David Winston’s newly released poll, based on a survey taken September 12-14, nicely illustrates the challenges facing—and the opportunities available to—the Romney campaign. The poll (with a reasonable D+2 sample) shows a close race, with Obama up 48-46 percent. But it’s worth looking at answers to three of Winston’s questions in particular, because they suggest the limitations of the Romney campaign’s referendum-on-the-past-four-years, pretend-Bush-didn’t-exist, and stingy–with-the-details-about-the-future approach.
Winston asked, “Which is causing more problems in the economy–the economic policies of the present, or the economic policies of the past?” Forty-five percent of respondents said the policies of the present, 48 percent said the policies of the past. So the financial collapse under Bush remains a big problem for Romney. One way to deal with this problem would be to redouble efforts to blame Obama for our economic problems. That’s been the Romney campaign’s main approach so far. Another way ahead would be to emphasize Romney’s future-oriented economic agenda, so it would be harder to claim Romney would simply mean a return to Bush, and to more fully litigate foreign policy and social issues as possible tiebreakers if the economic verdict remains inconclusive. The Romney campaign is showing some signs of moving from the first path toward the second—but so far only in a sporadic and episodic way.
