Bill Kristol: If Romney Keeps Talking About the Economy, He's Going To Lose

When you do this pundit thing for a living, you sometimes make "news" on a slow news day by saying something provocative.

So does Kristol really believe this? I've actually upped the provocativeness of his article, by headlining it as "if Romney keeps talking about the economy, he's going to lose."

Kristol doesn't say that, exactly. Instead, he says if Romney only talks about how the economy is bad, without offering his own detailed plan to right it, he'll lose "narrowly."

Now, I won't get into my beliefs about low-information, late-deciding voters again. Let's just say that I do not think they are "details" sort of people.

They are, at best, responsive to themes. I wish they were more interested in philosophy, fact, and policy. But they're not. They elected Barack Obama without knowing much more than that he represented "hope," and also, "change," and that we had a financial crisis and Something Must Be Done and so forth.

So I don't know if Kristol really means this, or is straining for content on a Friday.

I do like Romney's simple statement: "It doesn't have to be this way." I could see that as a sad, repeated line in a nomination acceptance speech, then turning, through cadence and force, into a positive rallying cry by the end of the speech: "It! Doesn't! Have to be! This way!"

By the way, he offers non-detailed details in that speech. I'm really not sure the swing voters are going to want a super-detailed speech about the Ryan plan. I think, as I've speculated before, they want to know that a super-detailed plan exists, or at least has been talked about, but they really don't want to know the details, no matter how much they claim to they do.

posted by Ace at 03:03 PM

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