Mitt Romney Ramps Up Right-leaning Rhetoric

Mitt Romney Ramps Up Right-leaning Rhetoric


By Rebekah Metzler
July 19, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Defying conventional wisdom, a fired-up Mitt Romney is tacking right in his most recent campaign rhetoric, claiming President Barack Obama is trying to "divide America, tear America apart."

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The entirety of what Obama said last week actually seems to mirror some of the comments Romney made in trying to deride the president.

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen," Obama recently said during a campaign event in Virginia. "The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together."

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Time will tell if voters buy what each candidate is selling. Generally the effectiveness of campaign messaging lies in whether or not it resonates with an already existing narrative or trail of evidence. By moving right with his rhetoric, Romney risks alienating independent-minded voters who like the president personally but are disappointed with his performance--it's a calculated gamble in an election with a razor-thin margin of error.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ballot-2012/2012/07/19/mitt-romney-ramps-up-right-leaning-rhetoric