For some reason, Esteemed Readers, more & more criticisms are blasting both Obama & Romney these days. A few items are worth your time:
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The notorious August 6 Newsweek "wimp factor" cover story on Romney includes 5 quotations from conservative leaders critical of Romney --
"The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the conomy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault . . . What [Americans] want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the president's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better."
2. William Kristol [prominent conservative pundit]:
"Adopting a prevent defense when it's only the second quarter and you're not even ahead is dubious . . . as a strategy . . . The economy is of course important. But voters want to hear what Romney is going to do about the economy. What is his economic-growth agenda? His deficit-reform agenda? His health-care reform agenda? His tax-reform agenda? His replacement for Dodd-Frank?"
3. Rupert Murdoch [conservative owner of Fox Network, Wall Street Journal, et alia]:
"[Obama] will be hard to beat unless [Romney] drops old friends from [his] team and hires some real pros. Doubtful."
4. George Will [senior conservative pundit]:
"Governor Romney seems to be risk-averse. He . . . seem[s] to be in something like a four-corner stall in basketball . . . But you can't get to the NCAA championship, you can't get to the presidency running out the clock. So he's going to have to do something more than say Obama's not working."
5. National Review [conservative journal]:
"The only question is whether [Romney] releases more [tax] returns now, or later -- after playing more defense on the issue and sustaining more hits."
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6. In today's Wall Street Journal, conservative columnist Peggy Noonan lambastes both Romney
AND Obama.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577579571659026022.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
7. Liberal Nicholas D. Kristof blasts Obama for his passivity about Syria, in yesterday's New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/opinion/kristof-obama-awol-in-syria.html
8. CNN, which aspires for the middle, is running stuff analyzing the Good as well as the Bad & Ugly in ObamaCare [a label Obama himself has begun to embrace, because, he says, I really do "care" about affordable health for all].
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/09/opinion/carroll-health-care-act/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
9. But perhaps most telling is that young Republicans are abandoning extreme right positions, or soft-peddling them when they go campaigning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/us/politics/young-republicans-erase-lines-on-social-issues.html
This does NOT bode well for the long-range future health of right-wing extremism.
Even in the short run, Romney strategists are trying to marginalize the roles of right-wing "cartoons" Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Tampa.
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