Romney gives undecided voters a reason to change course

John Podhoretz:

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He needs the remaining undecided voters to believe him that “this election matters,” because as the race heads into its final days, Romney’s greatest enemy is not President Obama, but political entropy. 

Bouncing a sitting president requires conscious action, a national decision to redirect the country’s course. This cuts against the grain, and that’s why incumbents have a natural advantage. 

Late-deciding voters might just figure things in the country are disappointing but endemic, the result of causes beyond Obama’s control. They might figure he did the best he could and Romney can do no better, and so it might be less risky just to keep things as they are. 

Yesterday, Romney began simply by asking, “Where are the 9 million more jobs that President Obama promised his stimulus would have created by now?” He answered: “They are in China, Mexico and Canada and in countries that have made themselves more attractive for entrepreneurs and business and investment, even as President Obama’s policies have made it less attractive for them here.” 

That’s the deep core of the Romney campaign right there — but pushing that message won’t get the job done on its own. Indeed, he went on to say that the election is about more, and that’s why it matters so much — particularly to constituencies he wishes to win over. 

“It matters to the senior,” Romney said, “who needs to get an appointment with a medical specialist but is told by one receptionist after another that the doctor isn’t taking any new Medicare patients, because Medicare has been slashed to pay for ObamaCare.” 

“It matters” to those who do have a job, but whose working circumstances have deteriorated, like “the man from Waukesha, Wis., I spoke with several days ago. In what were supposed to be his best work years, he used to have a job at $25 an hour with benefits and now has one at $8 an hour, without benefits.” 

He spoke to those entering adulthood in a condition of indebtedness that is not only personal but national: “It matters to the college student, graduating this spring, with $10,000 to $20,000 in student debt, who now learns that she also will be paying for $50,000 in government debt, a burden that will put the American Dream beyond her reach.” 

Obama’s beholdenness to Big Labor matters to “the child in a failing school, unable to go to the school of his parent’s choosing, because the teachers union that funds the president’s campaign opposes school choice.”
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The speech got buried in storm news on the East Coast and news that help had been refused CIA operatives in Benghazi.   But it was still an important speech, and hopefully it broke through the media buzz in teh Midwest where most of the swing states are located.

Romney is probably the first candidate to directly take on the powerful teachers unions.  They have been so in the tank for Democrats that Republicans no longer have anything to lose by opposing their agenda and supporting parental rights to choose the best place for their child to learn.