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November 5, 2012
I see that Mitt Romney adopts the same tactics as Tony Abbott --he says different things to different folks--- across the battleground states. The meme for both Abbott and Romney is to play on local fears and rely on untruths.
Probably the Liberal Party in Australia copied the tactic from the Republicans.
David Rowe
Another similar tactic is that the policies of Abbott and Romney are little more than buzzwords, slogans and declarations that they know how to fix the problem, whatever that problem is. Their opponent, by contrast, creates problems rather than solves them. This tactic is all about winning and has little to do with what they will do to govern if they win.
The political reality is that the institutions of government in Washington are increasingly dysfunctional--eg., the partisan gridlock in Washington---and this makes any strategy of promoting economic development to address both the recession and economic decline almost impossible.
Yet the assumption underlying practically all US discussion is that any slippage in America's global standing is the result of misguided policies that can be reversed by an act of will, even though the capture of US policy-making by financial institutions effectively rules out any serious attempt to tackle the country's economic problems for the foreseeable future.
The hollowing out of the middle class is what is fueling the Tea Party populism, with its feelings of dispossession, loss and resentment. That won't be enough to flip the swing states Romney's way despite the voter suppression and the tightening of election laws aimed at suppressing turnout among minorities, the elderly, and other voting constituencies that traditionally favor Democrats at the polls
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To appeal to the conservative Republicans who dominate the primaries Romney was harshly anti-immigrant, anti-tax, socially conservative and ultra-hawkish on defence.
He then corrected course with his moderate rhetoric in order to appeal to the undecided voters in the presidential election.