Thursday, April 5, 2012

Projection Convention

It’s a given that the Karl Rove tactic of taking your own weaknesses and projecting them on to your opponent will be ingrained in the campaigns now, but it’s still informative to see that it’s still going on. Steve Benen looks at the latest installment from Mitt Romney.

“President Obama thinks he’s doing a good job. No, I’m not kidding. He actually thinks he’s doing a great job. An historically great job. According to the President, only Lincoln, FDR and Lyndon Johnson have accomplished more. And no, he didn’t say that on Saturday Night Live.

“It’s enough to make you think that years of flying around on Air Force One, surrounded by an adoring staff of True Believers telling you what a great job you are doing, well, that might be enough to make you a little out of touch.”

[…]

This from the guy who needs an elevator for his cars. This from the guy who doesn’t let his quarter-of-a-billion-dollar fortune stop him from joking about being “unemployed.” This from the guy who finds stories about factory layoffs “humorous.”

Romney boasts about his wife driving “a couple of Cadillacs,” says he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” and says making over $374,000 in speaking fees in a year is “not very much” money. All of those examples followed Romney suggesting elective office is only for the rich, clumsily talking about his fondness for being able to fire people, demanding that talk of economic justice be limited to “quiet rooms,” accusing those who care about income inequality of “envy,” daring Rick Perry to accept a $10,000 bet, and suggesting that Americans should somehow feel sorry for poor banks.

But his new line is that Obama is “out of touch.”

We’re going to see a lot more of this as it goes on. By November, I fully expect Mitt Romney to claim to be the black guy in the race running against institutional racism.