In the past week Mitt Romney has come under severe attacks by conservatives who think that he is blowing any chance he had of beating President Obama. Bill Kristol, Laura Ingraham, and Rupert Murdoch have all made it clear that they are more than disappointed with Romney’s performance as a candidate. Even the Wall Street Journal published a scathing editorial that said that “the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb,” and that those responsible “ought to be fired for malpractice.”
In the wake of this disastrous week that saw stinging criticism from staunch allies, Mitt Romney’s campaign has announced a new shift in tactics. They are now going to commit themselves to better messaging.
“Mitt Romney is planning to fortify his communications and messaging team […] The campaign plans to bolster its rapid response and overall messaging operations.”
Messaging? That’s what Romney thinks is the problem? The Washington Post is reporting that Romney is committed to his current and insular staff of long-time associates. The sense of the campaign is that they are doing just fine but for a lack of effective media.
That’s a fatal misperception. Rather than addressing serious shortcomings in his campaign’s lack of direction, Romney thinks that better PR is all he needs. But Romney’s campaign is almost exclusively centered on his opposition to Obama. He has not articulated an alternative to any policy put forward by the President. There is no Romney health care plan (except for the one that he implemented in Massachusetts that he now disavows).
There is no immigration plan. There is no job creation plan. There is no economic revival plan. There is only heaps of scorn on whatever Obama is doing and promises that he has some magic formula to make everything better – a magic formula that he refuses to disclose.
So now that he is widely viewed in his own circles as being perilously close to blowing it, Romney makes a major announcement that he’s going to beef up his media team. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Continue to rely on all the same people that are driving you into a ditch, but bring aboard some more flacks to lie about it. That should work out just great – for Obama.