"Romney’s Unlikely Trouble with Details" By Jon Meacham at Time Ideas

[applegrove]

Romney’s Unlikely Trouble with Details

By Jon Meacham at Time Ideas

http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/25/romneys-unlikely-trouble-with-details/

"SNIP.........................................


My friend Jonathan Martin of Politico wrote an important article with Alexander Burns over the weekend highlighting what they called Mitt Romney’s “no-policy problem.” Here’s the argument:

Vague, general or downright evasive policy prescriptions on some of the most important issues facing the country are becoming the rule for Romney. Hoping to make the campaign strictly a referendum on the incumbent, the hyper-cautious challenger is open about his determination to not give any fodder to Obama aides hungry to make the race as much about Romney as the President.

Romney is remarkably candid, almost as though he’s reading the stage directions, about why he won’t offer up details: he thinks it will undermine his chances to win.

“The media kept saying to Chris, ‘Come on, give us the details, give us the details,’’’ Romney has said about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2009 gubernatorial race. “‘We want to hang you with them.’”

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/06/25/romneys-unlikely-trouble-with-details/#ixzz1yxYnFeE6
..............................................SNIP"

[dimbear]

1. At first I thought "Just the facts ma'am" Jack Webb, then on second thought

Kyra Sedgwick.

[applegrove]

2. Harper in Canada ran an election by repeating a single mantra "Canada's Strong Stable Government".

And won. I guess that is what Romney is doing: they have the same conservative political experts and thinkers.

[dimbear]

3. It just doesn't seem possible that Rmoney can go through to November and never face a hostile voice.

That ain't right. I mean even, say, David Letterman? Come on Mitt! Not afraid of Putin, not afraid of anybody but liberals?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

4. Mitt Smarmney's policy position is continued smarminess - his platform of smarm is unassailable

and very smarm specific.

[magical thyme]

5. totally wrong strategy for Rmoney

That strategy only can work with somebody perceived as trustworthy and likeable. People "fill in the blanks" with what they hope for. How many people were "filling in blanks" with Obama's nonspecific campaign of "hope and change" only to later be very disappointed when his ideas of change didn't match theirs? We trusted Obama to do what we imagined, because we like him.

The problem for rMoney is that nobody trusts him. He is perceived as untrustworthy, due to his long track record pursuing a "win at all costs" strategy, "all costs" including all principles. Therefore, people *on both sides of the aisle* will "fill in the blanks" with their own worst imaginable futures.

In Rmoney, we see a future of 1%ers owning everything; social security destroyed and the elderly set loose on icebergs (and subsequently drowning when they melt due to runaway climate change); and the rest of us left to starve or be poisoned by ruined aquifers courtesy of fracking.... or be slaves to the "rentier" class before being sold to a defrauded lower-level rentier.

The radical right doesn't like or trust Rmoney any more than we do. They see a future of loose wimmins courtesy of legal abortions, amnesty for illegals taking all the jobs, gun bans, soshalism and then burning in hell courtesy of the anti-christ mormon.

[yellowcanine]

6. Romney's strategy is right out of Tom Dewey's 1948 campaign book.

Listen to him. It is all platitudes and vague promises about doing things better by unleashing the private sector. This is Tom Dewey in spades. And it will work just as well as it did for Dewey.