Talking about “this mess” is a bit confusing, but if we were talking about improving the rate of economic growth and increasing the take home pay of large numbers of voters, you might want to include Robert Stein’s tax reform that would make the tax code both more progressive and more pro-investment (in several senses of the term.) You could look at federal laws making Indiana-style HSA/catastrophic coverage plans legal everywhere which seem to have increased take home pay, reduced medical expenses, increased, and maintained health care security. You could also help explain that, in light of our deficits, tax increased focused fiscal consolidations do a lot more to reduce economic growth than spending cut-focused fiscal consolidations. And we’ve already talked about one Republican’s idea to bring down college costs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704231304575091600470293066.html

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/alesina/files/Output%2BEffect%2BFiscal%2BConsolidations_Aug%2B2012.pdf

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/taxes-and-the-family

Now it isn’t that simple. Any policy change is going to produce winners and losers. So it will take explaining and coalition building to have a real chance of turning any policy changes into a winning political position. It is much easier to do what Romney did and say in effect “My dad loved my mom, and so you should vote for me because I think you’re a moron.”

Joseph Marshall- Yes, much of what is talked about here at PoMoCon is “high moral principles, lasting values, historical precedents, and sophisticated economic and social philosophies” because it’s a blog of political philosophy and not a public policy blog. On the other hand, I have seen a few discussions here of conservative policy that went pretty deep. Most of that discussion has focused on Paul Ryan’s policy proposals, which absolutely do address the “specific facts” voters are concerned with.

You are correct to say that Republicans have fallen back on platitudes far too often than they have said much about what they would do and how that would affect people’s lives, but Pete and Peter have made that criticism a theme of this blog over the past few months. I do hope that Romney takes his chance to speak directly to the people during the debates to make it clear that his policies are a viable alternative. Otherwise, the media will continue to define him as a stock politician.

Even if Romney did refute Obama’s argument about the economy, about Medicare or about anything else, that is only half of what he would need, and for that matter, only half of what the Republican Party has needed since 2008. The voters want to know one basic thing, What are you going to do to get us out of this mess?

It may be that the arguments made by and for Obama can be refuted, and they certainly can be vigorously attacked. But even refuting them does not answer the voter’s question in the least. What is Mitt Romney and the Republican Party going to do to get us out of this mess?

It’s not just Romney’s problem. That same question was being asked in 2008. The McCain campaign came nowhere near to a satisfactory answer. It’s still being asked, and not only has Romney failed to answer it, not a single prominent speaker at the Republican convention addressed it either.

You should take a closer look at the actual message of the Obama campaign during and since the DNC. The voters have the same question for Obama and the Democrats, with an added corollary, What have you done to straighten out this mess?

The Obama campaign have given real answers to these questions. They might be inadequate answers, they might be wrong answers, they might be flat out lies. But they are something, not nothing.

The consistent form of the Obama message is: We have done XYZ, we will do ABC, and it will take ABC and four more years to straighten stuff out. Whether you believe the message or not, it is clearly an answer to the questions being asked.

There is no consistent form whatever to the Republican message, and I mean the Republican message and not just Romney’s message. And there is nothing even remotely resembling an answer to the question.

I, personally, think that this points back toward folks such as yourselves, Conservative intellectuals. Conservatives have high moral principles, conservatives have permanent values, conservatives have historical precedents, and conservatives have sophisticated social and economic philosophies. But they have nothing with which to apply these to contemporary facts and answer straightforward, non-conservative, questions.

I once saw Bill O’reilly give the classic answer to this and dismiss such things as “liberal facts”. Sigh.

We can leave the issue of whether Conservatism has different facts than Liberalism for Bill to moot. In any case the voters have very specific facts landing in their lap to be dealt with and they want to know what you have to offer to help them.

Well, conservatives have high moral principles, lasting values, historical precedents, and sophisticated economic and social philosophies. You can read all these being talked over and mulled over constantly in the conservative media.

As to the mainstream media and its biases, conservatives think that it is enough to simply point out the biases either bitterly or combatively.

Unfortunately, they are the media we have: you have them, I have them, we all have them together; and if we want to say something and get it heard, we have to put on our thinking caps about how to do it through the media that are already there, and not through the ones that would be there if good principles and right thinking ruled the world.

This means that we have to start looking at what else is in the media, as well as what covert political stances are there. I think I can point out at least one thing that the Romney campaign might have used effectively: the mainstream media have been tying themselves into pretzels insisting that this is a “close race” and there is still “long time ahead in which things might change.”

This might be so, but it is clearly not why the mainstream media are doing it: if the horse race isn’t “neck and neck”, there’s not much real news to cover and not much real reason to follow the coverage. Picking up and putting on the thinking cap should easily suggest how Republicans might have turned this to their advantage.

There are also some persuadables who have heard the message that the bad stuff started under Bush and Obama did the best he could under the situation. This isn’t a slam dunk argument, but it has some plausibility. A good argument from Romney could win this thing. But all they are hearing from Romney is gibberish. That is partly because Romney really is talking nonsense that is disconnected from people’s lives. That is partly because even some of that is lost in the media filter. Some fraction of the otherwise persuadable public thinks that Romney is going to raise their taxes. And Romney spent his biggest speech talking about roses and mommy and daddy, and now he is out there rapping America The Beautiful. He is getting what he deserves.

1) REPEAL OBAMACARE!

to

2) There are some things we want to keep

to

3) SOME PARTS are good, we want to replace the rest

to

4) I am proud of the government takeover of healthcare in MASS and I would like to see that for all americans

Anyone still voting republican is a stooge.

Don’t you remember 2010 and how the Tea Party captured the House and creamed the commie-Dems? What’s changed? The hated Obama is still in the White House and the commie-Dems are still doing their best to kill jobs, deny Catholics/Christians freedom of religion, and destroy the American economy.

The Tea Party hasn’t gone away and if anything, they’re still mad as hell.

Romney in a landslide, though he and his people may not be able to figure out why and sure won’t be grateful to the grassroots.

BTW, I just watched “Greater Glory”, an outstanding movie re: an event I was not aware of, that makes you understand what it is Obama and the Democrats are really capable of. I have to admit I got a little choked on this one, rememgbering what the Sisters of Notre Dame taught me over fifty years ago about never denying the Christ, no matter the price. Viva la Christos!

What I conclude from this is that at little over a month to go National Tracking Polls (Gallup, Rasmussen and so on) are far less important than state polls in the critical states, if you want to evaluate his chances.

Further, these days it’s less effective to think in terms of weeks than news cycles of about 3-5 days, and we have five of them. I’d say that you can track how much progress Romney has made by thinking hard about where he stands every Thursday. He has to have made an impact by that point in each week to see any progress. The debates are artificial “events” that give either candidate a real shot at moving the totals.

Other than that, it’s up to the Wheel Of Fortune.