Should Romney Switch Parties?

There's a dirty little secret that most democratic loyalists don't want you to know. If Mitt Romney was a democrat, even with his current views, they would support him. See Romney has all of the makings of a great politician, he looks the part, knows the script and is clean and articulate. The fact that he has changed his mind on issues more than a teenage girl would not bother a democrat voter as much as it does the finicky GOP base. The democratic party has long held the advantage of creating an illusion around their candidates. They could do wonders with Romney. They have also been better narrators, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, who by golly was a democrat at one time.

At this point I may be making it seem like political parties are filled with actors playing interchangeable roles. Well, this is true to a certain extent. Both sides of the isle have elected officials on their side that they know are like this. As long as these politicians back policies that you agree with why say anything right? Would you rather have some one in your party be in lock step with party policy or would you like them to all be mavericks? Question answered.

As for Romney, his political obituary has not been written yet (fully at least). He may even end up staging a comeback in the debates if he can get Obama into a gotcha moment on jobs and the economy. But rest assured Mitt, either way, at the end of this election you will have a home. While it may not be with the democratic party (right away), I'm sure you will find something to do.

Will Romney Even Keep This Election Close?

Going in to the GOP convention it seemed that Mitt Romney had finally gathered some momentum and would catch up to the president in the polls. Well, after lack of substance and a Democratic Party convention, Romney is worse off than he was in August. With the amount of money that he raised over the summer there is no real excuse for this. Even while the unemployment rate is over 8 percent, Obama is basically tied in polls about who would do a better job with the economy. Romney could just be a very flawed candidate that we will look back on and see the reasons why he lost (Bob Dole). He could also be a candidate that would have won if he did a few things right (Al Gore).

 I spent some time this week and watched the ad's that his campaign has ran in North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio. The same thing stuck out in each of them. Lack of substance. If you take a look at the Obama campaign ad's there are numbers and facts in them. Meanwhile, the Romney campaign seems to be copying John Kerry and are trying to make Obama look like the Dr. Evil. This whole election has been a shift from what the political landscape has been for the last decade. It looks like the democrats learned their lesson from 2004. They learned the classic rule of defining your opponent before they define you. Mitt Romney is not going to be able to define Obama using stale talking points from 2008. He will need to produce numbers and facts while presenting his vision for the country. The Romney campaign says they believe in America, well Mitt, show us how and why you believe in America. 

A Tale Of Two Conventions

Now that both party conventions are in the history books we can compare and contrast their effectiveness. The GOP had the tough task of going first, but did a very good job of introducing Ann Romney and Paul Ryan. The off the cuff routine by Clint Eastwood was the most bizarre moment in convention history. To the medias credit, they did not dwell on the chair routine as much as I expected. I think everyone is in agreement that an 82 year old Clint Eastwood should get a pass. What was more troubling was the fact that the GOP would allow this to happen. As for as Mitt Romney's performance, I would have to give him an A. He is not known for giving good speeches or showing passion, he did a little of both on that Thursday night.

On to the DNC. This convention was the direct opposite of the republicans. It seemed that they took a page out of Karl Rove's playbook and doubled down on their base. From the amount of talk about abortion and womens rights you would have thought that this was the 1972 convention. After taking a look back at this approach I think it was the right thing to do for the party. They are obviously having trouble firing up the base and getting the same enthusiasm as they did in 2008. There also needed to be more than another President Obama speech. They remedied this by having the first lady and President Clinton deliver magnificent speeches. While we already knew their stories, they kind of reintroduced themselves. Bill Clinton gave a very straight forward speech. It was almost like he was sitting with you in your living room having a chat. President Obama lived up to the expectations once again. While it was not as grand as his election night speech in 2008, he made a great case for reelection.