Watching the political talk shows yesterday seemed to galvanize impression that Romney campaign is asleep at the wheel - Obama surrogates were plying talking points with a religiosity so intent as to have the hint of ideological blood lust to it - basically their goal was to portray Romney as evil rich guy who outsourced jobs with satanic glee and hid all his ill got gains from this destructive harvest in evocatively secret foreign accounts - Romney surrogates did not respond to this character assassination, instead simply reiterating in various ways Obama's awful stewardship of the economy. This says one of two things to me: Romney campaign was/is not prepared to counter quickly and effectively this Obama campaign tactic, a tactic that has been obvious for quite sometime; or they feel they don't have to counter it - the economy will decide the election. Both conclusions are troubling - the former certainly much more than the latter - but the latter seems like a mistake to me and suggests possibly a failure to really understand how the average voter forms a judgement on 'issues'. It is possible that Romney's economic advisers have looked at the numbers and have come to the conclusion [shared publicly by others] that indeed the economy come the fall will be so bad as to possibly be slipping into recession again and therefore a cautious campaign will suffice. Still, most voters need an emotional context within which to 'think' their choice through - in other words, voters don't so much think as feel their way to an answer - America in decline may indeed be enough of an emotional spur to tip a critical mass of independents to Romney - but I think it's a mistake to underestimate Obama's ability to mudsling and dissemble his way to victory regardless of a bad economy. Lying with ruthless conviction is a great political attribute and as I've said before Obama is one of the best - he's a master of the art form - allowing him to practice his art unconstrained by effective counter measures is to invite defeat.
[as example of why I think this way, Michael Moynihan subbing on Jen Rubin's blog has this nice little post - it's not only that Obama will say and do whatever is necessary, no matter how cynical and without substance it may be, to get reelected - the man is quite simply shameless - it's that the press will let him get away with it - hell, they'll amplify, augment the message - fill in the blanks for him - for the Romney camp to lazily sit back and think 'objective facts' will drown out this nonsense seems rather ill advised to me]
