Romney Campaign Is Utterly Incompetent

Mitt Romney was given a golden opportunity to go after President Obama after the Supreme Court ruled Obamacare is a tax. In 2008 candidate Obama said he wouldn’t raise taxes on those making less than $250,000. During the Obamacare debates the President said the individual mandate wasn’t a tax. It wasn’t until Obamacare ended up in the courts that it was suddenly a tax. According to the CBO, the Obamacare tax will hit lower and middle class Americans an average of just under $700 during the first year of Obamacare, 2014. The tax goes up each year. Romney can exploit this but he’s been mostly silent so far.

There are two issues that the Republicans need to focus on for the next four months. The economy and Obamacare. So far Romney has danced around the economy, never offering his own concrete plan. Obamacare has been far worse, his campaign was completely inept during the first week post ruling. Romney had surrogates out there agreeing with Roberts or agreeing with Obama’s declaration that it isn’t a tax. Romney waited two days to long to disagree with them. There hasn’t been a clear message from the Romney campaign concerning Obamacare. Why they aren’t hitting it as a massive tax increase is anyone’s guess. It’s a mistake of monumental proportions.

So why isn’t Romney’s campaign hitting hard on Obamacare? Perhaps because they’re busy preparing a response to Obama’s Bain attacks. They might even drop the L word on Obama. No, not liberal. Liar. Obama started his Bain attacks two months ago, the Romney campaign is just now getting around to seriously responding to them. This does not bode well for the fall. You would think this would be an obvious observation but a candidate cannot let his opponent trash him and spread false rumors about him without a solid, concrete response. That Romney’s team is just now getting around to responding to the Bain attacks and that they’re sitting around debating whether to call Obama a liar is more than a little disheartening.

Let’s be quite upfront here, Romney’s campaign looks absolutely incompetent at this point. It’s taken them two months to respond to the Bain attacks even though it was clear over a month ago that they were hurting him. Obamacare as a tax is now nearly two weeks old and Romney’s campaign has done nothing with the issue other than disagree with themselves on cable news shows. The economy is tanking and Romney still hasn’t offered more than a vague plan for fixing it. Yes, Romney is out fundraising Obama right now. But it’s going to take a heck of a lot more to beat an incumbent than a lot of money when the campaign is utterly incompetent.

So what’s the Birn solution to this mess? Romney needs to stop being a typical Republican which means he needs to stop being timid and afraid to take risks. He needs to, this week, spend a few million on Obamacare tax ads in swing states. He needs to prepare a speech to be given next Tuesday that outlines his economic recovery plan. That speech will then be followed by a stump tour of swing states and economic swing state ads. It is worth investing $10 million in July on these two issues because these are the two issues that will dominate this fall. An expenditure like this lays the foundation for fall success.

Romney is right now on the pathway to defeat. His Obamacare message is weak and inconsistent. His economic plan is nonexistent. He has two clear openings to win and rather than focus on them his campaign is preparing Bain Capital response ads two months late. You think this would be obvious, but an ad featuring Obama saying he won’t raise taxes on the middle class and Obamacare isn’t a tax followed by CBO stats on Obamacare increases and the Supreme Court ruling would be nice right now. It would be nice to see Romney’s economic plan. Instead, the Romney campaign is going to call Obama a liar over Bain Capital. This is a recipe for defeat.