I like the ads. I like them because they serve two important purposes:
● Undermining the rationale for Romney's campaign. Thus far, Romney has run almost entirely on his background as a successful businessman (read: he's rich, very rich), with nary a word about his only stint in elected office, his single term as the governor of Massachusetts. That experience, he assures us, made him a "job creator" and because of his experience in the private sector, Romney says, "I know why jobs come and I know why they go." But Gallup polling from earlier this month shows that Romney is vulnerable on this issue, as in a head-to-head with Obama voters don't necessarily assume Romney will do a better job on the economy:
Yet an alleged strength on the economy--his fabled ability to create jobs--is all Romney has. A line of questioning from a local reporter earlier this month about various non-economic issues leaves him literally sputtering "the economy, the economy, the economy" (see 0:50):
If the Obama campaign hammers on the notion that Romney's job at Bain Capital was to generate profits not create jobs, Romney's rationale for running evaporates. And the way they're doing that is showing that job creation or loss was incidental to Romney's work and indeed incidental to his success. Sometimes Bain did indeed create jobs. Other times they destroyed them. Obviously these ads are meant to highlight the latter instances, through some moving testimonials, to remind folks that Romney doesn't have the Midas touch when it comes to jobs. I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to get people to actively associate Romney with job losses (four years ago, then-candidate Huckabee famously contrasted himself with Romney by joking "I want to be a president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off.")
● Connecting his past to his future: linking Romney's business experience to his policy agenda. People don't talk about candidates' pasts and records for fun, they do it with the implicit understanding that past actions and philosophies are likely to determine future actions. So if you're running an ad campaign painting Romney as a guy who was perfectly willing to screw the little guy (trimming benefits like pensions or outright laying him off) in order to line the pockets of wealthy investors, you're going to want to encourage viewers to make the next logical leap. Romney will do it again. Indeed, there's a strong case to be made that this is exactly what his policy agenda calls for: cutting social spending and benefits for the poor to put more cash in the pockets of the wealthy via tax policies that favor them.
This is exactly what the House GOP budget endorsed by Romney does. And without directly linking him to it (for now), these ads can plant a very simple idea in some folks' heads: Mitt Romney doesn't care. It's not that he's evil or even a bad guy, it's that he simply can't relate to you, his values don't jibe with yours, and his priorities are exactly backwards ("To me, Mitt Romney takes from the poor and middle class and gives to the rich. He's just the opposite of Robin Hood," one worker laid off after a Bain takeover says in one of the ads). He didn't care about those folks before and he won't care about them as President. That's the implication that emerges in several of the ads--one guy just about says it in this one (at 1:45):
The key to all this, of course, is not to play into Romney's frame that Obama is anti-free enterprise. Don't let Romney assume the mantle of capitalism and thus turn all scrutiny of his past into a crusade against capitalism. What Obama did yesterday when asked about these ads was to combine all of this into one succinct theme: economies have winners and losers but the President is the President for everyone. It isn't an attack on capitalism to point out that Bain has created some of those losers (or at least sped them on their way), it's a powerful assertion that Romney's experience at Bain did not prepare him for the economic responsibilities of the Presidency and, implicitly, that it certainly didn't teach Romney to understand how to give everyone--not just the wealthy or powerful--a fair shake (a failing clearly reflected in his present policy preferences). Some of Obama's remarks:
The reason why this is relevant to the campaign is that my opponent, Governor Romney, his main calling card for why he thinks he should be president is his business experience. He's not going out there touting his experience in Massachusetts. He's saying, I'm a business guy, and I know how to fix it, and this is his business.
And when you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off, and how are we paying for their retraining. Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so they can attract new businesses. Your job as president is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody's paying their fair share, that allows us then to invest in science, and technology, and infrastructure, all of which are going to help us grow.
And so if your main argument for how to grow the economy is "I knew how to make a lot of money for investors," then you're missing what this job is about. It doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity. But that's not what my job is as president.
My job is to take into account everybody, not just some. My job is to make sure the country is growing not just now, but 10 years from now, 20 years from now.
It's fair game and these are themes worth exploring. And more importantly this line of attack seems to have worked for Ted Kennedy in 1994 and Newt Gingrich in South Carolina this year. I say go get 'em.
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