One hallmark of the Romney 2012 Presidential campaign is that it’s short on details. Post-convention and only two months out from Election Day, it’s still short on details. Team Romney would have us believe that this is a devilishly clever political strategem. Last month, in keeping with that strategy, an unidentified Romney advisor told a reporter that:
The nature of running a presidential campaign is that you’re communicating direction to the American people. Campaigns that are about specifics, particularly in today’s environment, get tripped up.
(Or found out . . .)
Likewise, Vice-Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan told the press that he plans to discuss the Romney Tax Plan but—surprise!—not until after the election:
That is something that we think we should do in the light of day, through Congress.
(Translation: we can kick the can to Congress and watch the whole notion of deficit reduction take a one-way journey to oblivion.)
Ryan then promised to “have a process for tax reform so that we do this in the front of the public”:
. . . we want feedback from Americans about what priorities in the tax code should be kept, and what special interest loopholes we want to get rid of.
But, for the “economically-challenged” person in the street, it’s all too mysterious. Given the size of the deficit that Romney has pledged to halve, in relation to the number of tax loopholes in the current tax code, wouldn’t it be safe to assume that he’d have to close all of them in order to get anywhere near delivering on that pledge? especially since, so far, Team Romney hasn’t offered any other revenue-raising brainstorms to tame the deficit.
That strategy might have passed muster in the early days of the campaign while the campaign team got its “sea legs” but, at this point, post-convention, it could very well be a liability. Over the past few days some heavyweight opinions have been aired that Team Romney would be wise to heed—if it’s not already too late. There is a consensus developing that Romney squandered a valuable opportunity to connect the dots between his vision and the policy he would employ to realize that vision by keeping his Acceptance Speech, last week, too vague and abstract.
Romney’s “biographical rather than policy” speech telegraphs a certain amount of self-consciousness and a realization that the Romney biography is in need of repair after some direct hits scored by the Obama campaign.
Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, warned that if Romney doesn’t define his own policies, Democrats will do it for him.
He and Paul Ryan promised to help the middle class, but they never explained other than in passing how they would do it. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Romney tossed out his five policy ideas almost as an afterthought. Energy got one sentence, education scored big with two. Neil Armstrong received almost as much speech time as what Mr. Romney would do specifically to spur faster growth and raise middle-class incomes.
As a result Democrats “will have a blank canvass on which to paint because Mr. Romney did so little to explain what he would do and how it would help improve the economy.”
Rabinowitz, in keeping with the Romney boosterism of the WSJ editorial board, speculates on why Team Romney might take such an approach:
This isn’t because Mr. Romney lacks an agenda. His platform is brimming with ideas, most of them good and many excellent. He simply didn’t talk about them. No doubt this was a strategic political calculation—perhaps a judgment, based on polling, that Mr. Romney’s main challenge is to reassure undecided voters that he’s not heartless, scary or extreme.
The thinking would be that Mr. Obama’s approval rating remains below 50% and voters are prepared to fire him, so all Mr. Romney needs to do is to show Americans that he’s competent and presidential. Thus Mr. Romney and the GOP staged a convention intended mainly to rehabilitate their political brands, show off a younger and more diverse party, and leave the policy stuff to the dull wonks on editorial pages.
Ergo, the “safe” political strategy.
One bit of advice that the WSJ editorial throws out is that Romney can run, but he can’t hide from the upcoming presidential debates (starting in exactly one month, October 3).
. . . sooner or later Messrs. Romney and Ryan are going to have to make the case for their policies. If not in their own speeches, then surely at the debates when Mr. Obama and the moderators won’t let them avoid it.
If they can’t confidently and aggressively win the argument for tax reform and spending restraint and why they promote faster growth and more jobs, they will give Mr. Obama an opening to win an election he should lose.