Romney Borrows the Theme of Change from Obama

Eleven days from the election, Mitt Romney is seizing the theme of change, a theme which created victory for Barack Obama in 2008. Presenting the president as the candidate of status quo, Romney said the word “change” more than a dozen times in his speech on Friday in Iowa. His entourage indicated that it would be the central theme in his final sprint before Nov. 6. “This election is a choice, the choice between the status quo — going forward with the same policies of the last four years — or instead, choosing real change, change that offers promise, promise that the future will be better than the past,” he declared in front of 2,200 people gathered in front of a factory.

“The president’s campaign falls far short of the magnitude of these times,” he claimed. Barack Obama, frequently criticized for not having been the man of change that he had promised in 2008, uses the word himself very sparingly. Mitt Romney’s team had announced that this would be the candidate’s last major policy speech before the election, but he revealed nothing new.

Romney Concentrates on the Economy

The Democratic camp, which had registered the honesty of their candidate at the heart of his end of race message, lambasted the Republican candidate. “True to form, Mitt Romney’s most recent ‘major policy speech’ included dishonest attacks and empty promises of change,” declared a spokeswoman for the president.

Comforted by positive economic indicators, the Democratic candidate offers a more vigorous defense of his track record, all the while pursuing his attacks against his rival. The two candidates have, without surprise, a radically different interpretation of the new American GDP growth numbers, rising by two percent in the third trimester.

For Mitt Romney, they are deceiving, while the Obama administration sees in them proof of the economic recovery. From now on, the ex-governor of Massachusetts will concentrate his speech basically on the economy, the subject where the polls give him a large advantage over the president. And like Ronald Reagan in 1980 facing Jimmy Carter, he tries to present himself as the inevitable victor of the election. A new poll published on Friday by CNN nevertheless gives an advantage of four points to Barack Obama in Ohio (50 percent – 46 percent) and he keeps a very small advantage in most of the pivotal states. The average of polls put the two candidates neck and neck.