Winning With "Politics of Envy"?

by Steve

With millions of Americans having lost their jobs, homes, and safety nets as a result of GOP-supported Wall Street plunder, the Republican Party is set to name Mitt Romney as its nominee. The conventional wisdom for months is that among the possible GOP opponents, Romney is the one Team Obama fears the most. After watching Romney's pivot to his general election message in the last 12 hours, does anyone really believe that?

Romney says that his opponents and critiques of our economy represent a "politics of envy", in other words Romney is blaming the victims for complaining about their lot in life. He's clearly now running as the candidate of the 1%, where any demand for fairness and accountability is rejected as class warfare and whining by those who aren't successful. Even after Matt Lauer gave Romney a chance this morning on the "Today" show to soften and walk back from such a stark position, Romney seemed to double down. Later today, he said our economic problems are the result of Obama being "in over his head" in responding to the devastation Romney and his ilk have caused. Naturally Romney said this on the same day GM retook the mantle from Toyota as the world's Number One automaker, something that would never have happened without Barack Obama's direct involvement, against the advice of the GOP and Romney to let the whole industry slide into bankruptcy.

Team Obama should now want the GOP to come together behind Romney and this message as soon as possible. Obama will be able to hammer this contrast over and over again during the long ten months, pointing out how the GOP blames the middle class for being envious of the 1% and wanting to protect the elites at the expense of everyone else.

It will not be a hard message to sell, and Mitt Romney is the ideal opponent for the Democrats at this point in history. The quickest way to deflate GOP enthusiasm and quash the Tea Party this fall is for Romney to become the de facto nominee early in the process and then have the Democrats begin a weekly destruction of the man and his message. We'll see how fanatical the GOP is about their ticket by Tampa, and I suspect with Romney at the top of the ticket spewing such an exclusive message, the GOP will not only lose the election but will also suffer downballot as well.