The same way Ted Kennedy and John McCain did.
And it’s already showing results for Obama. Mitt Romney’s negatives are rising because of some initial attacks by the Obama campaign apparatus on Romney’s “core” and his Wall Street connections:
The Purple Poll, a survey of 12 swing states produced by the consulting firm Purple Strategies, spots some slight bleeding for Mitt Romney over the last two months of GOP primary season. It’s not that he’s making himself unacceptable to a general election audience, but Romney’s unfavorability rating has crept noticeably in the direction of the 50-percent mark …. The Obama campaign and the DNC are already grinding away at Romney with a negative message, and the former Massachusetts governor’s favorability numbers are headed in the direction Democrats want.
Romney does not have negatives as high as some other candidates, but that can change very quickly, as history shows. There is a reason David Axelrod and others on Team Obama have honed in on these themes. They have worked before.
Kennedy went after Romney on his Bain years and business restructurings (more here and here):
While McCain attacked the “core” issue in a manner similar to how George W. Bush went after John Kerry and how Axelrod is going after Romney (more examples here and here):
You can pretty much disregard current polling showing Romney the most competitive with Obama. Romney has not survived these lines of attack in the past, so we should be suspicious that he can do so this time around.
If Romney is the nominee, expect these themes to be hammered relentlessly. And expect his negatives to be as high as any other Republican contender.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This is a good argument to make…um…when Romney’s negatives are actually higher.
And not incidentally, as long as we’re guessing about the future, what will matter is how high Romney’s negatives are or will be COMPARED TO OTHER GOP HOPEFULS.
As you have pointed out yourself, and nearly everyone does now, Obama will be running a fiercely negative campaign regardless of who the GOP nominee is.
The only real fact we have so far is that Romney consistently does the best in matchups against Obama, especially among the decisive swing voters.
The problem with elections revolving around swing voters is that swing voters swung to Obama.
The Liberal base will show up to vote for Obama no matter what. The idea that the swing voter is contemplating casting their vote for Obama again speaks more about the ignorance of the swing voter than it does about the Left voter.
Republicans should galvanizing the Conservative base to show up rather than pandering to the moderate swing voter who is too ignorant to understand that the vicious Left is harmful to their own personal lives and livelihoods.
If moderate wing voters cannot see what is just in front of their faces then no amount of pandering is going to get them to vote for ABO.
Rather than begging swing voters for votes, Republicans need to focus on encouraging Conservatives to show up unfortunately the Republican Party is run by the stupid enablers enabling the Democrat party run by the evil addicts.
Egad, this is such a simple point supported by mountains of election and polling data that it is disturbing that it has to be repeated time after time:
— Some 40 percent or so of the national electoratd will vote for the Democrat no matter who the candidate is or the issues are (see especially George McGovern or Walter Mondale). THAT is their “base.”
— Some 40 percent or so of the national electorate will vote for the Republican no matter who the candidate is or what the issues ars (see especially Gerald Ford or Bob Dole). THAT is their base.
— Every national election is a contest for the other 20 percent — swing voters
— In most elections, each party can attract roughly half the swing voters, typically those who lean strongly to one party without being totally reliable (a really bad candidate like McGovern loses even these leaners).
— Which leaves us with the 10 percent or so who are genuinely up for grabs. If you lose them, you lose by 55/45 which is why 55/45 is historically a “landslide,” even though it is close enough so that switching a mere 5 or 6 million votes out of 130 million would reverse the outcome.
— In a very close election (eg, 1960, 2000), greater turnout of one’s base over the other party’s in key swing states can make the difference, of course.
— But first, a candidate MUST GET CLOSE. And you don’t get close by pretending that all those swing voters don’t exist and worrying more about getting your base up from 40 to 41 percent
Egad, I have a long post in the que about this exact topic!
Romney will lose like McCain because in his desire to attract moderate swing voters Romney will campaign like McCain, trash the Conservative base while begging Obama’s campaign to relentlessy beat on him.
I am still waiting for a Romney supporter to tell me what privileged man has done in his life that has demonstrated support and concern for others or this country. He even got a deferment from the draft as a religious “minister” for doing his Mormon missionary thing as a kid.
