williams said.

Hume stood tall as well.

“The demographic factors that Juan referred to are absolutely real,” he said.

And this morning Newt Gingrich, of all people, issued a bold mea culpa.

“We have to recognize that if you’re not going to be competitive with Latinos, with
African-Americans, with Native Americans, with Asian-Americans,” Gingrich said on CBS, “you’re not going to be a successful party.”

All of these officials should be applauded. I disagree with them in many ways politically. I also question whether this is the latest of many political pivots for Gingrich. But I praise and respect them for accepting the basic dynamics of the race. Publicly admitting you were wrong is never easy.

The reaction of far-right Republicans to the results, on the other hand, was astonishing. They argued that the vast swathes of female, young and minority voters who supported Obama would have supported an arch conservative.

“A succession of potential Republican nominees – Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich – were bright, attractive, and have compelling narratives,” Michael Hammond wrote on Red State, a conservative blog. “Instead, Republican voters (or, at least, enough of them) bought into this Democratic mantra that only a liberal stand-for-nothing Republican can win a presidential election.”

One group of Republicans is facing reality. Another is not. President Obama needs to quickly move to further marginalize the extreme Republican right.

His victory speech last night ended on a stirring note, but I wished it had contained concrete, bipartisan gestures. James Bennet of The Atlantic got it right in a message he posted on Twitter during the early part of the speech.

“Give us an action plan,” Bennet wrote. “Gang of 8 to the White House for budget talks next week; Romney to be commerce secretary; not stories but specifics.”

Obama, who has established few strong relationships with members of Congress, must  personally engage in the effort to avert the “fiscal cliff.” The moderate Republican senators who are members of the Gang of 8 should be a particular focus.

Cynics will scoff, but some positive signs emerged Wednesday. The White House released a statement saying that Obama had called congressional leaders from both parties Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and reiterated his support for a bipartisan solution to the fiscal cliff. In a press conference, House Speaker John Boehner said that he would be open to increasing tax revenues through tax reforms.

“We are ready to be led,” Boehner said.

If Obama can strike an elusive “grand bargain” with Republicans, I believe it will strengthen him and the moderate wing of the GOP. The question, of course, is how far Obama should bend. Recalcitrance from the far right should not be rewarded. Compromise by moderate Republicans should.

If Mitch McConnell and John Boehner choose to maintain their opposition to tax increases of any kind on the wealthy, Obama should allow the country to fall off the fiscal cliff.The best time for the damage to occur is now – just after Obama has won another four years.

Our country is deeply partisan. Yet Americans are also frustrated with the failure of both parties to get anything done. Over time, I believe that partisan brinksmanship will lose popularity.

There are some glimmers of hope. Thirteen states have agreed to curb the gerrymandering of congressional districts by having nonpartisan commissions draw districts instead of state legislatures. Multiple studies have shown that gerrymandering by partisan state legislatures has created a House of Representatives where liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans coast to re-election.

A study released by the Bipartisan Policy Center last month found that the 2012 House races will have the lowest number of competitive seats in over 40 years. There were 152 competitive seats in the 1970s, according to the study. Today, that number has dropped to 101.

In 1992 there were 96 House districts that voted for one party in the congressional race and another for president. That number has now dwindled to a half dozen.

Some politicians show that partisan divides can be bridged. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is a popular Republican governor of a state that voted 58 percent for Obama and 41 percent for Romney. Jeb Bush has criticized the party’s shift to the right. Republican senators and Gang of 8 members Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Mike Johanns of Nebraska have spent two years trying to find a bipartisan deficit reduction compromise.

It will take years to narrow our vast political divide. But I believe the dysfunction it breeds is becoming more and more apparent to voters. A “grand bargain” to avoid the fiscal cliff would be an enormous step forward. A small one is giving conservatives credit where credit is due. I applaud Gingrich and the Fox News commentators. More people from across the political spectrum should.

Whoever wins the presidency, his ability to address our country’s daunting problems depends on a functioning Congress. And by multiple measures, our current Congress is one of the most partisan, deadlocked and unpopular in American history.

A surge in state legislatures’ politically-driven redrawing of congressional districts has created a Congress that is more partisan than the American electorate, according to a study by the non-partisan Center for Voting and Democracy. And I believe that the dominance of blatantly partisan news coverage – led by Fox and MSNBC – has poisoned the broader dynamics that affect the U.S. Senate.

Moderate senators are vanishing from the American political landscape, according to the Washington-based National Journal magazine. In 1982, there were 60 seats for moderate senators. In 1994, the number shrunk to 36. In 2002, there were nine. And in the current Senate, zero.

