Ron Fournier: Romney is playing a racial game

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/ron-fournier-romney-is-playing-a-racial-game/2012/08/29/6273f244-f213-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html

Ron Fournier: Romney is playing a racial game
By Greg Sargent


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Fournier says GOP strategists who have either worked for or shared information with the Romney campaign have candidly told him that the welfare attacks are about angering blue collar whites and turning them on Obama. And it’s bearing fruit, as evidenced by movement among these voters in Romney’s direction.



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Is Romney’s strategy race-based? Romney would be targeting these voters anyway, since he’s adopted a strategy that may require him to capture a record share of the white vote to win. What needs to be pointed out is the arbitrary nature of using welfare to target those voters. Where did that come from? Romney’s original theory was that he could win by painting Obama as a nice guy who is in over his head on the economy. The welfare waiver came in response to a request from GOP governors, and objections to it first resided deep in the land of conservative think tanks. Romney rolled out this strategy — and the Medicare one — only after polls seemed to be showing Obama with a small but persistent lead despite months of Romney attacks over the economy.

At any rate, Fournier has confirmed from GOP strategists that angering blue collar whites is the goal of this strategy. We also know that the GOP has a history of using race-based messaging to appeal to this constituency. And we know Romney probably can’t win unless he pushes his white vote totals to record levels — hence the pollster’s claim that these attacks could make a difference on the margins.

What makes this all noteworthy is who Fournier is. He’s well respected in Washington journalism, having worked as the Associated Press’s Washington correspondent — where he was called on first in many presidential press conferences — before becoming editor in chief of the National Journal Group. Having him come out and explicitly charge the Romney campaign with race-baiting will make this a safer topic among some of the top-shelf commentator and journalist types who might otherwise have shied away from it.