Mitt Romney

My Two Cents

Featured image Obama got Eastwooded last night.  Or should we say Romney took Obama to the Eastwoodshed?  (Hat tip to Bob Owens for the imagery here.) Last night was one of those nights when it is really fun to watch MSNBC.  There’ve been many of those—the 2002 midterm election (though James Carville putting the paper bag over his head on CNN that night was something to savor, too), the 2004 election, and »

Well, that was terrific

Featured image It’s difficult to see how Mitt Romney could have been much better than he was in tonight’s debate. Romney was crisp, forcful (without being disrespectful or obnoxious), and almost always on point (especially during the crucial first hour). Most importantly, he was vibrant and even passionate. I have seen stiff lawyers come alive in a court room (I’ve even been described as having done so myself). To some extent, that’s »

The upcoming debate — whom to target

Featured image John has posed one of the key questions Mitt Romney must answer in formulating his debate strategy: Should he come across with the unapologetic conservatism that will fire up the base, or should he play to the middle? Most polls show that Romney is doing fine with the base — as well or better than Obama is doing with his. But under the best case scenario for Romney, turnout probably »

The upcoming debate — a word from Bill Otis

Featured image My friend Bill Otis has offered an “opening statement” for Mitt Romney to present tomorrow night. I don’t know that the candidates will give opening statements. Typically, I think, they give closing statements of a minute or so, instead. But there’s much in Bill’s statement that Romney can make good use of: My fellow Americans, our country remains, as Lincoln said, the last, best hope of earth. We should be »

The upcoming debate — no more Mr. Nice Guy

Featured image Mitt Romney has several decisions to make about how to approach tomorrow’s debate. I discussed one of them yesterday, arguing that he should not approach the debate cautiously, even though a break-even performance would probably be enough to improve his standing. Another decision is the one Romney faced during the Republican Convention — whether to focus on increasing his likeability or on attacking his opponent. In his speech to the »

The upcoming debate — will both candidates play it safe?

Featured image I had hoped that by the time of the first debate, Mitt Romney would have a lead over President Obama or, at least, that the race would be tied. In either scenario, the pressure would be on Obama, enhancing the possibility that he might become testy. Instead, Obama appears to have a small lead nationally and perhaps a somewhat larger one in key states like Florida and Ohio. Assuming that »

Obama’s Speech at the United Nations

Featured image Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both delivered foreign policy speeches in New York today, Obama at the United Nations and Romney at the Clinton Global Initiative. The coincidence offers an opportunity for comparison. For now, let’s look at Obama’s speech, and I will try to get to Romney’s tomorrow. The context for Obama’s speech was turmoil in the Arab world and the murder of Ambassador Stevens and other Americans in »

The Bill Clinton lovefest

Featured image It happened today. In exchange for being a party to this embarrassing event, Mitt Romney received token praise from Bill Clinton and a favorable review from the pro-Obama partisans at Politico, which condescendingly called Romney’s remarks “one of [his] best-prepared, and best-delivered, speeches of his campaign.” At a time when America desperately needs a president who can distinguish our enemies from our friends and act accordingly, wouldn’t it be nice »

Why would anyone doubt the prospects for peace in the Middle East?

Featured image Driving around this morning, I listened briefly to a Friday news roundup show on public radio (the two local sports radio stations were running ads). During these few minutes, the discussion turned to Mitt Romney’s statement expressing deep pessimism about the prospects for a peace agreement in the Middle East. A female panelist, or perhaps the host, said in that smug, dismissive tone we often hear from MSM types, that »

Meanwhile, Back In the Real World…

Featured image Those who pay way too much attention to politics are absorbed with a 60-second clip of Mitt Romney talking about dependence vs. independence, which I suppose makes it a good day for the Democrats–every day when people aren’t talking about the economy is a good day, unless they are talking about murdered ambassadors. So let’s hope that far away from the beltway buzz, millions of Americans are watching this ad, »

Inelegant damage

Featured image For months, analysts have been trying to understand why Mitt Romney can’t take the lead against an unsuccessful and somewhat unpopular president. The best explanation I’ve heard is the one offered four years ago to explain Romney’s inability to gain traction against John McCain, who lacked wide popularity with Republicans — Romney has trouble connecting with voters. Romney has improved as a candidate since 2008. He looks less stiff, gives »

How Mitt Romney Should Respond to the Crisis in the Muslim World

Featured image Until now, foreign policy has barely been an issue in the presidential race. That must change; here is how Mitt Romney should go about it. First, he should be bold and explicit in declaring that recent events demonstrate that Barack Obama’s foreign policies have been not just a failure, but a disaster. Obama thought he could reason with the mullahs. He was wrong, and now Iran is on the brink »

Mitt Romney, nationalist

Featured image Mitt Romney’s response to the attacks against the U.S. in Egypt and Libya has provoked new interest in the question of where, as a general matter, Romney stands on foreign policy matters. In the pro-Obama MSM, this interest takes the form of arguing that Romney is, hide the children, a “neo-con.” Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post takes this tack in an article called “Romney’s attacks on Obama foreign show »

What is “Chicago way” Obama prepared to do?

Featured image Bill Otis offers another suggestion for how Mitt Romney should address the atrocity in Libya and his opponents’ claims that Romney erred in criticizing the Obama administration’s initial statement about that atrocity. I post Bill’s suggested statement because it is a near-perfect expression of how I view the matter. Whether it would be politicially wise for Romney to make this statement is a separate question. My inclination would be to »

Obama “leads” Romney from behind

Featured image Yesterday, I wrote: Unexpected events sometimes can change the dynamics of a presidential election. Do yesterday’s (not altogether unexpected) events in Libya and Egypt have that potential? Probably not, in today’s America. I meant that the Obama administration’s bungling in Libya and Egypt — ignoring clear evidence pointing to the likelihood of attacks on our embassies; issuing a craven statement that Obama couldn’t stand behind — probably won’t hurt Obama »

The conventions — what happened?

Featured image Going into the conventions, I expected that both parties would receive a post-convention bounce, but that the Romney bounce would be larger. This, I thought would boost Romney from being a point or two behind Obama to being even or slightly ahead. However, the polls show that Obama received the larger bounce and thus now leads by three or four points. Why did this happen? Part of the explanation may »

The Day Summed Up In a Video and a Tweet

Featured image Remarkably, the Democrats began their convention with a video that proclaimed, “The government is the only thing we all belong to.” This theme is breathtakingly wrong on several levels, but it is consistent with the Democrats scrubbing all references to God from their platform. It also brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s adage that “We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around,” from his first inaugural address. »