Unless moderate voters begin supporting candidates  - particularly Senators – who cross party lines, our national deadlock will continue. Senate rules should be amended to end the destructive power of filibusters. Politicians who ease the bitter tenor of our debate should be rewarded. America’s political culture is dominated by a self-reinforcing, partisan-media fueled bubble, where viewers hear only denigration of the other side.

On balance,  I believe the extreme positions of Tea Party-backed conservatives are the core source of the problem. But Democrats have also played partisan games as well, particularly Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Moderate Republicans must regain control of their party. They can do that only if moderate Democrats support them. Instead of indiscriminately dismissing all Republicans, moderate Democrats should respectfully consider mainstream Republicans arguments, and recognize the challenge moderate Republicans face inside their party.

Before casting your vote in House and Senate races tomorrow, check this constructive analysis of legislators’ partisanship 2011 compiled by National Journal. Here are our most centrist Senators and members of Congress. And here are our biggest liberals and conservatives.

Obviously, multiple factors determine any voter’s decisions, from a candidate’s policy proposals, to their philosophy to their background. But an ability to work with members of the other party is more vital than ever in Washington.

The problem goes beyond this Congress’ historically-low number of laws passed, as noted by The Washington Post. It is that Congress’ growing weakness is leading to an alarming rise in the power of the President and the Supreme Court.

In a sweeping indictment last week, Bloomberg View correctly warned of the long term dangers a weak national legislature creates.

“As polarization and legislative gridlock have worsened in recent years, the nation’s great legislative body has withered, losing not only popular support but the ability to exercise its constitutional powers,” it noted. “The result has been a troubling expansion of executive and judicial power.”

Whether you cast your ballot for Romney or Obama tomorrow, voters should consider if they want a country that is increasingly ruled by executive and judicial fiat. We need a healthier legislature and a stronger national debate.

From drone strikes to health care to vital environmental and election regulation, the executive and judicial branches are taking matters into their own hands and skirting congressional oversight. And the economic costs – primarily in the budget deadlock that sparked a downgrading of the U.S. government’s credit rating this summer – will only continue.

Over the past few months, I have written a series of columns examining each presidential candidate’s promises to the middle class and analyzing the best approaches to jobs,  housing and immigration, three areas where legislative action is urgently need. Again, individual candidates vary but the best House or Senate representatives may be the ones that can break partisan deadlock on these issues, not fuel it.

The time to send a message to congressional partisans is tomorrow. There is a nascent movement for non-partisan commissions to take over the drawing of congressional districts, but it has gained little headway. The most powerful way to ease our partisanship is at the ballot box, particularly in U.S. Senate races.

The bottom line is that the United States needs an effective and efficient federal government.  That’s a concept that I believe the vast majority of Americans from both parties support.

PHOTO: The dome of the Capitol is reflected in a puddle in Washington February 17, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Jacqueline Pattison is giving Mayor Mike Bloomberg one more day. So far, she has been impressed by New York City’s response to Hurricane Sandy. Along with millions of other New Yorkers, she is patiently enduring the lack of electricity, tortuous commute and a deep sense of uncertainty.

But if electricity does not return to her apartment a few blocks north of the World Trade Center soon, she will have lost faith in her government.

“I think by Friday we should have power at the latest,” the 51-year-old co-owner of a small moving business said. “We live on the 28th floor.”

Five days away from a presidential election that centers on the role of government, Hurricane Sandy has handed the United States an extraordinary experiment in how government performs. In an impossible-to-imagine sequence of events, the city with the country’s largest police force, biggest fire department and highest tax revenues is being put to a historic test.

The political stakes are enormous. As the media blankets the rest of the country with saturation coverage of the recovery effort, an effective government response in New York and New Jersey could aid President Barack Obama in a deadlocked election. Looting, lawlessness and anger at government could aid Mitt Romney.

Thus far, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his government are generally receiving high marks from city residents. But over the next several days events in the New York area could prove pivotal.

In a dozen interviews across the city Thursday, residents expressed growing worry. Promised aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not arriving, fights were breaking out, and tensions simmered in gas lines that snaked for miles.

Despite Bloomberg’s endorsement of Obama Thursday afternoon and a generally positive jobs report Friday morning, time is slowly running on believers in government. The socio-economic divide that I wrote about earlier this week is widening.

Tribeca, one of the wealthiest areas in the city  to lose power, is deserted. Its residents, it seems, have the means to flee the city. Meanwhile, officials estimate that 49,000 people are trapped in public housing buildings that lack power. Middle-class residents of Brooklyn, Staten Island and the suburbs ringing New York say they are being forgotten. The mayor’s foolish decision to proceed with the New York City Marathon this Sunday is provoking a popular backlash. With only an estimated 50 percent of the area’s gas stations working and with wind-chill adjusted temperatures expected to drop below freezing Friday night, Bloomberg is flirting with disaster.

