Odd that this comes right after the Dem convention. It actually reminds me of 2008 when, during the last month of the campaign, the McCain campaign pretty much realized it was dead in the water and did a bunch of crazy things. The whole thing with Palin’s shopping sprees leaked, and McCain decided to go on SNL a few weeks before the election to make fun of himself.
I don’t know if Romney’s throwing in the hat, probably not, but attacking your own running mate doesn’t seem like a good idea.
But I’m not getting my hopes up too early. Looking at this from Romney’s perspective, what is he trying to do with this attack? Is it in the line of “Clinton’s a better speaker than Obama so vote Romney!” thinking?
It is much, much easier to run as the frontrunner than the challenger. If you’re the frontrunner, as Obama seems to be after the conventions and he certainly was for most of 2008, you can more or less lean back and say “See, America likes what I’m offering. That’s why I’m in the lead.” If you’re behind, you have to change things, which is intrinsically risky, and make risky choices. That’s what McCain was thinking when he picked Palin, I believe. He wanted to shake up the race, and it bit him in the ass. He tried the wrong thing, but he had to try something, or he’d just lose.
More pandering to the base. NO BUDGET DEAL! God knows how he expects to have any kind of budget as president if the Republicans don’t control both the House and Senate (which is unlikely).
Romney seems to be acting like it’s still the primaries and he can relax and wait for the other guy to burn out. I don’t know if he’s over-confident and oblivious to the fact that he’s not the front-runner or if he just doesn’t know how to run anything except a front-runner campaign so he’s using it even though it’s not appropriate for his position.
What I find baffling is that I felt pretty strongly that picking Ryan signaled that not only did he realize he was trailing, but that he knew his plan to constantly bring up the economy/jobs wasn’t gaining him ground. Picking Ryan could let him swing the campaign to be about Ryan’s style of fiscal responsibility (never mind that that was a fiction anyway)
But now he’s come out shitting on Ryan’s / the Republican’s lousy attempt at fiscal responsibility… so who knows what they’re thinking.
Not entirely unreasonable, though, considering he runs against a relatively low-job-approval incumbent hobbled by an unresponsive economy Romney probably feels he should be the front runner and ought to act like it; that would mean that in his mind he’s only incidentally behind because of greater charismatic appeal of the other fellow (as happened at various times in the primary) and not having yet fully unleashed his considerable campaign war chest. So, he says to himself, count on things remaining close and then in the homestretch pour it on and do unto Obama as you did unto Gingrich.
Still, the whole deal about just what cuts ARE acceptable is an awful mess on both sides of the aisle and with Mitt’s reputation for saying whatever it will take to win it does not surprise me.
