Muhammed Ali invented the "rope-a-dope" strategy as an aging heavyweight. The former pretty boy of boxing would lie on the ropes and absorb a fearsome beating for round after round, counting on his opponent to punch himself out before Ali dropped. The most famous application was against the hated George Foreman, at that time a young bull with , as it turned out, insufficient cardio conditioning. Now people are beginning to womder if Ali is directing strategy for the Romney campaign. In the primaries, Romney was a regular Cassius Clay, adroritly dishing out punishment and the occasional low blow to his opponents. Now however, he seems to be on the ropes, taking repeated low blows himself without responding. Time to fire up the Theme from Rocky and get romney punching again. My suggestions. 1. Ad opens with screenshot of '60's riots, cuts to bombed out police station, them a picture of a sneering Bill Ayers standing on the American flag. Voice over: "Obama's earliest mentor and financial backer was unrepentant domestic terrorist and Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers. They were so close, Ayers even had him appointed to a foundation board. How could the president be in bed with a guy who bombed police cars and the Pentagon? are those American values?" 2. Ad opens with a screaming Jeremiah Wright doing his infamous G-D America number. Cuts to Obama and Michelle in a pew applauding vigorously. Voice over: " Obama spent 20 years as a member of this notorious church and called Jeremiah Wright a friend and mentor. Are the racist black liberation theology he supported there the values America wants in a president?" 3. Ad opens with shot of deserted parking lot and "closed" sign on a building at Solyndra. Shifts to asian bank front, then foreign electric car factory. Voice over: "Obama wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on Solyndra and other companies run by his political and financial backers. Much of the money was sent overseas. Now he wants to raise taxes and add more debt." 4. Ad opens with a picture of obama being swotn into office with a sidebar showing the national debt. As months on a calendar flip by, the debt graph goes higher and higher. Voice over: " Obama has added more to the national debt than any president and more than all preveious presidents combined, even as he crushed the job market." Graph cuts to unemployment rate. "We can't afford another four years of Obama's values." Ad cuts to scenes from Greek rioting, then to a scary depiction of the debt grwoing to the sky. 5. Ad opens with shot of Obama proclaiming he will have the most transparent, honest,etc administration in history. Shifts to obama with arm around Jon Corzine and cuts of Obama and Biden rpaising Corzine. voice over: " Obama crony Jon Corzine presided over a massive fraud at a brokerage firm that cost hundreds of midwestern farmers their savings. Obama's regulators did nothing. The CFTC was headed by a known associate of Corzine. To this day the stolen funds have not been recovered, no one has been prosecuted and Corzine has not paid a penny out of his massive private wealth to defrauded investors." Background has Corzine testifying to congress and walking out surrounded by lawyers and reporters. Voice over: "Most transparent adminstration in history or typical corrupt Chicago politics? Are these America's values?" 6. Ad opens with newspaper headlines about car industry bailout and side story that hundreds of dealerships closed. Shot shifts to tumbleweeds blowing across abandoned dealership. A broken looking man walks up, looks wistfully at the dealership and says: "I worked here for 20 years but Obama forced us to close, even though we ran a good business and were profitable. 35 people lost their jobs and health insurance." Cut to another shot of a former dealer testifying to congress that politics decided which ones were allowed to remain in business. Voice over: " Obama bailed out the auto unions with taxpayer dollars but forced private businessmen out of business. Are those American values?" 7. Ad opens with shot of Obama on golf course, then shifts to pics of him riding girl's bike with handlebar streamers. Voice over: "Obama played golf over 100 times as ordinary Americans suffered through a recession, feared for their jobs and struggled to make ends meet. As unemployment set records, he went on vacation anfter vacation and partied like a rock star. Are thos eAemrica's values?" Background shots show Obamas on vacations, partying ,e tc. 8. Ad opens with video of Obama promising to bring us together. Voice over: " He promised to bring us together. Instead, he's been the most divisive president in history." Videos of Obama attacking the rich for not paying their fair share, attacking republicans, etc. Voice over: " Obama's plan is to pit one group of Americans against another. Are those our values?" 9. Ad begins with Obama taking oath of office and promising to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Cuts to video of him declaring that he will not deport illegals. Cut to video of Border Patrol union president talking about terrible morale at BP and how they are not allowed to do their jobs. Voice over: "Do we want a president who thinks he is a dictator?" Close with picture of Obama morphing into Hugo Chavez. I could go on, but you get the idea. Fight fire with fire, go on the attack, seize the initiative, however you want to describe it. Send the media into fits of outrage. Who cares?
