One of the reasons I had – and still have – considerably more hope for the Romney campaign than I ever really did for the McCain campaign is that Romney has shown an ability to counter-punch, especially in the early, sparring rounds. But the Romney response to Obama’s discredited claims about outsourcing fall falt.
Let’s stipulate that a Democrat getting Four Pinnochios from the Washington Post on an ad is as close to metaphysical certainty that the ad is untrue as it’s possible to get in this lifetime. That still doesn’t make Romney’s response effective.
I’m unsure why featuring noted non-Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton doing the same thing that Mitt’s doing – telling Obama to cut it out – is supposed to help. To me, it just illustrates the tactic’s futility. It’s a little like Bob Dole futilely imploring George H.W. Bush to, “stop lying about my record.”
People expect their politicians to lie. People don’t expect their Presidents to lie, which is why Obama’s ad, explicitly saying that “What a President believes matters,” is so much more effective, even though the criticism would work better on him.
