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Campaign 2012 -- That Empty Feeling

Ruth Marcus on

The 2008 Obama campaign has been rapped, deservedly, for campaigning on gauzy platitudes. Yet the 2008 race was, in retrospect, gratifyingly specific -- specific enough that I was constructing spreadsheets of competing budget promises.

Now, the president who proclaimed in his inaugural address that "the time has come to set aside childish things" is campaigning with dog jokes and a "Pet Lovers for Obama" Facebook group.

The Obama campaign just unveiled an un-illuminating new slogan, "Forward." Compared to what -- "Sideways"? Or, as my colleague Alexandra Petri wondered, "Was 'Reply-All' taken?"

Granted, a president running for re-election has a record on which to be judged; his policy proposals are embedded in budget submissions. But President Obama has been decidedly, deliberately obscure about the road ahead -- even the foreseeable issue of how to handle the looming "taxmageddon" moment of expiring tax cuts and spending sequester.

Instead, his new campaign ad, attacking Romney as a heartless out-sourcer, ends with the tag line "It's just what you'd expect from a guy who had a Swiss bank account."

Meanwhile, Romney is running a campaign so substance-free that his primary stump speech featured long chunks of reciting verses from "America the Beautiful," a scene of over-the-top emptiness straight out of a Christopher Buckley parody.

 

Romney's policy specifics are heavy on yummy dessert (tax cuts across the board), light on unappetizing spinach (and paid for by eliminating what tax benefit?). He vows spending cuts to tackle the deficit, but won't say where.

He promises to repeal "Obamacare" but offers little about what then to do about either rising health care costs or the growing number of Americans without health insurance. He says he would tackle Medicare spending by switching to a "premium support" model of giving seniors a fixed sum to buy coverage -- but omits the crucial detail of how fast these vouchers would grow.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, shortly after endorsing Romney, offered some wise advice. "You have to campaign to govern, not just to win," Daniels said. "Go ahead and have the confidence in the voters to explain the fix we're in and then tell them with some specificity what we can do to get out of it in a way that's good for everybody."

Obama and Romney are campaigning to win. Governing, unfortunately, is an afterthought.


Copyright 2012 Washington Post Writers Group

 

 

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