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Oct 05 2012

Moderate Romney a genuine threat to Obama

Mitt Romney's campaign, in the days leading up to Wednesday, said that he was ready with a number of "zingers". This feint made it seem like "47%" hating, plutocrat Thurston Howell Romney was going to come out swinging and defend his campaign and his running mate's budget.

He didn't. He changed the fundamental message of his campaign and didn't telegraph it. Obama was blindsided, and, in many people's opinion, dumbfounded.

During the course of three days Romney went from a conservative nightmare to a reasonable-sounding moderate. In the debate, he said he favored redistribution in the Medicare system, he advocated for keeping parts of Obamacare and much of Dodd-Frank. He insisted that he was not for cutting rich people's taxes. The next day he went on Fox News and denounced his own comment on the 47%. He then said that all those illegal immigrants that Obama was letting stay, he'd let stay as well.

In short, Romney went from an opponent Obama was hoping for to the one he ought to fear the most. The severe conservative became the former peacemaker who governed Massachusetts and passed universal health care.

It's strange that this hadn't already happened. When Eric Fehrnstrom stated that the campaign was an Etch-a-Sketch, what I was thinking was that 2007 Romney would return and go out promising Obama-plus-more-jobs on day 1. He'd pick a safe and similarly moderate running mate and go out to pummel Obama on 8% unemployment, stagnant wages, Solyndra, the deficit, trade agreements, and the administration's terrible record on housing.

Instead, Romney picked an extremist, Paul Ryan, as his running mate. He went out saying we didn't need more teachers, that he liked firing people, that Obama was out to make welfare queens by ending welfare-to-work. He said that Medicare should be premium supported and Medicaid should be funded more by the states.

The argument didn't work. States like Wisconsin that ought to have been in play started to look unwinnable. Bill Clinton went up and decisively refuted all his arguments about social programs. And then came the "47% tape", a devastating reflection on an out-of-touch rich man trying to buy his way into office, that the campaign did not immediately disown (Romney merely said that he stated it poorly). Soon after, conservatives started to scream. David Brooks said Romney was pretending to be a cartoon Republican when he wasn't. Peggy Noonan called the campaign a "calamity". Advisors to Romney began to grouse to Politico about the terrible state of the campaign. Romney's electoral chances looked slim.

This turnaround was necessary. The Mitt who was running for the past two months was never going to be president, but this one, supposing he will stick with it, could.

The argument from the Democrats is now obvious: sure, Romney says all that now, but which Mitt Romney will you get if you actually elect this guy? It's a good argument, and it ought to work. But his fellows tried this in the primary campaign, and Mitt won anyway.

60 million people tuned into the first debate. For many of them, this was the first time they have thought seriously about domestic policy in any real way for 2 years. What they heard was two men, one who was ambling and unsure, and another who had similar good ideas but some criticisms that seemed founded and went unrebutted. It would be shocking if some of these 60 million were not swayed to vote for Romney by what they heard. The question is whether this turnaround happened too late to make a difference.