"Romney’s policy vagueness pays off" by Ezra Klein at WP

[applegrove]

Romney’s policy vagueness pays off

by Ezra Klein at WP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/04/romneys-policy-vagueness-pays-off/

"SNIP...............................................

But for the most part, this debate was where Romney’s strategy of being purposefully vague about the nature of his policies paid off. The first third of the debate was an argument over the missing numbers in Romney’s tax plan. Romney fiercely objected to Obama’s characterization of his tax plan as a $5 trillion tax cut. After all, he says he’ll pay for all of it, somehow, later. And he won’t permit what is, on paper, a huge tax cut on the rich to cut taxes on the rich. So if you take what’s on the page, the cost is $5 trillion and it’s a huge tax cut for the rich. If you take what Romney says will eventually be on the page, the cost is…nothing.

Elsewhere, Romney insisted that he had a “lengthy description” of his health-care plan on his web site, and seemed satisfied when Obama didn’t challenge the comment. Romney’s description of his health-care plan is less than 400 words, or about half the length of a typical op-ed column. But there’s enough there that Romney could say he has a plan for people with pre-existing conditions, even if it’s not clear how that plan would work, or whether it’s any different than what the law says now. As for what he’d do about the uninsured, that also wasn’t very clear.

The same was true on Wall Street reform, where Romney insisted he opposed Dodd-Frank and promised to replace it with…something. And on spending cuts, where Romney said he would balance the budget but didn’t offer many specific cuts beyond eliminating funding for PBS.

Romney also executed his overdue pivot to the center, and he did it in an especially savvy way: He sold himself heavily on his experience working with Democrats in Massachusetts. This solves a very particular problem Romney has in talking about his record in Massachusetts, where he governed in a way that swing voters would like, but he signed a slew of policies conservatives hate. Since Romney doesn’t want to alienate conservatives, he’s largely left Massachusetts out of his campaign.

...............................................SNIP"

[dkf]

1. I love Ezra Klein. He always hits it on the head.

[applegrove]

2. Yeah. He and Krugman are amazing.

[Iwasthere]

5. Sometimes he does us no good though

... like tonight on Lawrence O. When he defended RMoney and the $5 billion lie... he said, that because RMoney clarified that it is paid for so it is NOT a lie. Lawrence said this has NEVER happened in history, that you cannot just say it is paid for so it isn't a lie.

[dkf]

6. Well I see it the way Ezra does and am a little alarmed at the $5 trillion cost attributed.

By that measure Simpson Bowles is really expensive too and I support something like S-B.

Erin Burnett sees it the same way also. I think it's because we are all data geeks.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Hey.....

[Angry Dragon]

4. And the democrats overturned some of his vetoes

I wonder how Willard figures he worked with democrats

and he was running for president his last two years in office