“This is terrible,” Max Okuendo, a 37-year-old security guard who has been without power in Lower Manhattan for three days, said Thursday afternoon. “It has taken so long.”

Okuendo had brought his two daughters to midtown Manhattan after three days in a seventh-floor lower Manhattan apartment without power. He said he and his daughters had taken a packed city bus to the northern part of the city that had power.

“It was like sardines,” he said. “I’ve seen three fights already.”

He said that no assistance has arrived for residents of lower Manhattan.

“I don’t think he has enough emergency stations,” he said. “I must have spent one hundred dollars alone just for lights, candles and batteries for my mother’s insulin machine.”

Arne Balassanian, a 43-year-old property manager who lives a few blocks from the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, said he was unimpressed by the government effort so far. He said that local residents and businesses had done more to help him than city agencies.

“More than anything, the people in the neighborhood have done the most,” he said as he walked his dog down a lifeless lower Manhattan street Thursday afternoon. “As far as the government, I don’t know.”

More positive responses, unsurprisingly, came from parts of the city that still have power.

“So far, I think they’ve done a pretty good job,” said Bernard Martin, a 70-year-old retiree who lives in the Bronx and has had power throughout the storm. “I think the mayor’s done a good job.”

As with so many other issues in the election, Republican and Democratic orthodoxy don’t fit reality on the ground. Local government should play the central role in preparing for natural disasters. But their efforts will be pointless unless the federal government funds them.

As a city resident, I have been impressed by the city government’s response this week. Armies of police officers, utility workers and mass transit employees have worked ceaselessly to save lives, restore order and repair a city infrastructure that in places is centuries old.

Area political leaders have dropped partisan politics to address a grave crisis.

Fellow New Yorkers, though, have impressed me most of all. They have shown tremendous calm, understanding and patience amidst calamity.

In an interview Thursday, Robert Yusitalo, a 49-year-old Seattle native who moved to New York several months ago, summed up my own feelings.

“For a city this big to come together as they have,” he said, “it’s absolutely amazing.”

At the same time, the frustration, fear and distrust of government that is rising among New Yorkers is real. I hope New York’s government continues to perform well in the days ahead. And I hope its residents hold their nerve.

I wish the same patience, perspective and practicality that I’ve seen in New York this week could be transferred to our politicians in Washington. Natural disasters are real. We need a lean but effective government to respond to them.

It’s foolish and naïve, but I fantasize that another impossible-to-imagine series of events will lead to a sea change among our leaders. Whoever wins the presidency next week will magically tack to the center, political extremists will lose credibility and pragmatists from both parties will engage in a serious effort to address our nation’s staggering problems. Disaster does that to you.

PHOTO: A New York City Police officer speaks to a customer at a Hess fuelling station in Brooklyn, New York Harbor, November 2, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

A hotel bellman said he was worried about his mother uptown. A maid said she had been calling her family in Queens. A garage attendant said he hadn’t been able to contact his only relative – a sister in New Jersey – since the storm hit. Asked where he weathered the hurricane, his answer was simple.

“I slept in my car,” he said.

Sandy humbled every one of the 19 million people in the New York City metropolitan area. But it humbled some more than others in an increasingly economically divided city.

Hours before the storm arrived on Monday night, restaurants, corner grocery stores and hotels were open in the Union Square area of Manhattan. (My wife and I moved to a hotel there after being ordered to evacuate our apartment in lower Manhattan.) Instead of heading home to their families as the winds picked up, the city’s army of cashiers, waiters and other service workers remained in place.

Divides between the rich and the poor are nothing new in New York, but the storm brought them vividly to the surface. There were residents like me who could invest all of their time and energy into protecting their families. And there were New Yorkers who could not.

Those with a car could flee. Those with wealth could move into a hotel. Those with steady jobs could decline to come into work. But the city’s cooks, doormen, maintenance men, taxi drivers and maids left their loved ones at home.

New census data shows that the city is the most economically divided it has been in a decade, according to the New York Times. As has occurred across the country, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Twenty-one percent of the city is in poverty, and the median household income decreased by $821 annually. Per the Times: “Median income for the lowest fifth was $8,844, down $463 from 2010. For the highest, it was $223,285, up $1,919.”

Manhattan, the city’s wealthiest and most gentrified borough, is an extreme example. Inequality here rivals parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Last year the wealthiest 20 percent of Manhattan residents made $391,022 a year on average, according to census data. The poorest 20 percent made $9,681.

All told, Manhattan’s richest fifth made 40 times more money than its poorest fifth, up from 38 times in 2010. Only a handful of developing countries – such as Namibia and Sierra Leone – have higher inequality rates.

