[POLITICS] I think I might start blogging about political theater again, as the race heats up.
Before you guys fill the comments with actual political arguments, I will stress that I am talking here about messaging, not who's actually right and who's wrong. I'm an Obama fan, but I'm going to write about how effective the two sides' campaigns are.
Herman Cain tries to remember why Obama's Libya policy was wrong and what he would do differently.
I'm not clear why the Republicans don't just give Obama the win on Libya. If I were running R messaging, that's what I'd do. It's going to be a tough sell that a policy that resulted in 0 American deaths, relatively minor expense, and the overthrow of a dictator, was the wrong policy, especially when overcommitment or undercommitment had such serious risks.
Instead, I think I'd push a message like, "It's great that Obama did such a great job on Libya. If only he'd spent that kind of attention on cutting taxes" etc. This election is going to be about the economy, so it's not giving up much.
When you attack your opponent for every last thing he does, it devalues your message.
I bet you the Dems aren't going to do that. I bet you Obama's going to be full of praise for Mitt Romney. Not just for Romneycare, which I'm sure he'll say all kinds of nice things about. But he'll probably say nice things about Romney's job running the Olympics. Because then when you follow that up with an attack, the attack sounds better.
It's been kind of shocking to see the Republican field implode. The Republicans seem doomed to settle on Mitt Romney, a candidate they don't actually seem to like very much -- a sort of Republican John Kerry. Why? Because all the loyalty oaths and pledges you have to sign seem to have chased off all the heavyweight candidates. They could still win it, of course, because the President is so unpopular. But an unpopular incumbent can win, if he can tear down the other candidate. That's why Harry Reid is still in office. (See Angle, Sharron.)
I'm kind of rooting for Newt Gingrich. For all his loose-cannon-ness, he's his own man. He's had original thoughts. He probably could name the President of Uzbekistan. And he wants three-hour Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. That would enrich our democracy, I think.
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