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Don’t panic, Romney pollster tells supporters in memo

Worry about President Obama’s post-convention bounce led internal pollster Neil Newhouse to reassure: ‘"While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly.’

The Republican candidate's camp released a memo from its internal pollster on Monday telling supporters not to panic about the latest polls — which led some to speculate that Romney's advisers are the ones panicking.

Political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia agreed in a Tweet that that convention bounces “don't usually last and are more like artificial sweeteners than sugar.”

“But if you don't get [one], there's a problem,” he added.

And Josh Putnam, a visiting assistant professor of political science at Davidson College, suggested that the Romney campaign is grasping for good news.

“The Romney campaign polling memo from Newhouse feels a lot like some of those March/April memos from [former Republican candidate Rick] Santorum regarding delegate math,” Putnam tweeted.

“Don’t know that it is nearly so bad for Team Romney, but it is in the same ballpark,” he said.

Newhouse’s memo followed a Public Policy Polling survey that found Obama at 50 percent in the key battleground state of Ohio — five points ahead of Romney.

The Romney campaign got more bad news Monday, when the Obama camp announced it had topped the GOP’s fundraising haul for the first time since April.

The president’s campaign, combined with the Democratic National Committee, raised more than $114 million in August, compared with $111.6 million raised by Romney and the GOP.

The numbers also showed that the Romney camp burned through even more than it raised in August, lowering its cash on hand to $168.5 million at the end of August, from $185.9 million at the end of July. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/panic-romney-pollster-tells-s
upporters-memo-article-1.1156149]
Well, the fundraising numbers don't mean shit, as I'm sure there are PACs and big-money donors just waiting to slather the networks near the end, but it's not a good sign when the PEOPLE don't contribute as much:

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In a statement, Campaign Manager Jim Messina said the Obama campaign grew its donor base “substantially” in August and celebrated the impact of small donations.

Messina said the fundraising was "Fueled by contributions from more than 1.1 million Americans donating an average of $58 — more than 317,000 who had never contributed to the campaign before.")

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Mitt Romney is enjoying at least the fourth public loss of confidence by conservative elites since winning the nomination. The first came in June when Rupert Murdoch and others complained that he was not taking the fight to Barack Obama. Then in July, he was faulted for thinking he could skate to victory by running only as the anti-Obama. Then in early August, GOP veteran voices again counseled against the passive campaign and urged Romney to be bold by picking a vice president with some substance. Now the fever arrives again from a variety of conservative quarters that he is not giving voters a reason to vote for him.

If you were a medicine man, you might notice that the fever comes on hardest at the start of every month. Perhaps it is triggered by soft monthly jobs reports. The view may be that given the persistently glum economic news, even an area rug could beat the incumbent. Romney should be doing better, so: panic.

At the heart of the critique are two points: Romney is not taking the fight to Obama and he's being too vague about what he would do as president. The first seems wrong. Romney's welfare ads are tough. The "you didn't build that" criticism has been persistent and hard. Paul Ryan has traded away his reputation as a policy wonk and become an attack dog. That's an expensive trade. Romney is not slow on the attack. When the Democratic platform omitted any mention of God, Romney accused Obama of taking Him off the dollar bill. Perhaps what people like Donald Trump want is for Romney to make personal attacks the way the Obama team does. That's possibly dangerous. More voters have an unfavorable view of Romney than favorable, so Romney is probably wise to not go as far as the Donald would like. (Life rule: It's generally a good idea to stop short of what Donald Trump thinks you should do.)

There is more merit to the knock on Romney's vagueness. If Romney doesn't get more specific, they may not find him appealing enough to leave Obama. That would be bad for Romney and Republicans, of course, but there may also be a way in which Romney's lack of specificity is bad for everyone. If Romney doesn't get more specific, whichever party wins will have no mandate for governing. If Romney wins, his lack of specificity will mean he has no mandate. If Obama wins, Republicans will conclude that the president didn't prevail in a contest of ideas; he simply defeated a bad politician, which will make them no more likely to cooperate with him.

When Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan he put the doubters into remission. For a moment, they thought he was going to get specific and run on the ideas that Ryan championed. Romney and his aides sold the decision this way, too. But this was not to be. As George W. Bush's speechwriter Michael Gerson writes, "Romney's message is untouched by his running mate's revolutionary fiscal realism. Romney chose Ryan, not Ryanism."

Romney's advisers and the candidate himself have long believed that actual specifics are deadly. All they do is give your opponent an opportunity to attack you. Why do that when you're still out-polling by double digits among independent voters and down by just a point or two in the polls overall? That is a reasonable view.

The "you're so vague" complaint may be an attempt to put a label on a longstanding and harder to categorize challenge that has clung to the Romney candidacy: He can't close the deal. In the primaries, he had a hard time knocking much weaker rivals like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich out of the race. Now he's having a harder time of it against Obama, a weak president whose campaign is not terribly inspiring.

If Obama wins, Romney's lack of specifics will rob Obama of the leverage he might gain from truly vanquishing the GOP's ideas. Republicans will conclude that Romney lost because he was a bad candidate and didn't sell conservative principles. There will be no reason to back down in future fights with the president because the ideas undergirding their beliefs won't have been discredited by a Romney loss--only Romney will have been discredited. Tea Party activists will draw this conclusion as well. The ideas didn't lose; the candidate did, in part because he didn't stand up loud and proud for conservative ideas. Any Republican politicians who compromise with the president or backs down on conservative principles will have a target on their back in the next election cycle. Anyone who shrinks from a fight will be considered no better than Mitt Romney. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57510935-503544/mitt-romney-pan
ic-syndrome/, I hope not that last part. If we go through four more years of the Party of No, this country will really be fucked! Still and all, it looks like a number of their own pundits are worried:

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Nervous Republicans: So much for Ryan pick

Numerous Republican pundits are lamenting Mitt Romney’s return to cautious campaigning after the bold choice of Rep. Paul Ryan.

The House Budget Chairman was seen by some as a truth-teller who would bring serious policy discussion to the race. Instead, Romney and Ryan have both largely avoided policy details – frustrating conservative pundits.

The hand-wringing comes among multiple polls showing President Obama ahead following the conventions, although a Washington Post-ABC News survey released Tuesday finds that among likely voters the race remains deadlocked. Romney’s campaign has argued that Obama’s bounce is short-lived and “the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly.”

Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard: ]quote]Romney gained some ground when he chose Paul Ryan. But now he seems to be back to a pre-Ryan sort of campaign. When a challenger merely appeals to disappointment with the incumbent and tries to reassure voters he’s not too bad an alternative, that isn’t generally a formula for victory.

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Standard columnist Stephen Hayes, on Fox News:

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“I feel like now we’ve sort of reverted to this pre-Ryan moment — this safe, cautious campaign.”

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The Washington Examiner’s Byron York quotes an (anonymous) Republican:

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“I thought the Ryan choice was a clear announcement of a new strategy,” says one well-connected Republican not associated with the campaign. “But what seems to have happened is the campaign has drifted back to the position that this is just a referendum on Barack Obama. At some point, you have to earn the presidency.”

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The Romney strategy seems unlikely to change. As the Post’s Michael Gerson — another Republican critic — notes, “What initially seemed like an ideological choice — previewing a shift in campaign strategy and content — now seems like a more personal decision … Romney chose Ryan, not Ryanism.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/09/11/republ
icans-paul-ryan-didnt-change-anything/

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Okay, so I'm enjoying it. Sue me.