Documents reveal Romney stayed longer at Bain Capital

[anvi]

Misdirection is an old campaign tactic, and that's what's going on here.  Of course it temporarily helps Obama, that's why he and his campaign are doing it.  It often works, too.  There is just one catch.  Almost all misdirection is based on bs.  If you do it too much, it can backfire and ruin your own place.  We'll see what happens here.

I know some won't like this, but this tactic by the Obama campaign gets a thumbs down from me.  Maybe it will effect some voters in a close election.  But, personally, even if the allegations are in the strictest sense "true," I don't give a damn.  So what if Romney was still the CEO of Bain into 2001 or whatever and signed, as he would have had to, some papers authorizing the company's investments?  If it's meant to peg Romney as an outsourcer, all Romney has to do is point back to U.S. trade deals that have been made in the past three years.  Show me a politician who doesn't really support outsourcing and I'll show you a politician that doesn't get either major party's nomination.  If it's meant to focus on one investment that might turn off social conservatives enough to stay home on election day, I really, really doubt that will work this year.

I always get a little sick watching these kinds of fights, common and predictable  as they are.  National elections are opportunities to have national conversations about how best to solve the country's problems.  But, very often, the winners are the ones who can most successfully drown out that conversation by constructing a distorted picture of their opponent.  It's a crappy precedent, and I don't like it when anybody uses it.  Boo.      

[anvi]

DeadFlag and ajb,

I think I'm just articulating my own aesthetic preference about campaigning.  There is ample evidence that ad hominem attacks in politics can work successfully, especially when they enable you to paint a picture of the other guy for the voters.  The inherent danger in it is that it can backfire.  And it tends to backfire either when it's overplayed or in elections that are primarily about the economy.  Bush 41 tried to paint a picture of Clinton based on silly stuff too, but the economy, though it had already begun a slow recovery, still sucked and Bush got booted out of the White House anyway.  I found Bush 41's tactics against Dukakis and 43's against Kerry fairly odious, but they did work.  I think maybe that makes Democrats a little too eager to use them also, since it feels like just deserts or like a Democrat for once has a pair enough to go that route.  

I think creating these kinds of subtexts in campaigns, on either side, doesn't do any favors for the country or the POTUS trying to govern it after the election is over.  If Romney wins, it's on the basis of the supposedly crappy national government intruding too much on free markets and hampering our recovery--but if he wins, we still need a sensible national health care reform policy, sensible ways for government to aid in the recovery process through education reform and targeted stimulus and effective regulation to keep an eye on financing shenanigans and so forth.  Now, if Obama wins this way, it's on the basis of the fact that we shouldn't trust investors or big business--but if he wins, we still need investment and economic growth to create jobs and more needed government revenue and so forth.  Success is based on the right kind of interdependence between government and the private sector, and everyone keeps rhetorically pushing for just one handle on the motorcycle.  So, when either guy wins and then has to revert to governing mode and make recourse to things they have denounced in the campaign, everybody thinks they're turncoats and they have less leverage to make deals and so on.  I care about governing more than campaigning.  Some say that you can't govern if you don't win--which is true.  But at the same time, the way you win can limit how you can govern too.