The spending data and interviews with campaign officials suggest that a Romney-Obama race would be a clash between distinct political philosophies, one that would test the power of an aerial bombardment through television ads against an in-person voter mobilization months in the making.
They also produced a chart showing where the 2 campaigns have spent their money so far.
Notice that the biggest expenditure for the Obama campaign ($20.3 million) has been on staffing (payroll) while Romney has only spent $5.3 million. On the other end of the spectrum, Romney has spent the most ($14.7 million) on media buys and production while Obama has only spent $4.3 million. That pretty much tells the story.
Romney's 2008 Iowa chairman let loose with a quote that suggests the kind of message the campaign will be relying on with all those media buys.
"For the Republicans, what's going to drive turnout is not going to be Mitt Romney — it's Barack Obama," Gross said.
They don't seem bothered by having an "etch-a-sketch" candidate because its not his message they are going to campaign on. In other words, they'll motivate their voters by tapping into "Obama derangement syndrome."
I say that because I think we need to be prepared. This is going to be one ugly campaign the Republicans are planning to wage. Those who've watched what Romney and his Super PACs have done via media buys against his primary opponents should know that all that fury will be coming against President Obama very soon. What we already know from Romney as well as people like Karl Rove is that, when it comes to attacks, lies are more useful to them than the truth. And they won't hesitate to use the former.
What we're also likely to see is the same approach from Obama that he used in 2008...to let these folks hang themselves with their lies and distortions before coming in to knock it out of the park with his own brand of truth. So expect a repeat from the left about cries that the President needs to "punch back" and wails about how ineffective he is in political combat.
But we've been down that road before and should know better this time. He knows what he's doing and has been pretty damn effective at doing things his way.
Our job is to be that army on the ground he's depending on to combat the lies Republicans will tell via the airwaves. And to learn from his example that we can rise above it.
That's the same mistake Democrats made in '04. They went against the incumbent instead of selling themselves. There is a reason the incumbent won the first time. Romney's going to be competing with people on the ground. All they have is their hate. It didn't work last time. I don't see it working when we've seen consequences of having the crazy in power.
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