In the Union Square area, New York’s privileged – including myself – could have dinner, order a food delivery and pick up supplies an hour or two before Sandy made landfall. The cooks, cashiers and hotel workers who stayed at work instead of rushing home made that possible.

They were a diverse group. Some were young people in their twenties. Others were middle-aged Americans who had never landed white-collar jobs. Most were immigrants.

On the other end of the wealth spectrum, New York’s age-old excesses emerged. Some families brought their nannies to the hotel to help care for their children through the hurricane. Others panicked when the power went off. All the while, waiters, maids and doormen continued to help them.

The storm affected the affluent as well. Tourists and business people from Boston, California, Britain and Japan were stranded in our hotel. They found themselves without power, water or transportation, and completely at the mercy of strangers.

But the city’s heroes were the tens of thousands of policemen, firefighters, utility workers and paramedics who labored all night for $40,000 to $90,000 a year. And the local politicians who focused on performance, not partisanship, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Newark Mayor Corey Booker.

Twenty-four hours after the disaster, ugly political lines were already being drawn. Democrats pounced on a statement by Mitt Romney in a Republican primary debate last year that disaster response should be shifted to the states and, where possible,  privatized. Michael Brown, the much criticized director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under George W. Bush, argued that the Obama administration had responded more quickly to Hurricane Sandy than it did to the terrorist attack in Benghazi.

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in … Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown was quoted as saying to a Denver alternative newspaper. “This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

Over the next few days, Obama’s and Romney’s reactions to the storm will be parsed. The role of the federal government in covering the costs of the disaster will be praised and assailed. Politicians, as always, will jockey for advantage.

The storm showed many things about New York. It exposed the city’s vulnerabilities. It also displayed its strengths. And to me, it showed New York’s growing economic divide. I’m sure that many of the people who remained at work yesterday chose to do so voluntarily. But I fear that many of them did not.

PHOTO: A general view from Exchange Place shows the skyline of lower Manhattan in darkness after a preventive power outage caused by giant storm Sandy in New York October 30, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

For the last six months, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have battled ferociously to be seen as the true champion of the middle class. Yet neither candidate has offered concrete solutions for — indeed they have rarely raised — a central economic issue: the housing crisis.

How can the collapsing home prices that pummeled the middle class hardest — accounting for three-quarters of the  loss of wealth since 2007 — not be a campaign issue? Why is a principal cause of the economic downturn the focus of so little debate?

One explanation is simple. Across the country, the housing market is picking up. In September, new home construction increased by fifteen percent, its fastest rate in four years. And after seeing home mortgages become economic yokes that prevented their parents from moving out of depressed areas, many young Americans are less interested in buying homes.

For existing homeowners and the government, though, housing remains an enormous issue. If new government initiatives are not implemented, it could take another three to five years for the market to fully recover, analysts estimate. And The Wall Street Journal reports that neither candidate has offered ways to remake failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have already cost taxpayers $140 billion and face further losses.

Across the United States, nearly 10.8 million properties — 22 percent of homes with a mortgage on them — remain underwater, according to CoreLogic, a data analysis firm. The numbers of properties where owners owe more than their home is worth is shrinking, but analysts say the process can, and must, be sped up.

Both Obama and Romney, though, have been silent on the issue. Why?

“It turns out to be a lose-lose issue for both candidates,” John Vogel, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, recently told MarketWatch. “And therefore gets ignored.”

For each candidate, the reason for staying mum on housing is different. Obama does not have the strongest record to run on. And Romney has found that wading into housing opens himself up to being painted as a heartless corporate mogul.

In an interview with Reuters TV this week, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said it was “shocking” that neither candidate had spoken more about the issue or offered concrete solutions. He and other critics from the left say both men remain beholden to Wall Street.

“In some sense, they don’t want to offend the banks,” Stiglitz said. “The banks have been a major problem to doing something about the problem.”

Liberals have criticized the Obama administration for failing to spend all of the money that was allocated to ease the housing crisis. And the president has steered clear of proposals being considered by San Bernardino County, California, and other communities to seize distressed mortgages by eminent domain and restructure them. Wall Street bond investors overwhelming oppose such an approach.

The programs Obama created in 2009 to end the crisis, meanwhile, are not functioning as well as they should. In an October 10 report, CoreLogic analysts Sam Khater and Molly Boesel said that 1.5 million Americans have participated in Obama’s Home Affordable Refinance Plan (HARP) – which helps strapped homeowners refinance.

Yet nearly twice that number — 2.4 million people — are eligible for the program but not participating in it. A report today on Pro Publica blamed Republicans for the slow pace of change but many housing advocates say the administration could have done more.

