Interesting opinions about horribly run Romney campaign (unemployed, votes, liberal)
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It's not Romney that's ruining his campaign. It's the Republican platform that's ruining the campaign. They created this monster by painting a Moderate as a radical Leftist, which forced them to move radically to the Right to appear like they were different. Romney's campaign is what any Republican's campaign in the current environment would look like.
Why do you think so many prominent & capable Republicans sat out and the only ideologically extreme Republicans made headway?
So Romney, who was governor of one of the most liberal states in the country, is ideologically an extreme right winger? LOL...
Look, Obama is not a socialist, communist, etc. But he is not a moderate either. Even if he's been forced to govern as one to some degree, he is not one. His ideology/philosophy and many of his ideas are not moderate. He is not a far left socialist, no, but he is not moderate.
Romney needs to be campaigning for the center more than the far right. His campaign does seem to be too concerned with trying to appeal to them when they will vote for him anyway.
Where the Romney campaign fails is in the politics - he needs to ignore policy ideas (which are stellar, as I have mentioned previously) and try to write a narrative of a new America, one greater than before, with more opportunity, blah, blah, blah. For example, he has a 30-point economic plan. Great ideas, but he needs something succinct, a one-line to grab people with. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's sort of difficult to describe
My biggest complaints are with the ad strategy. They let the Obama campaign/groups supporting Obama run all these anti-Romney ads full of lies and distortions all throughout the summer and did little to try to counter it. I thought Romney would run as "Mr. Fix It," but he basically allowed the Obama campaign and the groups supporting Obama to define him as this evil uber-wealthy greedy corporate raider. They continued even after independent fact checker after independent fact checker said the outsourcing allegations, etc. were BS. Ever since then, it's almost been like Romney has been trying to run away from his business background that I thought he would be running on.
Where are the ads from Romney talking about his business experience in a positive light? There may have been one that got little attention, but that had to be about it. His business experience is one of the reasons I've been a Romney supporter all this time. My question is....why the hell aren't they showing ads over and over again with people whose jobs he created thanking him for their jobs? And why didn't they start this - or run any sort of biographical ad for that matter - while the Obama campaign and the groups supporting them started really running all these vicious anti-Romney ads in June and July? I know they had limits on how much $$$ they could spend then, but they were running some ads. IIRC, those ads were primarily about how bad the economy was. Everyone knows the economy is bad! Those ads were a waste of money. Ads talking about all the people dropping out of the labor force or all the people who are going on disability would be worth it, but those just talking about the unemployment rate were/are not.
They should have run ads when all the vicious anti-Romney/anti-Bain ads started running over the summer painting the Obama campaign as desperate to distract from the economy and willing to lie and distort to change the subject, complete with mentioning that independent fact checker after independent fact checker had said their accusations were BS.
Their current ads basically say "the economy is bad, Romney/Ryan will create a lot of jobs." OK???!?!? As I already said, everyone knows the economy is bad. Anyone running for office says they're going to create lots of jobs. If you're going to talk about how bad the economy is, go into more details (talk about the labor force dropouts or show charts comparing this "recovery" to the Reagan recovery, etc.). Then they could go into more details about their economic plan and how it's been endorsed by all those economists, etc.
Last edited by afoigrokerkok; 09-13-2012 at 10:04 PM..
Romney isn't incompetent. His campaign is incompetent, yes, but he is not.
Look, he wasn't and isn't a bully. He isn't mean.
As far as Obama's approval, ever hear of a convention bounce? It's dropped 3 points since the peak of the convention bounce already in both Gallup and Rasmussen, from 52% to 49%.
afoi,
What exactly would need to happen to convince you that Romney is not competent? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's eventually going to happen during this campaign. To me, it seems like any reasonable observer would be looking at how Romney is running his campaign, even if they were partial to Romney, and would be thinking to him or herself "What's going on with this guy? What is he doing or not doing that is leading to fumble after fumble after fumble?"
