Game Plan 2012: Make sure Mutt doesn’t give details about anything

From the moment the Republican Party started looking for a candidate to run against Obama, it was understood they could field Daffy Duck against him because of the economy.

So, despite coming up with the biggest group of losers who ever sought the Oval Office, it really didn’t matter which one remained standing.

That Mutt did, is no surprise if you think about it: he had the most money and made the least amount of stupid comments.

The GOP is counting on him not making too many stupid comments so their strategy is for him to keep repeating certain lines that are safe. For example, “I love the Amendments,” or “I love America.” You get the picture.

“The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault," the Wall Street Journal's right-leaning editorial board wrote in early July. "Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better."

But the Romney campaign has generally brushed off these complaints as imprudent politics. Boston has clearly broadcast that they are satisfied with the plans they have offered. ("He doesn’t need to lay out new policies," Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, a surrogate of Romney's and potential running mate, told National Review Online earlier this week.)

The Romney campaign has been generally opaque in its approach to several issues that could conceivably expose their candidate to scrutiny, which could distract from their central narrative about Obama and the economy. For instance, the campaign's refusal to detail which tax deductions Romney would favor eliminating – to show how he’d prefer to balance the budget – mirrors his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns, to detail his exit from Bain Capital, or to lay out how his administration would be more transparent than Obama’s.

On each question, though, the Romney campaign has left open a void of detail, and the Obama campaign and Democrats have gladly stepped in to fill it.

The president himself trumpeted a report from the nonpartisan, independent Tax Policy Center about Romney's tax plan.
The study concluded that, based on the available details about Romney's plan, that it would threaten a higher tax burden on the middle class, because it disproportionately takes advantage of exemptions that would be eliminated to finance tax reform.

But the enduring story of the Romney campaign is its conclusion early in the campaign that little else will matter on election day aside from voters' conclusion about Obama's handling of the economy. They've bet that the broad contours of Romney's policy contours will be enough to sway voters, and that they can weather criticism about the specifics without any of that becoming fatal.” (source)