Romney’s problems stem from two sources. First, the Romney campaign has believed from the start that this election is a simple referendum on the president. Given Obama’s manifestly disastrous performance, all that Romney needs to do is submit his résumé, explain what a bad job President Obama is doing now, and wait for the president to be “fired.” Thus Romney desperately seeks to avoid doing anything that might involve taking an unpopular position and risk offending voters. He might talk about the president’s refusal to face “hard truths,” but he’s not about to utter any himself.
The second factor may be even more significant, and harder to fix. Mitt Romney really is not a man with a deeply ideological worldview. Sure, he’s a conservative. His preference is for market-based solutions and a more-limited government. He thinks taxes are too high. Clearly he is to the right of President Obama on nearly every issue. But fundamentally, Romney thinks like the corporate CEO that he is. He eschews ideology in favor of competence. He solves problems. He would make the trains run on time. That also is part of why Romney’s campaign seems to resemble more a job application rather than a political campaign.
The result is a themeless mush of a campaign that boils down to little more than “Vote for me because I’m not Barack Obama.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member