Obama at Romney’s Throat

Last week gay marriage held the spotlight. No other message could break through the barrage of commentaries. Even Mitt Romney’s unfortunate observation comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter in the Osama bin Laden affair did not succeed in making the front page for more than a few hours.

Now that Romney is the Republican candidate, Obama has decided to pound. He just made the first volley. And once again, the focus is on the economy.

By launching his first TV appearance called “Corporate Raider,” the Obama camp wants to quickly define the Republican in the spirit of Americans before he has time to do it himself. Through an intensive pounding, it is a question of disqualifying the conservative Romney in the eyes of voters, notably moderates he must seduce after having pledged allegiance to ultra-conservatives. “Insofar as Mitt Romney highlights his experience creating jobs,” explains David Axelrod, Obama’s adviser, “Americans have the right to know and the right to demand that the balance sheet be evaluated.*” And Obama’s campaign manager Stephanie Cutter explains in a recent memo**: “But in fairness, Romney’s objective in business was never job creation. … he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars while taking companies to bankruptcy.”

Thus Obama takes us to the theme that Romney’s competitors have used against him, until GOP big shots asked them to stop, believing that this rhetoric would alienate the entrepreneurs close to the Republican Party. But the 28-minute film put together by Newt Gingrich’s camp attacking Romney with a rare violence, is still on YouTube.

Obama’s advisers are convinced that one of the keys to the 44th president’s reelection is to convince voters that Romney is completely disconnected from their problems and that his election, if it was good news for the super rich, would weaken the middle class.

Obama was inspired by the strategy of George Bush in 2004. When John Kerry victoriously left the Democratic primaries, Bush launched his shelling campaign and did not let up until the election.

If the American electorate has a bright and rather positive image of the president, all the opinion polls show that Romney’s image is still very hazy. The moment has therefore been well chosen to hit — hard.

* Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Editor’s note: This memo was written by Obama’s campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, not Obama himself, as suggested in the original article.