The main problem I saw in last night's debate for President Obama was his unwillingness to point up the many successes he has had in his last three years as president.
Instead of playing defense, he has a strong economic resume he could have spoken to -- a increase of three million private sector jobs, a continuing deleveraging of consumer debt, a bottoming and turnaround in the housing market, the auto bailout and a stock market that is flying and at 13500 in the DOW.
In foreign policy as well, there is the Libyan success and the killing of bin Laden, but also a fresh success is brewing which no one seems to notice: The Iranian sanctions and oil embargo are working.
We can see that from the many reports now coming out of Tehran of riots by middle class Iranians who are seeing their buying power squeezed as their local currency, the Rial, craters.
These are not "Arab Spring"-like demonstrations of lower-class people seeking greater influence in the administration of their government and their lives, these are people with careers and money who are seeing their economy gutted by economic sanctions -- sanctions inspired by the stubborn nuclear aspirations of their leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
How long can Ahmedinejad stand this kind of pressure from his middle class? I'm thinking that it won't be much longer before he will be forced to put real concessions on the table.
And if that happens, President Obama can take credit for taking the threat of an Israeli and/or American strike on Iranian nuclear facilities off the table, removing a terrific global threat of another nuclear player in the Middle East, and dropping the prices of oil and gasoline at the pumps by probably a dollar a gallon.
All of these good indications are the result of a president who has painstakingly applied sanctions and used his European coalition to apply the oil boycott.
And likely to create another fantastic success for a president who seems unwilling to tell the world about the many he has already had.