Mitt Romney’s campaign can effectively be boiled down into two parts. One was his first debate appearance, during which he aggressively attacked President Obama’s abysmal record and vigorously explained and defended his own policy proposals. During the other part of his campaign — encompassing his convention speech, his subsequent two debate performances, and his many months on the campaign trail — Romney (for the most part) didn’t aggressively attack Obama’s record or vigorously explain and defend his own policy proposals.  One of these two parts of Romney’s campaign clearly worked, and one clearly didn’t.  Republicans would do well to heed the results of this costly experiment.

During that memorable first debate, Romney particularly scored by rebutting Obama’s contrived charges that Romney’s tax plan would be a boon for the rich at the expense of the middle class; by explaining his pro-growth tax and regulatory policies in a way that wisely positioned the GOP as the party of small business and Main Street; and by attacking Obama on his fiscal profligacy, his “green energy” crony capitalism, and Obamacare.