Yeah, and it could be his negatives are getting higher because he’s got so many negatives to show.
The man won’t even admit that Romneycare is a disaster and has Federal dollars as an outside revenue source being pumped in. Obamacare doesn’t have an outside source for revenue.
And Romney refuses to repudiate it. That doesn’t bode well for his support to repeal Obamacare.
Anyone who thinks that Romney is an acceptable replacement for Obama is a little TOO pragmatic for my taste. I’d rather have 4 more years of Obama, disaster though it may be, than have the next four years be blamed on a Republican.
Having Romney in office and the Senate in Dem hands will allow them to control the country but blame the Republicans for everything. Romney will cooperate with them as he is simpatico with their core “values”. Him and a bunch of others in Congress.
Romney OR Obama as President in 2012 == country in the toilet and going down for the final flush.
“I’d rather have 4 more years of Obama, disaster though it may be, than have the next four years be blamed on a Republican.” –jakee308
No!! Anybody. But. Obama.
I sympathize with your thought about a squish Republican, but NO WAY will this country survive with Obama in office for 4 more years.
Romney is still an order of magnitude better than Obama, IMHO. ABO is my strategy.
And, if we can support our Conservative Senate and House nominees, and flip the Senate to a solid majority – voting out RINOs as well as Dems – then we can force the changes, by overriding Romney, if necessary.
NO. MORE. OBAMA. Please!
That is what I keep saying: the Obama Democrat team want Romney to be the nominee, because he will be so easy to target.
Just these few examples show how it will go, until they REALLY dig in and get dirty.
And they will.
These are the Chicago-on-the-Potomac thugs who have fondness toward those who put cement shoes on their friends because “it’s business” to them. Remember Jimmy Hoffa? Yeah, quite chummy……
Marie: This seems inconsistent with your thesis: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rahm-emanuel-focuses-fire-romney/story?id=14992384
So do the professors claims in this very post attributing Romney’s rising negative’s to Team Obama attacks.
How much of this is the Republicans eating their own? Seriously, the anti-Mitt vitriol (mittriol?) FROM THE RIGHT is amazing to me. I am waiting for the MSM media to switch to getting trying to get Newt the nod, because he, I believe, will be twice as easy to beat as Mitt. Seriously, if you think Bain Capital’s practices were shady… Newt is a former Speaker of the House who resigned in disgrace. He is the definition of “beltway insider.” I think those ads write themselves too, right? So why are we piling on? Whoever wins is going to need our help, not only to get elected, but to keep them on the conservative straight and narrow. That should be the focus, not savaging the other canidates…
Truth is only “Mittriol” to a “Mittsucker”.
You give the Democratic attack machine too much credit; especially after your assertion last week that the media was somehow giving Romney a pass, relatively speaking. It’s conservatives who are giving more negative returns for Roney in the polls; his numbers among independents are still high, especially compared to the president’s. If Romney becomes the nominee and conservatives are faced with an actual either/or, then I (humbly) predict that you’ll get off your butts and start rallying; unless you’d actually prefer four more years of Obama, in which case you’re not nearly as smart as I once gave you credit for being.
On the other hand, if you truly think Newt Gingrich would stand a better chance of resisting the kind of negative campaign that you think would make Romney wilt, then by all means, keep pushing him in the primaries. However, in a few weeks, when Gingrich starts to fade Again, you may want to reconsider that opinion.
[…] Jacobson has a couple of these—old attack ads from the Ted Kennedy and John McCain camps that give us a preview of what the […]
Professor, isn’t this where RomneyCare comes to the Governor’s advantage. “You know, it’s funny. I get attacked from the people on the farthest right for trying to do something that the citizens of Massachusetts wanted to care for the people who did not have healthcare… and then I get attacked by the hard left, including the President, because apparently I don’t care about people who have trouble getting healthcare. And they acccuse me of trying to have it both ways!”
[…] see Legal Insurrection for the anticipated problems for a Romney general election campaign: “How Obama would attack Romney.” And also more on Romney’s cupcake factor: “Romney one step closer to […]