Posted on 07/05/2012 1:56:29 PM PDT by Bigtigermike
Remember Michael Dukakis (1988) and John Kerry (2004)? It's possible to lose a winnable presidential election to a vulnerable incumbent in the White House (or in the case of 1988, a sitting vice president). So, speaking of losing candidates from Massachusetts: Is it too much to ask Mitt Romney to get off autopilot and actually think about the race he's running?
Adopting a prevent defense when it's only the second quarter and you're not even ahead is dubious enough as a strategy. But his campaign's monomaniacal belief that it's about the economy and only the economy, and that they need to keep telling us stupid voters that it's only about the economy, has gone from being an annoying tick to a dangerous self-delusion.
As Frank Cannon and Jeff Bell, among others, have pointed out, the economy is not an automatic path to victory. It does provide a favorable backdrop for this year's campaign. But what are voters to think when they hear the GOP nominee say, as he did yesterday to CBS’s Jan Crawford, "As long as I continue to speak about the economy, I'm going to win"? That they're dopes who don't know the economy's bad, but as long as the Romney campaign keeps instructing them that it is bad, they'll react correctly and vote the incumbent out of office?
The economy is of course important. But voters want to hear what Romney is going to do about the economy. He can "speak about" how bad the economy is all he wants—though Americans are already well aware of the economy's problems—but doesn't the content of what Romney has to say matter? What is his economic growth agenda? His deficit reform agenda? His health care reform agenda? His tax reform agenda? His replacement for Dodd-Frank?
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Romney took conservative positions on all issues during the primary. We know that he has “evolved” on crucial issues at the tip of a hat in the past.
But, as long as he keeps the Etcha Sketch out of reach and picks a conservative favorite for VP and if he aggressively attacks Olamea as he did Newt and Santorum then maybe he has a shot.
I think the primary objective is accomplished. Whoever wins, it will be a leftist, a statist, and malleable. So why work up a sweat now when the principle battle is won?
Speaking as a Devil’s Advocate, didn’t Obama recently prove a majority of the electorate were quite willing to vote for nothing specific?
Oh-oh. Houston, we have a problem.
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