It’s not a good week to be part of the Romney presidential campaign brain trust. The Romney/Ryan ticket got no discernible bounce from the Republican Convention in Tampa two weeks ago. Last week the Democrats held their convention up the road in Charlotte, and the general agreement was that Pres. Obama delivered a better speech than anyone at the Republican convention…but finishing out of the money among prime time speakers for the Democrats. (Heck, he gave the 2nd best speech in his immediate family.) This week the polls are showing signs of a significant Obama/Biden bounce—both nationwide and in the 8-10 potential swing states.
Paul Ryan entered the Republican convention with a reputation as a brave, honest policy wonk—one who could appease the party’s right wing about Romney’s malleable political views, while also taking the fight to Obama and Biden on a host of budgetary, tax and fiscal issues. After delivering as mendacious a speech as most political observers could recall, Ryan suddenly found his marathon running and mountain climbing records being fact-checked by a suddenly skeptical press.
Romney and Ryan appeared on multiple Sunday TV news shows, and may have set a new one-day record for flip-flops by a presidential/vice-presidential team. In particular, Romney’s position on health care went through four iterations before the sun went down.
So what do you do now if you’re part of the brain trust in campaign headquarters up in Boston?
Do you try to rev up the base by reviving the Culture Wars?
Do you try to focus relentlessly on the economy?
Do you just try to ride out the storm, knowing that Obama’s post-convention bounce will disappear in another week or so?
Do you have the candidate deliver a series of speeches laying out in great detail what he would do in his first 100 days in office?
Do you save those policy ideas for Oct. 3 and spring them on an unsuspecting Obama at the first presidential debate?
What do you do?
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/