As the election nears, Obama administration officials are privately promising bolder action but housing advocates say they don’t know whether to believe it. On Wednesday, The Financial Times reported that if Obama wins a second term, he hopes to use a recess appointment to oust Edward DeMarco, the acting head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

DeMarco, a career civil servant, blocked a 2009 proposal by Obama to use reduction of principal as a way to lower debt obligations on government-guaranteed mortgages. Liberals ask why, though, Obama has waited for three years to act against DeMarco.

Romney, meanwhile, got into trouble early on housing during the race for the Republican nomination. In October 2011, he famously told a Nevada newspaper that foreclosures should be allowed to proceed.

“Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process,” Romney said in a video-taped interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal.  “Let it run its course and hit the bottom.”

Romney immediately came under heavy attack in the state, which had the highest foreclosure rate in the country and had just passed a law that vastly slowed foreclosures.

In a TV interview last month in Nevada, Romney changed his tune. He said he would continue key elements of Obama’s policy – including the HARP program – but would better market them and streamline the process, the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported.

Last month, Romney’s website also posted a new housing page saying he supported facilitating “foreclosure alternatives,” reducing regulation and reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The “foreclosure alternatives” appeared to be a reference to short sales, but no details were given on the website.

One area where the two candidates have shown a difference is on proposals regarding changing the home mortgage interest deduction. A popular tax break for the American middle class, the deduction is unusual; most developed countries don’t allow it.

Obama first proposed eliminating the deduction for anyone making over $250,000. As he has on other issues, Romney moved toward Obama’s positions, saying just before the first presidential debate that he would cap all deductions at a certain level — he offered $17,000 and $25,000 as examples. Capping the amount would be a de facto tax raise for the rich.

In the first debate, Obama said that the housing market was recovering and Romney didn’t challenge his assertion. Since then, housing has been rarely mentioned.

Given their statements during the campaign and the similarities of their positions, I can’t in good conscience recommend either candidate when it comes to housing. Despite the vast importance of the issue, both candidates have said little because no simple solutions exist. Housing is an area where Obama and Romney have given each other a pass — and given middle class voters next to nothing to hope for.

During last night’s foreign policy debate, the Mitt Romney of the Republican primaries disappeared. Romney’s April criticism of Obama’s decision to commit the United States military to helping oust Muammar Qaddafi  in Libya disappeared. Missing was a promise on his website to reduce foreign aid by $100 million. Romney’s past criticism of what he called Obama’s rushed exit from Afghanistan vanished as well.

Given his lurch to the center on domestic policy, that comes as no surprise. But it does not make Romney’s record – or his willingness to change  positions – a nonissue. If Romney wins this election, it will be arguably the latest and greatest shift to the center in presidential campaign history.

Last night the new Romney praised Obama’s toppling of Qaddafi, said he supported the president’s policy in Afghanistan and agreed that the administration’s economic sanctions on Iran were “crippling.”

After the debate instant polls, most pundits and even a dozen undecided voters on Fox News said Obama had won on substance. But there was a chorus of commentary arguing that Romney’s flat performance was smart politics.

An analyst on CNN pointed out that Romney’s call for a larger Navy would play well in Virginia, home to the country’s largest naval base. The chairman of the Republican National Committee said each minute Romney appeared on national television and did not appear to be a heartless corporate mogul was a victory. Other Romney supporters said Romney had succeeded at not looking like a “warmonger” or “another George W. Bush,” a performance that might appeal to female voters.

Still, if Mitt Romney wins this election, he will do so with a foreign policy blank slate, not a clear vision for the future.

To be fair, Romney was right in places. When asked about whether the U.S. should “divorce” Pakistan, he counseled patience and correctly said it was in the interests of the United States to try to help stabilize a troubled, nuclear-armed country. And he largely endorsed Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2014. Yet all those positions were far more moderate than the ones Romney adopted in the Republican primaries.

In many ways, the final debate was a reversal of the first one. Romney was the confident front-runner trying to project calm and strength, while Obama was the attacker, questioning – and at times distorting – Romney’s record.

The former Massachusetts governor was bold and aggressive on four issues. He accused Obama of not sufficiently supporting Israel, falsely claimed that Obama engaged in an “apology tour” in the Middle East, said the result of the Arab Spring was a “rising tide” of “tumult” and “confusion” and vowed to declare China a currency manipulator on “day one” of his presidency.

Taken together, these seem less like a coherent foreign policy than a formula for Romney’s electoral victory.

Of course, all politics is part theater; Obama showed that four years ago. Presidential candidates have been judged on debating style, not merit, for decades.

There are enormous holes in the president’s foreign policy record. He glossed over his failure to deliver on promised assistance to post-Arab Spring countries, lack of action in Syria, a largely failed Obama policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan; and his overreliance on drones.

