Posted on 07/06/2012 8:25:55 AM PDT by tsowellfan
Obamacare tax confusion a warning sign: the peril of playing it safe.
Thomas E. Dewey.
The president who might have been.
The Romney campaign's stumble over Obamacare (it's a penalty…no…wait…it's a tax! Yes! Yes! We're sure now…it's a tax!) was both unnecessary and avoidable.
If the Romney campaign isn't careful (as our friends at the Wall Street Journal noted here), the morning after the 2012 election they may well find themselves linked forever to the famously hapless 1948 campaign of Tom Dewey. The campaign everyone expected to be a hands-down winner -- which turned into the greatest upset in American political history at the hands of underdog President Harry Truman.
As the famous George Santayana quote reminds: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
So in light of the Romney stumble, perhaps the most pertinent question about the past that was the shocking Dewey loss is: why? Why exactly did Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the man every political analyst in the country believed was a certifiable winner over Truman -- lose?
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Actually I’m not sure that Romney isn’t doing the right thing. All he has to do is show that he’s not a raving lunatic and Obama should be sent packing. It’s Romney’s to lose. I could be wrong though. Obama’s team could still pull it off through some real hardball stuff.
I agree. While he stumbled a little bit on the follow up to the USSC decision, he wasn’t wrong until his advisers started the ‘not a tax’ meme at the beginning of this week. Now, he’s gotten on the right track.
Outside of that, they’ve done a very nice job the last 2 months in rapid response and with keeping Obama on the defensive and/or forcing them to make ridiculous statements that voters are not buying. Obama sits at 44%, which is nearly a guaranteed loss if he doesn’t move up into the high 40s by the convention.
To your point, yes, Romney has to show that he is a viable alternative and wins. He’s doing that. I do think they’ll need to land some big punches down the stretch to prevent the media and Thug-Bama from playing their games, but they’ve been doing a pretty good job of that over the past two months.
Now that it is considered constitutional by the highest court of the land (a curve ball to Romney) he's trying to figure out how to approach this without putting himself in a bad situation with his own RomneyCare.
That's why Romney cannot get past "it needs to be repealed" to say WHY it needs to be repealed.
Romney is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Fire the asshat who said it was a penalty. That’s the second mistake he’s made with his big mouth (the first being the “etch-a-sketch” remark).
That's because that's when folks will be paying attention. Romney will be buying lots of ad time during October, as well.
Well, yeah. But the issue is (as you stated) people are not paying attention to what Romney has said in the past and my response was that there are videos out there which I'm sure Obama will use to expose Romney's multiple choice of every issue.
Regarding Romney's october ads (which are irrelevent to what we're talking about) it would be nice to see him use those ads to say more than "vote for me because I am not Obama". Is this man another McCain or what? I mean, all I'm hearing on the news is "Romney's trying to run against President Obama's healthcare which was based on his own healthcare in Mass" and "Romney's the most secretive candidate since Nixon".
Time to put on the gloves now before he's defined FOR the American people by the opposition. Once defined, it sticks.
Romney: Here’s what happened to employment in Massachusetts under me. Now how about you, Barack???
Trying to show Romney is a waffle is of course self contradictory to trying to show Romney is a right wing nut.
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