As the nation’s premier Republican political consultant, Karl Rove has routinely employed the technique of attacking an opponent’s strength and making it a weakness. John McCain’s was a war hero who for years was held as a prisoner of war. In the GOP primary in 2000, George W. Bush benefited when Bush backers in South Carolina questioned whether McCain’s years as a POW might have affected him mentally. Democrat John Kerry was targeted by the Swift Boat Veterans who questioned his service in Vietnam. There are examples of the tactic in the current presidential race. For example, Barack Obama is considered a good speaker. Critics have sought to undercut that, saying he uses a Teleprompter.
Rove also employed the flip side — not just targeting the strength of an opponent but transferring your candidate’s weakness to an opponent. MSNBC TV personality Rachel Maddow examined in depth how Romney is doing just that. In stump speeches this week, Romney tagged Obama as a flip-flopper, a politician who’s “out of touch” with voters and candidate who plans to cut Medicare — all potential weaknesses for Romney. In a speech to newspaper editors, Romney said Obama won’t tell voters what he plans to do in a second term. Said Romney:
“He doesn’t want to share his real plans before the election, either with the public or with the press. He is intent is on hiding. You and I are going to have to do the seeking. He wants to us re-elect him so he can find out what he’ll actually do.”
Maddow said it’s actually Romney who’s been vague about his post-election plans – a weakness she says Romney sought to transfer to Obama. The former Massachusetts governor and GOP front-runner told the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard that when he challenged Ted Kennedy for Senate, he said he wanted to eliminate the Department of Education. “That was used to suggest that I don’t care about education. So i think it’s important for me to point out that I anticipate that there will be departments and agencies that will either be eliminated or combined with other agencies. Will there be some that get eliminated or combined? The answer is yes, but I’m not going to give you a list right now.”
