First, stop painting Romney as a conservative. Sure, pick out a few isolated examples of where he went over the top, but don’t help him reach out to the tea party crowd—you do not want them (and their enthusiasm to man phones, etc.) to warm to him and trust that he’ll govern conservatively. You want to continue to sow doubt in their minds—you don’t have to paint him as a moderate, just don’t make him more attractive to the far right. Knock it off.
Second, back away from the budget, back away* now*. Do NOT put yourself in the position of “if you do x, then y will happen.” Do not let the conservatives—who are causing the upcoming crisis—to Rove you and say that it’s your doing. Whether or not it’s sound logic doesn’t matter. You cannot let the perception slide from ‘the Republicans are threatening a government shutdown’ to ‘Obama is threatening a government shutdown.” Knock. It. Off.
Governance wish-lists are for GD. This is the elections forum; I’m sure I’m not the only one who has campaign advice.
I won’t comment on yur second point but I disagree on your first. No matter what happens the tea party will have strong enthusiasm for Romney. To them this election is less about who they can put up than it is about getting rid of Obama. By not being Obama he will have their full support, particularly when the conservative media (Fox, Limbaugh, etc. line up behind him.) IN the coming months Romney is going to try to re-align to the center. If Obama can get Romney’s primary stances out front and center then it will make Romney look like a etch-a-sketch flip flopper. The tea party is loud way beyond their actual numbers, but it is still way to the right of the nation as a whole, and being seen as catering to them will hurt Romney in the general.
I disagree. The Teabaggers would crawl on their bellies over broken glass in the nude to vote against Obama. Painting Romney as a moderate isn’t going to prevent the Far Right from voting for him. What Obama needs to do is make Romney unacceptable to reasonable people in the middle, and the way to do that is to tie him to the Teahadists, Rush Limbaugh, Paul Ryan, etc.
I disagree, too. Tea Party folks are just as capable as any voter of being discouraged and not going to the polls. In fact, after electing a large number of Tea Party candidates in 2010, and seeing that the Tea Partiers have been unable to achieve anything, really – I think the Tea Party phenomenon is losing steam. Having Romney as the candidate for the Republicans may be another disappointment that keeps some of them home in November.
I’m further convinced that a decent minority of Tea Partiers will stay at home out of spite. They want the near-apocalypse that will result from another four years of the socialist Kenyan, believing the country will allow them to remake it in their own image. They’re aiming for 2016.
I agree. I think they’d be more smug to let Obama get re-elected so that they can somehow claim he ruined the country even more, and have more excuses reinforce their wackjob behavior.
Why say anything at all? Simply take any firm position Romney expresses, and set it next to a previous firm position precisely opposite. And then just stand there like you wouldn’t say “Shit!” if you had a mouthful of it.
I like a suggestion I have heard for Obama’s campaign to attack Romney’s strength. He claims to be a successful business guy … well, his stint with Bain Capital was not all roses and sunshine, plenty of attack ads about people who lost jobs because of Bain Capital, coupled with that quote about “I like to be able to fire people” would do the trick nicely.
Is it possible to repackage and rebrand the ads that Romney’s republican opponents have already created trying to tear him down? Why cut new brush when there is already a trail?
Don’t some Romney supporters want to fire lots of government workers? I’m afraid his “I like to fire people” line has resonance with them. Fire all these government leeches, beginning with the GSA.
I disagree with your first point. If Obama is reelected it will be because Romney and the republicans have alienated young people, women and latinos with their policies and rhetoric. The tea party doesn’t really matter, they were a 2010 phenomenon and are mostly irrelevant now. Besides segments of the Tea party seems like they would rather support a true blue conservative who loses an election (Nevada and Delaware) than a moderate who would win.
I believe Obama and Romney were tied, but then when the Republican War on Women ™ was in full swing, tons of women turned on the GOP and Obama was ahead by about 10 points. Forcible trans vaginal probes and banning birth control didn’t work for the GOP.
Latinos normally go democratic by about 20-30 points. Obama won latinos by about 30 points, Kerry won them by about 15 or so. Romney is currently losing the latino vote by nearly 60 points.
Painting Romney as someone that a woman, latino, young person or unemployed person would be crazy to vote for is a good strategy (not that Obama has been great on latino issues, but still).
I think the simplest ad campaign is just to juxtapose Romney Massachusetts quotes with Romney primary quotes, or primary with general, like what the Etch-a-Sketch pages do. That way, conservatives can be turned off by the liberal quote, liberals can be turned off by the conservative quote, and everyone can be turned off by the flip-flopping. Very little framing is needed, just something like a voiceover “Will the real Mitt Romney please step forward?”.
And this is real important – don’t give any hint which is Romney’s most recent position. Remove the video and just run the audio if necessary to hide whether it’s the old or new Mitt. Just pairs of diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive statements that he’s made over the years.
And have a narrator say at the end, “If you vote for Romney, which Mitt are you voting for? … Yeah, we don’t know either.”
What on earth makes you think the Tea Party crowd will let Obama tell them who the conservatives are? They practically eat and breathe ideological purity. They’ll figure out for themselves [del]Sean Hannity will tell them[/del] who the real conservatives are.
Etch-a-Sketch with liberal Romney quote. Shake, then an Etch-a-Sketch with a conservative quote. Shake. A message that says something like your quote along with a dumb looking Romney picture.
She has to take her state first. One foot in front of the other, sir. Also, there’s about as much a chance of Warren getting a win as, say, Al Gore. The other side REALLY hates them some Elizabeth Warren.