How bout they do an ad with the parents of the murdered border agent, from fast and furious and then say "Obama cost this man his life" If Obamas going to do it they may as well too..... Another ad they could do is start out with a black screen and writing that says "every year 3,567,000 dogs go missing" then pan out to a little girl crying "Where did freckles go mommy" then after that have Obamas voice from the readinf of his book where he says "I ate dog meat..... tough" then it goes back and foreword a couple times just to drill the point home, "where did freckles go mommy" "I ate Dog meat....... Tough"
If they are not going to put forth a big vision... then they have to follow your advice. right now it seems like Romney is not roping a dope as much as he is just hoping the economy takes Obama down all by itself.
thats good idea. fire up the angry white guy base, which he already has, and turn off the thinking people in the middle,that heneeds to win. your guys rush and fox news have already been running those adds for 4 years straight and obama is still leading.
I know you're just trying to be a prick, but that is pretty much the advice the republican establishment lives by. The result is they are out debating whether or not Romney is actually responsible for some union guy's wife dying 6 or 7 years after Romney left Bain. Look, that's not the ground you want to fight the campaign on. Clearly the ad is a despicable smear, but Romney now is reduced to getting into the details of it, rather than forcing Obama to defend. I disagree that independents will be so offended that they will vote for the guy who started the sleazy ad war. Anyway McCain tried staying above the fray four years ago and we saw how that worked out. The beauty of the ads I suggested is that they are all factual. Obama can whine all he wants that they are unfair, but then he is on the defensive. I mean, does he really benefit from getting into Bill Ayers?
I think Obama had to unleash hard and early given the situation, but I don't think it's time yet for Romney to start spending. If I were him I would wait till after the first debate. It seems like many people are treating modern politics the same as those of the last hundred years. It no longer takes several months to get a message out and change public perception. If I were to advise him, I would tell him to do his best not to add fuel to any fires. My suggested responses would be very much like Ali and Rocky. Put up very little defense, while at the same time actually taunting Obama. "Is that all you've got?" This accomplishes two main things. 1) Make the person on defense actually look like they are in control of the game. Changing the perception from HUGE devastating attacks to silly desperate flailing. 2) Encourages the opponent to waste even more resources and get even more outlandish. During this time, give very little information to the opponent in terms of what your policies might be. Let them try to hit you even harder with old news. Take the drop in the polls in stride, just make sure that you maintain that stature of taking a hard hit and then taunting. Absolutely refrain from wasting any resources on trying to counter. From now through Sept, ads should all be positive and hope filled. "Americans are great, and America will be great again". Nothing about Obama. Once we get to Oct... Good debate performances and a one month spending blitz. Hard, accurate, and ruthless in both advertising and debating. No time for opponent to adjust and defend. In the modern media world, one month is plenty when you are working with $500MM.
here is what happens when they do as you propose. make shit up. romney ends up looking like a liar. you have to consider that thinking people in the middle are not as gullible as some of you are: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/obama-campaign-ad-welfare_n_1763690.html
They both make stuff up because they aren't really that far apart. It's like two Japanese girls arguing over who's hair is straighter and blacker. But I specifically said "ACCURATE" in my post. There is plenty of accurate ammo for them to use. The economy is horrible and might be headed for negative GDP again. Wages are down while buying power is actually decreasing. Unemployment is very high still regardless of which measurement is used. The list goes on and on; it is the nature of being the president that you "get" to take credit for all of this regardless of who caused it. Obama recognized and admitted this when he first took office. Obviously he wishes he could take those comments back now, but it doesn't make them any less realistic. The point is, that with only one month left, they hit Obama really hard on the increasing national debt and how close we are to hitting the debt levels of Greece that caused their collapse. If they do it with three months left, then Obama can rebut and logically show that most of the spending programs were in place before him. He can try to use it to argue that we should increase taxes. He can show what steps he will do in his second term to try to reverse it. And he has the time to show that Romney doesn't have a better plan. But with only one month left, he'd have a really hard time with that, especially since every response would likely be preceded by a preeminent attack. Did you ever watch "8 mile" with Eminem? His last battle he uses the exact tactic I'm talking about. Cripple the opponent by teasing them about the weak response you know you are going to get, then blast them on the truth of their own record. If they try to rebut, they look like fools because you already predicted their response. And in the short time allotted there is no realistic way for them to come back at you. It doesn't take any time to throw out a simple attack, but it takes a lot longer to launch the public awareness campaign to educate the public on a somewhat complex topic that they really don't want to learn about.