Friday :: Feb 24, 2012
Bad Optics, Bad Policy
by Deacon Blues
Supposing they gave a major economic address and nobody came?
Mitt Romney spoke to several empty seats Friday in Detroit, in a speech that offered Democrats more fodder for their attacks and failed to deliver the major economic address his campaign promised.
Television cameras showed rows of empty chairs as Romney rehashed many of the policies and quips he'd used in previous speeches, made a few jokes that appeared to fall flat with the audience and said that his wife, Ann, drives "a couple of Cadillacs," which will likely give Democrats more ammunition for their depiction of him as rich and out of touch.
Egads, this man has been running for president since 2007, and yet he and his team keep stumbling like this.
His speech was held at Detroit’s massive Ford Field, which holds tens of thousands of people, but only 1,000 or so attended. The campaign and the Detroit Economic Club, which hosted the event, sought to make the stadium look more full by putting the audience in one end zone of the football field and putting the cameras directly behind them.
Yes, his staff can blame the Detroit Economic Club for the terrible images, but an A-list team doesn't allow its candidate to even get into situations like this one.
The host organization for Romney’s speech, the Detroit Economic Club, changed the event site from a downtown Detroit hotel to the field because, as a spokesman for the club told ABC News, tickets sold out within hours. However, not all of chairs set up between the end-zone and the 30-yard line ended up filled.
The outsize venue drew ridicule from the Twittersphere. Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham tweeted twice:
“The pictures of an empty Ford Field are not helping Romney. Poor staging and tepid response from hometown crowd.” and “Query: Why move the event to a larger venue when it looks like Romney would not have been able to fill a smaller one?”
She was just one of many pundits and political observers to note the poor optics.
Then again, it isn't just the optics. The Romney policy prescriptions themselves can't pass the basic smell test.