The Romney campaign polling memo I mentioned earlier today relies for some of its certainty about Mitt’s election on the familiar argument that it’s 1980 all over again, and thus Mitt is destined to win because he’s “acceptable” to voters ready to “fire” Barack Obama.
Lord knows I’ve tried to blow up the 1980 analogy again and again. WaPo’s Greg Sargent gave it the heave-ho again just today.
So let’s try this: if it is 1980 all again, why is Mitt Romney spending all this incredible amount of money and exposing himself to the vicissitudes of the campaign trail? And why is he veering off into all sorts of dangerous territory involving health reform and taxes and God and so forth? Shouldn’t he just calmly talk about how he and Ann are looking forward to living in the White House, and make sure he’s rehearsed Reagan’s “Are you better off….” line for the debates? And why on earth did he pick Paul Ryan as a running-mate? Was he that over-confident?
Hard to say, but at this point, anyone touting the 1980 analogy should be mocked. Maybe “there they go again” is the right putdown.