Romney attacked Obama on some of these issues, but his passion flared where the electoral calculus called for it, such as China’s cheating  or loyalty to Israel. Romney also used exaggerated descriptions of instability in the Middle East to pose the foreign policy version of Ronald Reagan’s “are you better off than you were four years ago” question.

It was an uninspiring final debate of an uninspiring campaign. Obama’s overconfidence cost him the first debate, and possibly cost him the election. The two clashed tenaciously in the second debate but avoided specifics or outlining their own domestic agendas. And the final debate seemed more about politics than strategy.

In the end, it is Romney’s approach – not his performance – that most troubles. After what should have been a pivotal 90 minutes, I know less about Romney’s foreign policy vision than I did beforehand. I only know his electoral calculus.

PHOTO: Ann Romney (R) grabs Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney from behind as he greets members of the crowd after the conclusion of the final U.S. presidential debate in Boca Raton, Florida, October 22, 2012. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

Since asking the candidates at Tuesday’s presidential debate how they would improve his job prospects, college junior Jeremy Epstein has been lionized on Twitter, repeatedly interviewed on television and declared a nerdy sex symbol.

Unfortunately, as they have throughout the campaign, Romney and Obama avoided details when answering Epstein’s thoughtful question. Instead, they lampooned each others’ records and policies. Such answers are to be expected, arguably, in the waning weeks of an extraordinarily tight presidential campaign.

But an analysis of Obama’s and Romney’s specific proposals and the positions of their key advisers – particularly when it comes to creating manufacturing jobs – shows that voters do face a critical choice. This is, in fact, an election that will send the federal government in one of two very different directions when it comes to long-term job creation.

In his answer at the debate, Romney referred to his five-point plan that he said will create 12 million new jobs in the United States. The plan, which is detailed in a white paper endorsed by four leading conservative economists, is a full-throated endorsement of using tax breaks and market forces alone to revive the American economy. While Romney is tacking toward the center in the race’s final weeks, it is fair for voters to assume that he will slash the size of government, and rely on a free-market approach to the economy.

The white paper, for example, calls for reducing federal spending to 20 percent of GDP by 2016, its pre-financial crisis average. It hails Romney’s proposed across the board 20 percent tax break. And it calls for a sweeping reduction in government regulation, specifically repeal of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulations and Obamacare. The word “manufacturing” does not appear in it.

The Romney camp seems wary of even a light-touch attempt to boost manufacturing. During this spring’s Republican primaries, R. Glenn Hubbard, lead author of the white paper, dean of Columbia University’s business school, and a top Romney economic adviser, criticized a proposal by Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to use tax policy to bolster American manufacturing. In February, Santorum proposed that government aid the sector by exempting manufacturing companies from corporate income taxes.

“By proposing special tax breaks for manufacturing, Mr. Santorum follows Mr. Obama’s incorrect lead and introduces a significant economic distortion,” Hubbard wrote in a March Wall Street Journal editorial. “In a world with highly mobile capital, tax policy needs to be neutral toward different forms of business activity and not succumb to the temptation to pick winners and losers.”

If Romney is likely to embrace a no-government approach, it is fair for voters to assume to assume that Obama will do the opposite. Obama also tacked to the center in Tuesday’s debate, but he and many liberal economists embrace an entirely different view of economic theory and American history.

Members of the administration and liberal economists credit the role of government research and defense spending with creating everything from the Internet to high-speed semi-conductors to the completion of the human genome project. That level of basic research, they contend, created the foundations for enormous growth by private sector online, pharmaceutical and computing companies.

“There is a long history of government involvement in supporting innovation and growth in many ways,” Gary Pisano, a Harvard Business School professor, told me in an interview today. “Sometimes, it is very broad, like land grant colleges. Sometimes, it is very specific like granting railroads right-of-way in the American west. It has had a role. We can’t deny it.” (A separate interview I did with Pisano about his new book Producing Prosperity: Why America needs a manufacturing renaissance earlier this week is below.)

A second Obama term is likely to involve heavy government role in promoting manufacturing. An investment in community colleges would theoretically create the skilled machinists, for example, that are needed for advanced manufacturing. A National Institute of Manufacturing – modeled on the National Institutes of Health – may even be created.

Ironically, whoever wins the presidency is likely to enjoy a sharply improved economy.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that even if the so-called “fiscal cliff” is not averted in January, the American economy will create 9.06 million jobs between 2013 and 2017, nearly double the number created in the last four years. In an even more optimistic prediction, Moody’s analytics says that whoever is elected president, 12 million jobs will be created by 2016.

Whether they deserve it or not, the winner will claim that the improving economy is an endorsement of their economic vision. In short, the decision is an important one. It is also stark.