This really bothers me. As much as I don't want Romney to win, I recognize that there is certainly a possibility that he will win and become president. When I see what kind of leadership and organizational skills he has, I become very, very worried. Just because someone "ran a business," however successful that business was, does not mean that they have the skills to become president. I think Romney just doesn't have the qualities and character of a leader, and that is completely apart from his political stances (his most recent ones I mean) which I also do not agree with.
What exactly would need to happen to convince you that Romney is not competent? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's eventually going to happen during this campaign. To me, it seems like any reasonable observer would be looking at how Romney is running his campaign, even if they were partial to Romney, and would be thinking to him or herself "What's going on with this guy? What is he doing or not doing that is leading to fumble after fumble after fumble?"
This really bothers me. As much as I don't want Romney to win, I recognize that there is certainly a possibility that he will win and become president. When I see what kind of leadership and organizational skills he has, I become very, very worried. Just because someone "ran a business," however successful that business was, does not mean that they have the skills to become president. I think Romney just doesn't have the qualities and character of a leader, and that is completely apart from his political stances (his most recent ones I mean) which I also do not agree with.
Here's the thing - I don't see Obama as being a great leader or as being particularly competent himself.
That being said, you make very good points. I wouldn't say that, IMO, how you run a campaign is much like how you run anything else. He has an excellent business record. He was the governor of a state. In my mind, he does meet the qualifications (hell, he does even in Bill Clinton's mind ).
I think he's somewhat awkward perhaps and has a hard time connecting with people and showing a softer image. That's terrible as a candidate, but I don't think that makes one a bad leader and certainly not a bad decision-maker.
Obviously he should have done a better job of putting a campaign team together to counteract his weaknesses, but I don't think there's necessarily a lot of correlation between how one runs something like a campaign and how one actually handles responsibilities. I see Obama as someone who's great at running a campaign but bad at handling responsibilities.
Here's the thing - I don't see Obama as being a great leader or as being particularly competent himself.
That being said, you make very good points. I wouldn't say that, IMO, how you run a campaign is much like how you run anything else. He has an excellent business record. He was the governor of a state. In my mind, he does meet the qualifications (hell, he does even in Bill Clinton's mind ).
I think he's somewhat awkward perhaps and has a hard time connecting with people and showing a softer image. That's terrible as a candidate, but I don't think that makes one a bad leader and certainly not a bad decision-maker.
Obviously he should have done a better job of putting a campaign team together to counteract his weaknesses, but I don't think there's necessarily a lot of correlation between how one runs something like a campaign and how one actually handles responsibilities. I see Obama as someone who's great at running a campaign but bad at handling responsibilities.
I still am wondering though: what exactly would need to happen for you to say "Ok, that's it, I've defended him as much as I could, but this is too much." For me to give up on Obama, I guess it would just take him veering to the far right on some issue, like going after Iran or Syria in our current circumstances, which he is not going to do. You may feel that Obama has been forced into moderation, but I sort of like that. I like that he has generally liberal instincts, and that he's taken a moderate stance in these circumstances. That's fine with me. I would say that I am not as critical of Obama as you because I have not seen in any circumstance, a viable alternative being created by the Republicans. During the healthcare debate, I did not see them coming out with ideas. I don't know what exactly their job creation policy is other than cutting taxes, and I don't think that's enough. I don't think the Ryan budget is viable. I don't think their foreign policy is viable or remotely tolerable. Because of this, I give Obama a LOT of leeway, because there are only so many contortions you can do when the other side is so so adversarial. The Republicans have turned government into a blood sport, and I can't give that my approval. Had they been more interested in governance, I would have looked at Obama with a much more critical lens.
