It’s your turn, Mr. President and party

TAMPA, Fla. — We have reached a phase of the presidential campaign that could be called the Season of Empty Metaphors.

At their convention here, Mitt Romney and the Republicans held serve. Romney may have failed to hit any home runs with his acceptance speech, but he sprayed the outfield with singles and doubles. Sure, his campaign staff left money on the table by allowing Clint Eastwood to waste valuable network airtime conversing with an empty chair. But the convention did more than enough to turbocharge the base and slingshot the GOP candidate into the homestretch.

Now President Obama and the Democrats are off to Charlotte to generate their own set of clichés. It doesn’t take clairvoyance to predict that when the convention is over, some pundit or politicians will pronounce it as having amounted to three yards and a cloud of dust.

Blah blah blah. The truth is that for all the action-packed, content-free verbiage employed to describe it, the contest between Obama and Romney has been remarkably static. Most polls have the race within the margin of error. Obama has a somewhat easier path to a majority in the Electoral College, but Romney and his allies have an advantage in campaign funds.

For all the effort and money the two camps have spent trying to “define” the opponent, Obama and Romney stubbornly retain the same identities they’ve had all along. Neither is going to change, or be changed, into someone else. I hate to be blunt, but: Deal with it.

GOP convention organizers came away feeling they made great progress in “humanizing” Romney. We know more now about his personal life — the story he told about his father giving his mother a single rose every day was beautiful and touching — but he has made clear that he’s not running to be empathizer in chief. His basic promise is to somehow make jobs shower down from the heavens. Voters must decide whether to believe him or not.

In his speech he made a specific pledge: 12 million new jobs. This sounds ambitious and bold until you do the math. To reach that goal in the 48 months of a presidency would mean an average of 250,000 new jobs each month — a healthy but not outlandish number. In essence, Romney is simply betting that the anemic economic recovery now under way will become a healthy one.

How will he accomplish that transformation? Beats me. Romney is vague when it comes to specifics. But I can safely say that if you believe repealing the Affordable Care Act — and keeping 31 million uninsured Americans from getting health care coverage — will do the trick, Romney’s your guy.

In Charlotte, of course, we’ll hear Obama’s side of the story. But we already know it: He took office during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, coaxed the economy into stability and then moderate growth, saved the auto industry and, yes, pushed through a package of health insurance reforms that substantial numbers of Americans don’t like.

Obama’s essentially Keynesian, demand-side ideas for boosting the recovery and creating more jobs have been thwarted by Republicans in Congress. And unless the GOP were to keep control of the House and somehow manage to win a supermajority in the Senate, Romney’s ideas — tax cuts, mostly — wouldn’t survive intact, either.

Perhaps the sharpest difference between the candidates — and potentially the most consequential, at least in the short term — is in foreign policy, which neither campaign has chosen to emphasize. Obama is no peacenik, as what’s left of al-Qaida can attest. But Romney’s rhetoric, especially concerning Iran’s nuclear program, has grown increasingly belligerent. I worry that his hawkish words betray a dangerous impatience.

But we didn’t hear much about world affairs in Tampa, and I doubt we’ll hear much in Charlotte. Neither party has time for such distractions when there are independent voters to be wooed and swing voters to be frightened out of their wits. Perhaps the most surprising development in the campaign thus far is that Republicans played the “Mediscare” card first — and are enormously pleased with themselves for doing so. Democrats, however, remain confident that ultimately they’ll play it most effectively.

So now, ahem, the ball is in the Democrats’ court. It’s later than halftime but not quite the eleventh hour. And as we slouch toward Election Day, “Big Mo” is still nowhere to be found.

Eugene Robinson is a Washington Post columnist. His email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Thursday, March 28

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Initiative promoter Tim Eyman takes a selfie photo before the start of a session of Thurston County Superior Court, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, in Olympia, Wash. Eyman, who ran initiative campaigns across Washington for decades, will no longer be allowed to have any financial control over political committees, under a ruling from Superior Court Judge James Dixon Wednesday that blasted Eyman for using donor's contributions to line his own pocket. Eyman was also told to pay more than $2.5 million in penalties. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Editorial: Initiative fee increase protects process, taxpayers

Bumped up to $156 from $5, the increase may discourage attempts to game the initiative process.

Protecting forests and prevent another landslide like Oso

Thank you for the powerful and heartbreaking article about the Oso landslide… Continue reading

Boeing’s downfall started when engineers demoted

Boeing used to be run by engineers who made money to build… Continue reading

Learn swimming safety to protect kids at beach, pool

Don’t forget to dive into water safety before hitting the pool or… Continue reading

Comment: Why shootings have decreased but gun deaths haven’t

High-capacity magazines and ‘Glock switches’ that allow automatic fire have increased lethality.

Washington state senators and representatives along with Governor Inslee and FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez break ground at the Swift Orange Line on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 in Lynnwood, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: Community Transit making most of Link’s arrival

The Lynnwood light rail station will allow the transit agency to improve routes and frequency of buses.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Wednesday, March 27

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

An image of Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin is reflected in a storefront window during the State of the City Address on Thursday, March 21, 2024, at thee Everett Mall in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: State of city address makes case for Everett’s future

Mayor Franklin outlines challenges and responses as the city approaches significant decisions.

FILE - The massive mudslide that killed 43 people in the community of Oso, Wash., is viewed from the air on March 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Editorial: Mapping landslide risks honors those lost in Oso

Efforts continue in the state to map areas prone to landslides and prevent losses of life and property.

Burke: ‘Why not write about Biden, for once?’ Don’t mind if I do.

They asked; I’ll oblige. Let’s consider what the president has accomplished since the 2020 election.

Comment: Catherine missed chance to dispel shame of cancer

She wasn’t obligated to do so, but she might have used her diagnosis to educate a sympathetic public.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.