Obama has at times gone too far in intervening in the economy. The administration’s disastrous investments in Solyndra and other alternative energy companies was a classic example of government trying to pick winners and losers. But we ought not to conclude that just because certain types of government investing go awry there is no role for government at all.

I agree with Pisano’s outlook that government, in fact, plays an enormous role in the economy. The carried interest tax break is a massive subsidy to the private equity industry. The home mortgage interest deduction is an enormous boost for the middle class.

And in today’s globalized economy we compete with economic rivals who aggressively subsidize their leading industries. Having no government assistance in manufacturing is the equivalent of unilateral disarmament in today’s de facto trade wars.

I believe there is a broad, long-term role the government can and should take in reviving manufacturing, but it should not engage in picking winners and losers. Both candidates’ plans have their shortcomings. In the end, I err toward the approach that is less ideological. On job creation and reviving manufacturing, Obama is more realistic.

PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama (L) and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (R) speak directly to each other during the second U.S. presidential campaign debate in Hempstead, New York, October 16, 2012.   REUTERS/Win McNamee/POOL

It began two weeks ago with a little-noticed speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, where Mitt Romney distanced himself from Tea Party Republicans and defended the legitimacy of American foreign aid programs. And it continued in a speech on Monday at the Virginia Military Institute, where Romney – after months of hailing only Israel – called Turkey and pro-democracy Arab Spring demonstrators American allies as well.

“As the joy born from the downfall of dictators has given way to the painstaking work of building capable security forces, and growing economies, and developing democratic institutions,” Romney said, “the President has failed to offer the tangible support that our partners want and need.”

Just as in domestic policy, Mitt Romney is softening his rhetoric in foreign affairs. Moving away from more strident stances on supporting Israel, increasing U.S. defense spending and fearing the Arab Spring, he is adopting a more measured tone. The question, of course, is whether voters will embrace the new Romney or see him as an opportunistic chameleon.

Romney’s campaign won’t acknowledge any official shift, but recent press reports have noted the rising prominence of Richard Williamson, a senior foreign policy adviser and veteran diplomat viewed as a relative moderate in Republican foreign policy circles. Williamson led a call with reporters before Romney’s speech on Monday and appears to have had a hand in his recent change of tone. Rhetorically at least, the role of neo-conservative advisers – such as former George W. Bush administration officials Liz Cheney and Dan Senor – seems to be waning.

In an hour-long phone interview on Wednesday, Williamson denied any shift – or division – within the Romney campaign. But he presented a far more nuanced version of Romney’s approach to the Middle East than displayed on Romney’s trip to Israel in July. The Israel trip was organized by Senor, the neo-conservative former Bush administration official.

In a wide-ranging critique of Obama administration policy, Williamson laid out an approach that went beyond backing Israel. As Romney did in his speech on Monday, Williamson said a Romney administration would work with its allies to ensure that Syria’s rebels receive missiles that will allow them to shoot down government attack jets and helicopters. And he said a Romney White House would do more to back post-Arab Spring countries as they try to democratize.

In a critique that sounded more as if it were coming from the left than the right, Williamson accused the Obama administration of relying too heavily on drone strikes in counterterrorism operations. He said a Romney administration would do more to address the political, economic and social conditions that foster extremism.

“Drone killings, targeted killings, is not a foreign policy,” he said. “It’s not even a strategy to deal with Islamic extremism and terrorism.”

An opinion piece that Romney published in the Wall Street Journal last Sunday made a similar argument. The Republican nominee accused Obama of failing to use “the full spectrum of our softer power” to help “those who have for too long known only corruption and oppression.” And in his speech on Monday, Romney criticized Obama for not doing more to aid the economies of post-Arab Spring countries.

“The dignity of work,” Romney said, “and the ability to steer the course of their lives are the best alternatives to extremism.”

That rhetoric is a far cry from the language Romney used in a speech in Jerusalem in July. At the time, he called the Middle East a region of “rising tumult and chaos” and warned darkly of the election of an “Islamist president” in Egypt. In last week’s Wall Street Journal piece, the new Romney called the Arab Spring “an opportunity to help move millions of people from oppression to freedom.”

Colin Kahl, a senior foreign policy adviser in the Obama campaign, scoffed at Romney’s changes. He said the Republican nominee was frantically trying to soften his image.

“The Romney campaign is in a desperate final few weeks of trying to reinvent themselves,” he said. “I think more in tone than in substance, you saw a slight shift.”

