Where Is Romney’s Urgency?

The CBO raised its estimate on the cost of Obamacare to the American people. They’ve doubled the number of people who will be taxed by the Obamacare tax. Six million mostly middle class Americans will be hit with the Obamacare individual mandate tax. So much for Obama’s 2008 pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. While the government, as usual, estimates the cost of its programs upward the President doesn’t have any idea how much the national debt is. One wonders why $16 trillion doesn’t stick out in Obama’s mind. Maybe he hopes it will just go away. Unfortunately for taxpayers and the next generation or two it isn’t going away. Four more years of Obama and we’re likely to see the debt hit $20 trillion.

So where is Romney on all of this? He’s busy meandering around the country holding a rally here and a rally there. Mitt Romney is acting as though this election is in the bag, either for himself or Obama. When we have 8%+ unemployment for four years, a $16 trillion debt including over $5 trillion in new debt, an Obamacare tax that is going to hit 6 million middle class Americans, the middle east on fire and so on you would think the Republican challenger would show a little more urgency. Instead he’s holding one big event a day, including one last week in Los Angeles. Does his campaign know California is a waste of time?

Mitt Romney needs a total reset on his campaign. He needs to stop responding to the idiotic nonsense coming out of the press. He needs to hold at least two events every day in swing states from now until the election. At those events he needs to offer significant policy statements on the economy and the situation in the middle east. So far Romney’s argument is that Obama has failed so elect me. That isn’t going to cut it. In fact, that’s never cut it before. Reagan won in 1980 by offering a clear alternative to Jimmy Carter. Clinton won in 1992 by offering a youthful moderate vision which contrasted with old man Bush and his faux conservative administration. Neither of these guys told the American people the guy in the White House is a failure so vote for me instead.

It is baffling to watch Mitt Romney squander this election. No Republican should be losing to Barack Obama with the economy and the middle east in the state it is in right now. Yet Romney is very clearly losing this election at this point. Everything he is doing is wrong. He isn’t holding enough events, he’s afraid of the liberal press which means he’s weak, he allows Obama to define him without response, he won’t issue solid policy statements and he seems to be relying on ads alone to win. Doesn’t Romney know we all have DVR’s now? People don’t watch ads like we used to and we junk spam emails. Romney’s strategy is outmoded and not working.

He can still save his campaign. But it isn’t going to be by releasing old video of Obama in the 90′s calling for a society based on collectivism and union power. It isn’t going to be by mocking Obama for pics taken in the White House with a pirate. The way to beat Obama is to offer clear policy alternatives, in a fair amount of detail. People want an alternative but they aren’t going to vote for Romney just because he isn’t Obama. The Romney camp doesn’t seem to get that, which is why he’s floundering in state polls. You have to wonder though why Romney has no urgency when the country is in such a crisis.