Romney spent nearly a year talking about how Obama is a “nice guy” who just doesn’t understand how the economy works because he has no private-sector experience. But as the campaign grew more intense and the attacks more personal, Romney dropped the idea that he has any admiration for Obama. In its place is a description of Obama as the purveyor of a campaign not worthy of the office. …
The strategy counters what the Romney camp views as the Obama team’s sustained maligning of the former Massachusetts governor. Aides and advisers are quick to mention one Obama adviser’s 2011 comment to POLITICO that the president’s team would need to “kill Romney” to win reelection amid a struggling economy. …
“This president has pushed Republicans and Democrats as far apart as they can go,” Romney said Tuesday night in Chillicothe. “And now he and his allies are pushing us all even further apart by dividing us into groups. He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose. But he won’t win that way.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member