I still am wondering though: what exactly would need to happen for you to say "Ok, that's it, I've defended him as much as I could, but this is too much." For me to give up on Obama, I guess it would just take him veering to the far right on some issue, like going after Iran or Syria in our current circumstances, which he is not going to do. You may feel that Obama has been forced into moderation, but I sort of like that. I like that he has generally liberal instincts, and that he's taken a moderate stance in these circumstances. That's fine with me. I would say that I am not as critical of Obama as you because I have not seen in any circumstance, a viable alternative being created by the Republicans. During the healthcare debate, I did not see them coming out with ideas. I don't know what exactly their job creation policy is other than cutting taxes, and I don't think that's enough. I don't think the Ryan budget is viable. I don't think their foreign policy is viable or remotely tolerable. Because of this, I give Obama a LOT of leeway, because there are only so many contortions you can do when the other side is so so adversarial. The Republicans have turned government into a blood sport, and I can't give that my approval. Had they been more interested in governance, I would have looked at Obama with a much more critical lens.
That's pretty much where I stand too. I give Obama high marks on some things, such as our new foreign policy focus, but have faulted his lack of leadership on critical issues, like the ACA. I was not intending to vote for him again, but I simply cannot support the kind of politics of hate and division which the GOP has practiced over the past 4 years.
And, I simply do not trust Mitt Romney. He doesn't seem to be able to articulate WHY he wants to be President. As far as I know, he hasn't even tried.
Where Mitt Romney really fails is that this election should -not- be this close, with Obama leading in most polls.
Let's face it, Obama did not have the best presidency. Some of it his fault, some of it not his fault. The fact is, Mitt Romney could've come in swinging and hit a home run.
Instead he's pandering to a base that'll already vote for him, and appointed a far right republican as his vice president, further distancing himself from the demographic he actually needs to go for.
This is Romney's race to lose. And he's doing a fantastic job of losing it.
Great article in The New Yorker about how badly the Romney campaign has been run:
When Romney decided to run in 2012, the best argument for his candidacy was that he had nothing to do with the Bush Administration and could appeal to moderate voters. But rather than trying to make a break with the Bush Administration and portraying himself as a different sort of Republican, one who has learned from the mistakes of the past, Romney has embraced the Bush heritage—one that delivered the Presidency to Obama in 2008. We see this in economic policy, where he has embraced the Republican orthodoxy that tax cuts are a solution to everything and tax increases are evil. We see it in the field of social issues, where he has pandered to evangelicals and conservative Catholics on issues like abortion and gay marriage. And now we see it in foreign policy, where he has given a platform to the very folks who led us to disaster in Iraq.
Romney’s blundering during the past couple of days is of a piece with his entire campaign. A man with an impressive résumé, whose best hope of victory lay in portraying himself as a moderate, independent figure—somebody not beholden to tired old orthodoxies, Democratic or Republican—has self-destructed by aligning himself with some of the least credible and most voter-repellant groups in the G.O.P.
So Romney, who was governor of one of the most liberal states in the country, is ideologically an extreme right winger? LOL...
Look, Obama is not a socialist, communist, etc. But he is not a moderate either. Even if he's been forced to govern as one to some degree, he is not one. His ideology/philosophy and many of his ideas are not moderate. He is not a far left socialist, no, but he is not moderate.
Romney needs to be campaigning for the center more than the far right. His campaign does seem to be too concerned with trying to appeal to them when they will vote for him anyway.
He's not a moderate in this climate of partisanship, but historically he is. Based on objective ideology of Democrats & Republicans he is. Even compared to other democracies, he's a moderate. I'm having a hard time even coming up w/ something he's pushed through that isn't either a wholesale Moderate Republican idea, or a compromise on Democrat idea.
Healthcare reform? A Moderate Republican idea and implemented on a state-level by a Moderate Republican.
Dream Act? A Republican idea
Bailouts? A historically Republican idea (look at the history of bailouts and you'll see most of them happened under a Republican administration.)
Tax cut extensions? A compromise on Democrat position.
Financial regulation? Simpson-Bowles? Even the bailout itself was a compromise of a Democrat idea.
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