[Vision2020] A Sugar High?

[Art Deco]

[image: Campaign Stops - Strong Opinions on the 2012
Election]<http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/>
September 12, 2012, 8:23 pmA Sugar High?By CHARLES M.
BLOW<http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/charles-m-blow/>

Democrats are riding a wave of enthusiasm. Republicans are dreading a
Romney wipeout.

President Obama has experienced a post-convention bump, whereas Mitt Romney
saw none. A Tuesday Gallup
report<http://www.gallup.com/poll/157406/obama-gets-three-point-convention-bounce.aspx>showed
that Obama's lead over Romney increased 5 points after the
Democratic convention. That result echoed findings from a CNN/ORC
International poll released Monday.

This may be in part because  Democrats bolstered their convention by huge
ad spending to maximize exposure. As the Wesleyan Media Project pointed out:

During the Aug. 26 to Sept. 8 period, Obama and his allies aired 40,000 ads
on broadcast and national cable television, the vast majority of which were
paid for by the Obama campaign. By comparison, Romney and his allies aired
18,000 ads on broadcast and national cable television during that same time
period.

There's more. New fund-raising numbers released this week found that
President Obama outraised Romney in
August<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-usa-campaign-fundraising-idUSBRE88905F20120910>for
the first time in months.  This won't make up for the mischief I
anticipate from the Republican's cash-soaked "super PACs," but it's an
important turn.

And Bill "Big Dog<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-big-dog-shows-how-its-done/2012/09/06/0455d90e-f7d9-11e1-a93b-7185e3f88849_blog.html>"
Clinton has hit the campaign trail in critical swing states and expanded on
his devastating convention speech. Clinton is performing a critical
function: attacking the faulty math of the ticket that just added a "numbers
man <http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/29/paul-ryan-republican-convention/>,"
as Time magazine called Paul Ryan. Clinton's assault on the Republicans'
arithmetic continues a well-worn political strategy and one that the Obama
campaign used incredibly effectively: attack your opponent's strengths.
Clinton is a master at this, smiling in your face and punching you in the
gut.

Needless to say, Democrats are feeling good. Republicans, not so much.

There seems to be a sense, even among many of Romney's supporters, that
he's making too many unforced errors and offering too few specifics.

A National Review editorial, "Fear Not the
Bounce<http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316491/fear-not-bounce-editors>,"
noted:

The Democrats, it seems to us, made better use of their convention than the
Republicans made of theirs. The Republican message, especially in the
most-watched addresses, seemed less coordinated, deliberate, and focused.
Republicans spent too much time explaining what a nice guy Romney is and
how happy he is about female empowerment, and not enough time explaining
how he would improve the national condition.

I agree with this assessment. The Republican convention was a mess. Ann
Romney began her speech by saying "I want to talk to you about
love<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Lm_FMcFmw>,"
only to be followed by the brash, narcissistic Chris Christie who said that
we have "become paralyzed by our desire to be loved."

Talk about whiplash. And it didn't stop there.

Clint Eastwood, in his now infamous empty-chair
"speech<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30/transcript-clint-eastwood-speech-at-rnc/#ixzz26HAeSuL3>,"
made a strange reference to the war in Afghanistan. Speaking to an
invisible Obama, he said

I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that's O.K. But you thought
the war in Afghanistan was O.K. You know, I mean - you thought that was
something that was worth doing.  We didn't check with the Russians to see
how they did there for the 10 years.

Of course, Eastwood was followed by Romney, who didn't even mention the
war. When Fox News's Brett Baier asked him to explain this omission, Romney
dug the hole deeper with a nonsensical and arguably offensive
rationale<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tVPscytI3DI>
:

When you give a speech you don't go through a laundry list, you talk about
the things that you think are important, and I described in my speech my
commitment to a strong military, unlike the president's decision to cut our
military.

Huh? A would-be commander in chief doesn't think an active war is
"important"?

Even worse, on Tuesday the Romney campaign jumped the gun - and skirted the
truth - in a highly inappropriate attack on the Obama administration over
the anti-American hostilities in Libya and Egypt. In a statement, Romney
said:

I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and
Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's
disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to
condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those
who waged the attacks.

But, as The New York Times pointed
out<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/attacks-fuel-escalation-in-presidential-race.html?_r=1&hp>
:

He was referring to the embassy statement condemning an American-made Web
film denouncing Islam that was the catalyst for the violence. However, the
embassy's statement was released in an effort to head off the violence, not
after the attacks, as Mr. Romney's statement implied.

Oops.

The Romney camp should learn a lesson from journalists: wait until you have
the facts. It's better to be second and right than first and
wrong. Knee-jerk reactions can make you look like a jerk.

But after offending the British on his Olympics trip and labeling
Russia<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_7pH5XV_w>our "No. 1
geopolitical foe," Mitt was already well on his way to proving
that he is a diplomatic disaster.  This week the Russian president,  Vladimir
Putin thanked Romney<http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/putin-thanks-romney-for-calling-russia-no-1-foe/>for
the label, saying that it had helped Russia because it had "proven the
correctness of our approach to missile defense problems."

Yeah, thanks Mitt.

But perhaps Romney's biggest mistake has been his allergy to specificity on
his plans for the economy even though he's running on a promise to reform
and recharge it.

As "An Open Letter to Mitt
Romney<http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/open-letter-mitt-romney_652131.html>,"
written by Peter J. Hansen for The Weekly Standard, put it:

It's one thing to identify a problem, say you care about it, and even list
some steps you would take to address it.  It's another thing to convince
people that you can really do the job.  Many people wonder, and not without
reason, whether any president can really do this job. So what else might
you do?  I suggest that your focus on the economy and jobs would be
strengthened by more detailed discussions of policies you would enact, and
also of related issues, notably Obamacare and Medicare.  The assertion that
you are more competent than President Obama strikes many people as merely
that - an assertion.  It would be supported by your speaking in more detail
about a range of financial issues.

This is a major miscalculation by Romney: that somehow he can simply run
out the clock without ever providing specifics (or those tax returns for
that matter), and anti-Obama sentiment will magically deliver him the White
House. Fear is a great political motivator, but confidence and security
also play a role in presidential politics.

The Romney campaign sent out a
memo<http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/316394/romney-pollster-ignore-sugar-high-democrat-convention>on
Monday to "Interested Parties"meant to assuage fears. The first
paragraph began:

Don't get too worked up about the latest polling. While some voters will
feel a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions, the basic structure of the
race has not changed significantly.

This sounds like one of those affirmations that you tape to your bathroom
mirror and repeat every morning when your life is in the doldrums and
you're in need of direction.

But self-reassurance can't compensate for self-destructiveness. Those of us
who have been forced to reckon with our own mistakes know that well.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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