Dems Playing Hardball?

I have always been frustrated as a Democrat that the Republicans would always be much tougher, attacking harder while the Democrats would just suck it up and rarely attack the Republicans.  This year, well, Obama and his campaign seem to understand: (a) the stakes; (b) that restraint does not actually get much in the way of rewards; and (c) how to put it together.



This is such a negative ad, but Romney's best chance is to make the economy the issue.  The problem for him is that these ads make it look like Romney and his ilk are the reason the economy sucks--that the top folks get raises and fire the people doing the work.  So, what Santorum said about Obamacare may apply as well to the economy--that Romney is really poorly suited to running against Obama on these issues.  Hard to attack Obamacare since Romney did a similar program in Massachusetts.  Hard to attack Obama on the economy since Romney is similar to the folks who got the nasty bailouts.

Of course, it is worse for Romney since he cannot seem to get his act together.  The next video is damning because the tax return issue is not new at all.  The other candidates in the GOP attacked him on it, and yet Romney still has no good answer.



The irony of all of this is that this is the second campaign in a row where the GOP focused on a candidate who appeared to be the most electable despite the fact that, well, they had significant weaknesses as campaigners.  McCain was better than the nuts, but that was not saying much.  Now Romney was better than the nuts, but he ain't that good.

Of course, I am still fearful of something bad happening in the world that might tilt things to Romney (Euro collapse, etc).  And I may be falling victim to wishful thinking, but if the GOP folks are attacking Romney, then Obama is not in as bad shape as one might think given the state of the economy.