Romney has now maneuvered himself into a position where the common wisdom is that he must clearly knock Obama out in the first debate or he will lose the election. It matters not whether that is true, it matters that it is the perception and so the mainstream media pundits will run with it in the wake of the debates and proclaim that Romney failed his test.
Paint the opponent as a someone who misused the public trust and failed with it.
Who can believe that is actually Romney's policy when he goes out of his way to tell the world that Obama cares about the middle class etc?
State this over and over again with negative ads in the two weeks prior to the election.
An stunningly stupid strategy. The voting has already started! After the debates any ads will likely be lost in the welter of ads on television. That is no time to start a new strategy. At that point Romney must spend money to change attitudes which is very expensive when he could have spent far less money earlier on to shape attitudes. If this is his strategy, which is inconceivable, he has set himself the task of getting people to change their minds. This does not sound like Romney's policy when one considers how open his campaign has been about not telling voters they made a mistake four years ago by giving them a rationalization for voting against Obama now.
Whatever the strategy is, this is so incoherent that one can hardly call it a strategy.
Stay reasonably close until the debates.
The problem with this is that Romney must fill an inside straight on winning so many of the swing states. It does not do to stay "reasonably close" when you must sweep the board. When you have to sweep the board you need a lead you do not want to come from behind! This game is going be won or lost in the swing states and the national bulge of one candidate over another becomes less and less relevant so long as it is within a couple of points.
I have supported Romney from the beginning of the general contest. I have been careful to suggest that he has been privy to the best polling data money can buy. It is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that he is running an intelligent campaign or that he has any strategy other than to fight from a crouch hoping to garner independents by not offending them.
No one should be surprised that Romney is facing a media shit storm. It is the job of Republican candidates to cope with that. Romney has not found a way to break through and sell any affirmative message. This is an inadequate campaign.
Rope – a – dope never works in the political ring.
