Beside the chair, one of the more remarkable things about last week’s GOP convention was a lack of specificity. Speakers ran down Obama and promised President Romney would make “tough choices” — Republicans like the word “tough” — but so far Mittens has managed to run a nearly content-free general election campaign, and the convention didn’t change that. His acceptance speech told us next to nothing about what specific policies he might pursue.
A couple of day’s ago Greg Sargent provided a glimpse into the Romney campaign strategy. Apparently the Romney folks assume that many people who currently plan to vote for Obama are just being emotional — they like Obama and are attached to the symbolism of the first black president. These are the voters Romney thinks he can win over.
Romney’s argument is that the Obama Administration has been a dismal failure, and it’s time to put someone in charge who knows how to Get Stuff Done. Unable to convincingly pivot (or shake the etch-a-sketch) from the extreme right-wing positions he endorsed during the primaries, Romney now is offering himself to the general electorate as a generic alternative candidate. He is deliberately making himself the blankest possible slate. His people think that if the electorate sees Romney has a responsible, successful businessman and not the vampire squid that he is, voters will be won over and won’t ask questions.
As I remember it, in 2000 George W. Bush pretty much got away with a similar sort of campaign. He made some promises about cutting taxes and using the budget surplus (that he eliminated with the tax cuts) to save Social Security, but other than that he mostly just packaged himself as a successful businessman and governor and moderate Republican while painting Al Gore as, well, weird. In 2000, enough of a complacent public bought that to enable the Bushies to get their boy “selected.”
Greg Sargent argues that public opinion about President Obama is more complex and nuanced than Romney thinks.
Despite the Romney campaign’s assumptions, these voters may be proving unexpectedly resistant to the conclusion that the Obama presidency amounts to an “extraordinary record of failure,†as Romney put it recently. It’s true that majorities disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. But disapproval can mean different things. A disapproving voter may be disappointed in the slow pace of the recovery, but may also have decided that the crisis was so severe — and the resulting problems run so deep — that Obama could not have done much to make the country recover faster.
This came up again and again in interviews with swing voters done by Ron Brownstein and yours truly. And it would explain why more Americans consistently hold Bush responsible for the current economy.
In other words, a lot of voters may be disappointed about sluggish economic growth without necessarily wanting to kick the President out of office, especially if Romney can’t explain precisely what he would do differently to turn things around. An extraordinarily charming politician might pull it off, but Romney ain’t that, especially when he behaves just like your SOB boss when he has to mingle with employees at the company Christmas party.
I also wonder how Romney is going to remain Mr. Blank Etch-a-Sketch during the debates. You know President Obama is going to hammer him on specifics, and I don’t think Romney’s “vote for me ’cause I’m the white guy” act is going to score him points. This is not 2000; people are not complacent. They want to see the fine print. Maybe they have been underwhelmed by Mr. Obama, but they aren’t going to hand the White House keys over to someone they suspect might make things worse.
Barring some unforeseen disaster that might be blamed on Obama, between now and November, I think Mr. Romney is going to have to stop just saying he is a successful businessman and start acting like one to appeal to the majority of voters. And to me, that means providing a more credible business model than what he’s coughed up so far.
Update: One more thing — Republicans don’t know how to be cool.
I started to hear that old line about ‘bringing the grown-ups back’ at their Convention.
Yeah, please go and use that line again.
Like we don’t remember 12 years ago, when we last ‘brought the grown-ups back’ after a Democratic Presidency, and those grown-ups promptly went on an orgy of spending, war-making, and torture, that would made the old Romans, Chinese, Borgia’s, and Tzars green with envy – and in the process, came damn close to burning the country down to the ground.
Yes, let’s give the car keys back to those grown-ups.
What can possibly go wrong, after the last time when Dad and his pals got drunk and practically totalled the family car after 8 years of running it into every tree, road sign, fire hydrant, and car, along the highway, and when the mechanic’s had less than 1/2 the time to fix it as to took to wreck it – but at least it’s driveable nonw – it seems kind of stupid to me to ask the family if they’re better off now, when the car is at least driveable, than 4 years ago, when it was a smoking feckin’ wreck of twisted metal and broken glass?
Hey, at least now it’s got a speed besides “R!”
And now, Uncle Mitt, Cousin Ryan, and the same gang of drunks who were with Dad and Uncle George, want to borrow that car again?
I don’t think so.
No thanks.
Been there.
Done that.
OT, but a nice little tidbit in forming the bigger picture.
I heard that the official commemorative edition DVD of the Repug National Convention cut out Clint Eastwood’s chair segment. It’s rather sad that future generations of young Repugs will be denied the opportunity to witness their glorious hertiage.
I wonder if Gringrich Productions secured the marketing rights?
Swami,
Stealing from “The Daily Show” – maybe they’re going to market Clint’s appearance seperately as “The Old Man and the Seat.”
And how could they have left it out, if, according to Malkin and the rest of that band of loony-tunes, Clint talking to the empty chair was the greatest, and most expressive, and truthful, political theatre and commentary of our time?
Groannnnnnn!
it seems kind of stupid to me to ask the family if they’re better off now, when the car is at least driveable, than 4 years ago, when it was a smoking feckin’ wreck of twisted metal and broken glass?
Gulag…You’re too much… 🙂 LMAO! A better analogy a millionaire’s money couldn’t buy.
But it’s a good Groannnnnnn!, right?
And you can’t blame ME!
I stole that line!!!
Some well-paid writer for Stewart thought that one up.
Cund: Yes, it is a good groan. Good, if not great, puns and word plays should always elicit a groan.
Maybe I am being a little too harsh in assessing Romney. After all, I’ve never been to Iowa, so it’s possible that the trees there really are just the right height.
I think it’s Michigan where the trees are the right height. In Iowa they’re way too short.
Could be, Maha. If Romney would stop his incessant lying and pandering we might be able to know for sure where those trees are. Did Romney do any campaigning on the Bonneville salt flats?
Sometimes when I examine Obama’s Presidency from the GOP perspective I sense a remote affinity with King Herod.
“I having examined him before you, found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him”
I’ve played that campaign vid several times. I keep waiting for the voice after it says “Be there” to continue with “or be square”. I’m square, aren’t I?
Man, those of us who are home tonight should’ve organized a live blog for the convention broadcast.
Tammy Duckworth was just on, and she was magnificent. Earlier Cory Booker schooled David Brooks in the PBS commentary booth and I’m not sure Brooks realized it. I even played a few minutes of “celebrity watch” as the cameras panned the crowd. (Wayne “Newman” Knight, John Leguizamo, Alfre Woodard, Tony Shaloub, Beau Bridges….)
Great clip of Teddy K opening a can of whupass on Mittens in the 1994 debates. The head of NARAL gave a very effective speech, not obnoxious at all. And holy cow, a grandson of Bobby K is running for Congress. I’m so old.
Now a young family with a seriously ill child is at the podium, and Mom is talking about how the HRC has helped them. Baby crying, Mom still wading through her speech. Yeah, GOP, we got this.
This is so so so so much better than the Rethuglican liembo line dance!
Former Ohio Governor Strickland dropped some serious lines on R-money! The surest way to defeat something is to make it the object of laughter, and Mitt’s money that summers in the Caymans and winters in the Swiss alps is going to be working the room for quite some time, I think!
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