Kahl has a point. Romney’s recent speeches have been an odd combination of sophistication and pablum. In one passage, he rightly calls for working with Turkey and backing moderate Muslims in the Middle East. In the next, he calls for showing “no daylight” between the U.S. and Israel. Romney correctly highlights the central role that economic growth can play in countering extremism, but then simplistically states that the answer to the region’s complex problems is reducing trade barriers.

Don’t expect that to change. In the interview, Williamson flatly denied that there were any contradictions in Romney’s stances. Instead, he vowed that Romney would continue to aggressively attack Obama on the subject through a pivotal final Oct. 22 presidential debate on foreign affairs.

“If he thinks he’s going to be fine,” Williamson said, referring to Obama, “he’s going to have another bad day.”

So far, the Obama campaign has struggled to derail or discredit Romney’s new shift to moderate ground. As in domestic policy, Romney stays vague on details and offers contradictory rhetorical tidbits that appeal to divergent voters. Hailing Israel pleases the Christian right. Supporting Turkey charms Republican internationalists.

What Romney actually believes is impossible to know. The former Massachusetts governor may not be a better president than Obama, but in the last two weeks he has been a better politician.

PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney delivers his foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, October 8, 2012. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

The Barack Obama of last night’s presidential debate was eerily similar to the man who delivered a muddled acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The incumbent was cautious, tired and on some level – it seemed – turned off by the manipulation of facts that is the ugly heart of politics.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, seemed to relish it. The challenger was fresher, faster and folksier than a sub-par president. Obama seemed startled and frustrated by Romney’s deft shift to the center and audacious effort to portray Obama as the extremist: Obama is a defender of the big banks; Obama is gutting Medicare; Obama funneled $90 billion to fat-cat contributors in the renewable energy industry.

Fact-checking by Reuters and other news organizations shows that Romney glaringly twisted the facts. What was more surprising – and troubling – was Obama’s tepid response.

As in Charlotte, Obama was extraordinarily careful last night. While Romney adopted a wholly new political tack, Obama used the same tired rhetoric, calling for a “balanced approach” to reducing the deficit, all Americans “playing by the same rules” and Romney favoring “those who are better off.”

I can’t think of a single new policy idea that Obama unveiled last night or in Charlotte. The president and his speechwriters must develop more lucid, pithy ways of describing his policies. That may be distasteful, but it is real.

Romney, on the other hand, dramatically shifted to the center. As Matt Miller of the Washington Post pointed out, Romney and his aides will be lauded as geniuses if he wins. Instead of shifting to the center after securing the nomination, as candidates have for decades, they are dashing to the center in the race’s final weeks.

Whether voters believed Romney or not remains to be seen, but last night he was a Rockefeller Republican moderate who embraced the need for regulation, Social Security and his governorship of Democratic-leaning Massachusetts. All of the hard-right, Tea Party red meat of the primaries vanished. Whatever the veracity of his statements, credit Romney with having a plan last night, taking a risk and executing well.

Obama and his aides may have decided to sit back, hold steady and maintain the presidential high ground. They may have gambled that Romney would make a gaffe, trip up or somehow stumble. Clearly, they lost that wager.

In the end, there is a problem that goes beyond debate tactics. Obama is failing to lay out a clear agenda for his second term. Yes, specificity is the enemy of any politician. But Americans need a reason to vote for Obama, not just a reason to vote against Romney.

I don’t know the true dynamics inside the White House, but from the outside two forces seem to weaken Obama’s presidency: insularity and overconfidence. To the surprise of many, the Obama White House has proved to be as isolated as that of the George W. Bush administration.

In the Obama White House, a small circle of aides plays a central role in all major decisions, according to press accounts. The president rarely engages with outsiders. Since taking office, he has developed few strong relationships with leaders of Congress or foreign heads of state. And like all presidents, he lives in a bubble.

As David Gergen noted after the debate, Obama joined the long line of incumbent presidents who seemed thrown off their game when their opponents bluntly challenged them in their first re-election debate. News stories have euphemistically referred to Obama being “distant” or “aloof.” The president – like all of his predecessors – is reported to have a staggering ego.

Surviving the pressure, brutal criticism and isolation of the presidency clearly requires self-confidence. But both performances created the sense that Obama needs to work harder for this win.

Lastly, David Brooks raised another possibility after Obama’s weak performance in Charlotte. Is the Obama administration, he asked on the PBS NewsHour, intellectually exhausted?

For me, this is the most troubling scenario. Four years of brutal partisan warfare in Washington could leave the administration out of touch and bereft of new ideas.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll find out if that is true. Romney may have inadvertently done the president a favor by publicly humbling him. Obama needs to come down from the mountain, take more risks and be a more daring and deft politician. More aloof calculation could cause voters to send him packing.

PHOTO: President Barack Obama (R) listens as Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks during the first presidential debate in Denver, October 3, 2012. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart