President Obama’s campaign team seem to be taking the appropriate strategy regarding Romney.
See, the thing everybody who isn’t fully in the tank for Mitt already knows is that he’s infinitely flexible when it comes to significant political questions. Pushing the ‘flip flop’ meme on Mitt is work that just doesn’t need to be done. Already common knowledge, ask anyone.
I don’t think there’s anyone who seriously believes Romney is “severely conservative” in earnest fact, except perhaps in the fiscal sense that he’ll preserve and expand every advantage currently available to the monied interests bankrolling his campaign. I’d bet that very few voters think he’d actively push the extreme socially conservative positions he’s espoused during the primary season. But that’s not the point to Obama’s strategy.
The Obama campaign will take every opportunity to make Romney own his most radical pronouncements not to show who he is or what he stands for; he’s a businessman who’s all about business and the President will acknowledge that every time. What Obama will try and show persuadable voters is that Romney’s in the business of “severe conservativism” because regardless of whatever he actually wants to do, he’s owned and operated by the Republican Party. And the GOP happens to be at the most historically radical point in its existence, having purged moderation from the party platform through the Clinton and G. W. Bush years and codified the resulting extremism with the Tea Party wave of 2010.
So the question Obama wants voters asking themselves isn’t “Is Mittens a rightwing radical extremist?”, it’s “Will President Romney go along with everything his party wants him to do?” And since there’s very little evidence that Romney possesses a firm commitment to any political principle except the pursuit of executive authority, it’s hard to envision him saying no to his political base (who, Obama will remind us, nearly succeeded in pushing the country into default last year and now want to renege on their budget compromise “win” that resulted from the farce).
Given the reactionary activism aimed at rolling back 20th Century progressive achievements that’s been pursued in every state that went majority red in their executive and legislative branches in 2010, the prospect of a national regressive stormfront isn’t as easily dismissed as it might’ve been even two years ago. The 27% or so who fervently desire that aren’t going to vote for Obama in any case, but that leaves a pretty large field of voters who are not only capable of seeing the trend within the GOP but also aren’t quite happy with the thought of a POTUS cheering it along.
My $.02 is that Mitt Romney is Obama’s best spokesman, and every time he agrees with a Republican bottom line position, Obama’s coat tails get longer.