Romney’s Problems Are Obama’s, Too

Negative ads and surrogate attacks on Mitt Romney are President Barack Obama’s admission he cannot run on his record.

Ironically, each negative attack - from the silly to the potentially substantive - has rebounded to highlight Obama’s similar but greater vulnerability.

The silly, but true: Romney’s great-grandfather was a polygamist, so was Obama’s father. Young Romney bullied a boy;

young Obama, a girl.

Romney’s wife never had a real job; Obama’s wife had a diversity “job” that paid six figures. Romney is rich;

Obama lives as large and at taxpayer expense.

The ad hominem, but relevant to some: Romney is out of touch with ordinary Americans; Obama’s lifestyle of unending golf, fundraising soirees with Hollywood glitteratti and lavish vacations aren’t exactly down-home.

The potentially substantive: Romney’s making money for investorsat Bain Capital impugns his character and qualifi cations for the presidency. Bill Clinton, Cory Booker and other Democrats disagree. Similarly, Obama tried to make money for his investors, that is political contributors and “bundlers,” but with tax dollars (Solynda, et al).

A crony capitalist is at a disadvantage attacking a real one.

Romney, too, has gone negative - he is as tiresomely negative about Obama’s record as the record is tiresomely negative.

The campaigns seemed designed to make the voter stupid. Thoughtful campaigns would be better:Each contender would attempt to convince voters that his fundamental ideas about and for America are better.

But Obama speaks platitudes and promises about jobs and “fairness” without acknowledging the theories he relies on to achieve those goals. At least he isn’t promising “shovelready” jobs. He seems to know when we hear him talk of creating jobs, we now have our shovels ready.

Romney, for his part, puts a little effort in persuading voters of his central, traditional idea: Freedom is essential to prosperity.

Obama does not persuade, he explains. He explains Obamacare is a great program; few are convinced, so he explains, more or less, “I won, so nanny-nanny boo-boo.” He explains the stimulus will keep unemployment below 8 percent; it doesn’t, so he explains it’s Bush’s fault. He explains Congress should pass the DREAM Act; it doesn’t, so he changes the law by ignoring parts ofit, something he explained months ago was beyond his power. Explaining without even persuading himself is unworthy of a president or candidate in a constitutional republic.

In 2008 voters bought the sizzle but now have found the steak hard to swallow. Obama’s policies are more like a nouvelle-cuisine gumbo: an enchanting aroma disguising a thin, repulsive roux of 19th century economic materialism, heavily spiced with New Deal hyper-regulation to discourage business growth, larded with Great Society paternalism, chemically altered with ’60s radicalism, garnished with counterproductive Keynesianism, overpriced and served with indifference. Voters ask, “Is this what I ordered?” They’re dyspeptic with deficits and desperate toregurgitate the “Aff ordable Care Act.”

So while Obama is out there on a smile and a shoeshine, trying to sell the public something it doesn’twant, Romney makes little effort at selling something it has repeatedly wanted - free markets and limited government, the Founders’ meticulously conceived casserole of Judeo-Christian values and Enlightenment political philosophies. Meat and potatoes, but satisfying and nutritious.

Still, in a battle of ideas, Obama may have the advantage. Romney is hardly anti-intellectual, but he talks like a businessman, not a thinker. Obama, on the other hand, is a practiced pretender, the law student who didn’t read the assigned case, fooling himself and those wanting to be fooled.

Obama’s words and record imply he believes rights are created by government through the social contract, that elites can manage the people’s lives better than they can, and that the purpose of the federal government is to achieve “fairness” unimpeded by the Constitution.

He probably won’t admit as much. Such a vision may appeal to some in theabstract, but Obama has demonstrated that it’s still an impossible dream. A dream that became many a nightmare in the 20th century.

Although the media will focus on his gaff es, the companies he couldn’t save and his houses, Romney has a strong case to make in his plain, authoritative style: many, hopefully most, Americans still believe the federal government exists to protect Creatorendowed rights, to exercise constitutionally limited and enumerated powers and to enable each of us to pursue self-defined happiness. And when it does that, America succeeds. That is the outline of Romney’s argument, if he’ll make it.

This election will empower one set of those ideas; it would be good if they were debated.

BUDDY ROGERS, A ROGERS RESIDENT, EARNED HIS DOCTORATE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN. HE CONTINUES TO WORK ON BECOMING EDUCATED.