Much Talk, Little Content

Things are going pretty well for Mitt Romney. One week after his successful debate appearance against Barack Obama, the challenger is gaining ground in all the polls.

The foreign policy speech he delivered to an audience of cadets at the Virginia Military Institute was designed to give him a new image: He’s knowledgeable about foreign policy; he has what it takes to be president.

And it worked. His speech was the familiar Romney mixture of many words and little content. And again, Romney abandoned positions he held just months ago.

While he was caught on a video telling an audience of wealthy donors that he didn’t think there was any solution to the conflict in the Middle East, he now maintains his readiness to support an initiative for a two-state solution in Palestine.

While he sharply criticized U.S. engagement in Libya, he now demands even greater action in Syria. While he recently suggested that the Afghans fight their own battles, he now criticizes the planned 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan as premature and says that it amounts to leaving our Afghan allies holding the bag.

There was little in Romney’s speech that would surprise the rest of the world. There were the usual promises to increase defense spending, couple foreign aid to the development of free markets and strengthen U.S. relations with Israel.

Other than that, what he says he will do is what Obama is already doing. It is as if a candidate for postmaster were promising that, if elected, he would get the mailmen to stop throwing letters in the trash rather than delivering them. Everyone agrees with that; letters should be delivered rather than thrown away.

It’s only later that it dawns on them that mail delivery has been pretty reliable all along.

Romney figures that by the time they realize that, the election will be over. It might just work.