As Mitt Romney
struggles to make the case that he can be a different candidate in 2016 than the one voters rejected in 2012, the strategy seems to be changing the subject while keeping things vague. Like nsisting that Romney will run an amazing campaign around poverty and foreign affairs, and won't talk about all that other inconvenient stuff on his very public record.
Problem is:
“He got defined early, after he got through the nomination process, and they spent a lot of money to define him,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who praised Mr. Romney’s passion and sense of purpose. “And those issues are still there. That doesn’t change, and that narrative is still out there.”
And let's be honest: Romney helped define himself, with comments
like "I’m not concerned with the very poor"
and "Corporations are people" and of course
that whole 47 percent thing.
It's going to be especially difficult for Romney to shed his 2012 image if his advisers think they can keep using the same claims about his strengths that didn't work then. But apparently they do think that:
“But there needs to be a rationale,” the adviser continued. “If we made one mistake — and we made more than one in ’12 — it was in not making people understand this is the Turnaround guy.”
Oh, I think plenty of people understood about Mitt Romney and turnarounds. They understood that Romney's idea of a turnaround left the rich richer and working people fighting for scraps. It's not that his campaign didn't talk about it. It's that people saw through what it meant. Trying to rebrand "turnaround guy" as if it wasn't a major part of the failed message of the past seems like a recipe for failure. Although since Romney doesn't appear to have a recipe for success in the works, it may not matter.