Josh Marshall, TPM: Birth(er) Of A Nation!

[highplainsdem]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/in_the_flurry_of_other.php

In the flurry of other news, a major strategic decision from the Romney campaign has emerged in a series of reports over the weekend. In brief, the dismal economy won’t be enough to boot President Obama from office, the Romney camp has decided. Something more is going to be necessary. And the ‘more’ is going to be the ‘culture war’, specifically a new campaign angled on race and President Obama as an alien presence in American life. In other words, for the sprint to November 6th, get ready for Birtherpalooza with a hard-edged focus on race, President Obama as a foreign threat to American values and so much more.

We’ve been seeing some of this in the hard run — but relatively undiscussed — of demonstrably false welfare ads in swing states. Then there was that birther crack from Romney at the end of last week, which seemed like a candidate-driven ad lib rather than someone planned by the campaign. But now I’m not so sure. I think it’s pretty clear it bubbled up from new strategic conversations within the campaign.

But it only really became clear in the story Romney advisors told the Times in a story that appeared yesterday. There they noted that the economy simply didn’t seem bad enough to boot Obama from office or perhaps that even a really bad economy couldn’t accomplish it. So in the Times words Team Romney decided Romney “needs a more combative footing against President Obama in order to appeal to white, working-class voters” by “injecting volatile cultural themes into the race.”

Meanwhile, Tom Edsall chimes in with a more granular look at the numbers.

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Link to that Edsall article, "Making The Election About Race":

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/making-the-election-about-race/

Excerpt:

The Republican ticket is flooding the airwaves with commercials that develop two themes designed to turn the presidential contest into a racially freighted resource competition pitting middle class white voters against the minority poor.

Ads that accuse President Obama of gutting the work requirements enacted in the 1996 welfare reform legislation present the first theme. Ads alleging that Obama has taken $716 billion from Medicare — a program serving an overwhelmingly white constituency — in order to provide health coverage to the heavily black and Hispanic poor deliver the second. The ads are meant to work together, to mutually reinforce each other’s claims.

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Insofar as Romney can revive anti-welfare sentiments – which have been relatively quiescent since the enactment of the 1996 reforms – he may be able to increase voter motivation among whites whose enthusiasm for Romney has been dimmed by the barrage of Obama ads criticizing Bain Capital for firing workers and outsourcing jobs during Romney’s tenure as C.E.O. of the company.

The racial overtones of Romney’s welfare ads are relatively explicit. Romney’s Medicare ads are a bit more subtle.

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