Mitt Romney’s Last-Ditch Strategy: Inflame the Base

by Michael Tomasky Sep 16, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

Why is Team Romney slamming Obama's foreign policy as Americans die overseas? Michael Tomasky says they can't win the swing vote, so they're going with Plan B: Rile up the base.

They keep piling on. You’d think Mitt Romney and team would have stopped with the foreign-policy attacks— if not because of the political costs, then at least because real, living Americans are now under very serious threat in a number of Middle Eastern cities. But no. Instead they keep at it, with Paul Ryan and old “Blackjack” Bennett pressing ever onward at the Values Voter Summit on Friday. Do they think they’re “winning” this? The longer they keep at this, the more they’re heading into dangerous territory indeed, because the only way they can win this argument is for something horrible to happen overseas, which will set them up to say we told you so.

I can’t imagine what would make them think these attacks are helping them. Check that. I can. They came out of the conventions a couple more points behind than they were. Romney is, I’d say, four points behind Obama now (excluding dear old Rasmussen). And it’s a little worse in the key swing states. The latest reliable poll, from NBC/Wall Street Journal by Marist, gives Obama a seven-point lead in Ohio, and five-point leads in Virginia and Florida. If Obama wins two of those states, it’s over. Heck, if he wins one of them, it’s most likely over, provided he holds on in the other swing states where he now holds small leads (Colorado, Iowa, etc.)

To the extent that Romney is losing ground in those states, he’s obviously losing it among swing voters. I wouldn’t be surprised if his campaign is sitting on polling showing them that, given the trends, there are only so many inroads he’s likely to make among swing voters in each of the key states. They know, or should know, exactly how many there are in each state, and what percentage they can get, and whether that percentage can put them over the top. And maybe they know that it can’t.

So they need to run a base-centric election in the final push. Hope for bad jobs numbers for the next two months to bring in some of the undecideds, but basically, push every known button of the wingnut psyche and hope that, despite their tepid feelings about their candidate, they’ll march to the polls like columns of ants to stop the Kenyan appeaser from destroying America.

MORE:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/16/they-have-to-go-all-in-on-every-front-class-warfare-culture-and-foreign-policy.html