His big problem with that is that he still has two mutually exclusive goals to accomplish...do some damage control with the 47% of the electorate that he dissed and keep his base riled up. He clearly can't do both.
So if I were a soulless Republican strategist, I'd borrow a tactic from Romney's past...outsource one of those. Romney himself can take on the persona of the candidate with empathy and outsource the fear/anger mongering to your media surrogates - all with plausible deniability for the latter.
And what better way to rile up the fear/anger of the base than to take a cheap shot at the President as the quintessential "angry black man?" That one has worked for decades. And the base has been absolutely dying to hear more about that Rev. Wright fellow, haven't they?
Besides which, when the major media outlets pretty much ignore a five year old story, they can rile up the base even more with crazed conspiracy theories about their liberal bias.
Who cares if they spin this in such a way that it fans the flames of hate that divide us? Mitt Romney is running for office, for pete's sake. This isn't about what's best for the country. Its about getting a Republican elected.
So don't be surprised if, at the debate tonight, you see a Mitt Romney that bears absolutely zero resemblance to the nastiness that was unleashed last night. The guy had to do something to deal with the schizophrenic nature of his campaign. And he did what any
Interesting point. The revelation of the "shocking" video was probably watched almost exclusively by the kind of people who think Drudge and Hannity are legitimate news sources, which pretty much is the Republican base. I don't think it worked very well to fire them up, though. Commenters at a right-wing site I read were unanimous in being utterly disappointed that the video was such a wet firecracker -- they'd been hoping for something really damning -- and some were angry at Hannity for creating such a distraction right on the eve of the big debate.
ReplyDeleteOf course the non-outsourced part of the job probably won't go any better. Romney just doesn't do "personal warmth" well. He'll be lucky to get through the whole thing without some painfully-weird gaffe which will then be the only thing anyone remembers.
they'd been hoping for something really damning
DeleteThey hyped the hell out of this video prior to its release. Of course that created good news for Hannity, Drudge and Carlson because it brought in lots of web clicks and eyeballs for Faux viewing. But perhaps it wasn't the greatest strategy for delivering what was promised. I guess there are drawbacks to using crazed rightwing media as surrogates.
Romney is in a no win situation. His base has been waiting for this moment (the debates) for the President to "exposed for the fraud he is", some of them hoped Newt could do it. I don't think Romney can get away with outsourcing the attack, his base wants him to attack the President directly. There will be a mini revolt if he doesn't.
ReplyDeleteWhat has Obama done to improve our Nation in the last four years? Just sayin......
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