As the candidates emerge from their conventions, the central cases
they are making against each other are rooted in familiar populist
archetypes that can be reduced to just three words.
All week in Charlotte, Democratic speakers have portrayed Republican nominee Mitt Romney as an insular economic elitist so cosseted by great wealth that he cannot understand or empathize with the struggles of average families. For all the zingers delivered from the podium, that message may have been summarized most succinctly in a new ad President Obama’s campaign released as the convention opened. “The middle class is carrying a heavy load,” the ad begins before unleashing its three-word kicker. “But Mitt Romney doesn’t see it.”
Efforts to humanize Romney consumed much of last week’s Republican convention in Tampa. But in terms of predicting the messages that will shape the fall, the convention’s most revealing aspect may have been the crystallization of the GOP rebuttal to this relentless Democratic accusation that Romney favors the rich over the middle class: The response is to argue that Obama favors the poor and the undeserving over the middle class.
All week in Tampa, Republicans positioned themselves as the defenders of hard-working taxpayers against Obama policies that they alleged would benefit a panoramic array of “undeserving” interests, from welfare recipients (“He believes in government handouts and dependency,” insisted Rick Santorum) to illegal immigrants (he “refuses to protect our citizens from the danger of illegal immigrants,” charged South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley) to public-sector unions enriching themselves at taxpayer expense.
Read more: http://nationaljournal.com/columns/political-connections/romney-obama-campaign-on-class-divisions-20120906
All week in Charlotte, Democratic speakers have portrayed Republican nominee Mitt Romney as an insular economic elitist so cosseted by great wealth that he cannot understand or empathize with the struggles of average families. For all the zingers delivered from the podium, that message may have been summarized most succinctly in a new ad President Obama’s campaign released as the convention opened. “The middle class is carrying a heavy load,” the ad begins before unleashing its three-word kicker. “But Mitt Romney doesn’t see it.”
Efforts to humanize Romney consumed much of last week’s Republican convention in Tampa. But in terms of predicting the messages that will shape the fall, the convention’s most revealing aspect may have been the crystallization of the GOP rebuttal to this relentless Democratic accusation that Romney favors the rich over the middle class: The response is to argue that Obama favors the poor and the undeserving over the middle class.
All week in Tampa, Republicans positioned themselves as the defenders of hard-working taxpayers against Obama policies that they alleged would benefit a panoramic array of “undeserving” interests, from welfare recipients (“He believes in government handouts and dependency,” insisted Rick Santorum) to illegal immigrants (he “refuses to protect our citizens from the danger of illegal immigrants,” charged South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley) to public-sector unions enriching themselves at taxpayer expense.
Read more: http://nationaljournal.com/columns/political-connections/romney-obama-campaign-on-class-divisions-20120906
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