Hit Mitt not enough for Obama win ... [View all]

[JackN415]

In a nutshell, the article argues that it is not enough for Obama to say: "Looks, Mitt is bad". Obama must also say:"why I am better".

http://www.nj.com/us-politics/index.ssf/2012/10/hit_mitt_not_enough_for_obama.html

Everything was going great for Barack Obama until about 9:04 on the night of Oct. 3, when Mitt Romney startled everybody by refusing to live up to his caricature as The Worst Candidate Ever. Romney's late-game comeback -- an unexpected assertion of presidential competence in front of 67 million viewers -- robbed Obama of his momentum and forced the president's team to make a subtle yet significant change to their closing argument in the critical last two weeks of the 2012 campaign.

Instead the pressure is now on Obama to prove himself, and oh-so-late in the game. That led his campaign on Tuesday to release a detailed, bullet-point plan for his second term -- a formal agenda his team long resisted despite appeals from the likes of Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and James Carville and army of basic-cable liberals who said the president needed to spend less time cutting down Romney and more time elevating himself.

I have to say that I had the same sentiment. I was frustrated that Obama did not take up the talking points served on a silver platter for him by Bill Clinton. Just come out and say how decent a job it has been given the circumstance and say he wishes much better and is committed to much better results ahead. Leave it to other Dems to blame Republican obstructionism. Just assume a no-excuse, the-buck-stop-here-attitude.

I don't know whether the Obama team has the "not-invented-here" syndrome and doesn't want to appear too dependent on Bill Clinton (granted, the Big Dawg's stature is huge and one must be careful not appear to be in his shadow), but they can sculpt their own messages and programs with unique flavor along the same line, which is the obvious truth and reasonable idea.

I was shocked to see how Obama could have lost that much momentum after the 1st debate, but I realized after talking with a number of colleagues that Romney helped himself a great deal by rebuilding his image. The common message I heard was "Romney is not bad,...Romney is OK". And it was those Republican-leaning people beginning to support him - not Obama's loss that makes a tighter race. Obama's negative attack is no longer effective, because once people believe in a candidate, they dismiss negative ads. A permanent gain, almost irreversible for Romney.

But the potential for Obama and Dems is even bigger than those Republican leaning people. The key is GOTV! I got a lady friend and 2 of her friends to do early voting yesterday, only one of them ever voted before.

I am confident that there are many 1st time voters that will make many dumb and out-of-touch pollsters eat crows after Obama's win.