Correction: oops. I originally said that Rove attacks weaknesses and I meant that he attacks strengths.
Behind the Romney/Ryan front, Karl Rove's strategy is at work. Rove's approach to politics is to attack the other side's strength.
What's the strength I'm talking about? The left's framing expert and word-meister George Lakoff has oft observed that Democrats tend to be academic minded folks who dwell on and use as weapons facts and information while the right focuses on "values."
This campaign cycle, the Karl Rove approach-- "attack the opponents' strengths" is being taken to a new level. The Romney campaign is attacking truth and reality with lies and la-la land. At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Paul Ryan swift-boated truth time after time. Then, Clint Eastwood took the almost entirely old, white convention crowd on a rollicking trip to la la land.
This is really funny, but it's no joke. i believe that Ryan's speech portends what we will see in the coming month and four days-- an explosion of lies, based on the tested theory that if you tell a lie frequently, boldly and loudly enough, it will be believed. The Obama campaign could play whack-a-mole with all the lies, but that will take a lot of resources and take away from a bigger picture concerted effort.
Then there's the Clint Eastwood factor. Clint Eastwood's addled, out-of-control, bizarre performance is a perfect metaphor for the inability of the Republican party to deal with the Tea Party and the most extreme, out of touch, inappropriate elements of the far, far extremely far right. The fact that Eastwood was given such a prime spot in the program, and that he went so far off message, with such an ugly, stupid, puerile, disjointed talk tells us that the Romney camp has no leadership capability with his own party.
Last night, David Weinberger "-@dweinberger tweeted, "Romney thinks ending on a rising note indicates passion. It actually only indicates a desire to indicate passion."
Romney is not even trying to indicate or show that he's the leader of the Republican party. He can't lead a collection of narcissists, sociopaths and wealthy oligarchs. So, what he will do is run to the front of the mob and pretend he is leading them. And they'll let him stay at the front. But the real truth of this year's Republican candidate team is it is built on lies and craziness.
Once Romney is in office, I think we can expect the same absence of leadership that we've seen from Obama. Look to see who he appoints to run his transition and who he surrounds himself with to get a feel for how he will "lead" in the Whitehouse. I write as though Romney will win because, unless Obama uses his power over the DOJ to get Republican institute voter ID laws overturned, Romney will win the race because millions of voters will be turned from the polls.
While Democrats have a propensity to depend upon facts for their campaigns, one thing, particularly Obama, which they do not do well with, is promises. Barak Obama has lost many people who voted for him in 2008 because he broke so many outright promises. Still, there's a small difference between that and the outright, blatant lies that the Romney campaign is telling. I'm not at all excusing Obama. His failed broken promises cost him my support.
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