President Obama’s Top Secret Strategy

by Stuart Shapiro

President Obama ran a brilliant campaign in 2008 but the job is much harder this time.  The Bush recession lingers and Congress refuses to help.  So what is an incumbent to do?

In a recent interview with a group of journalists, President Barack Obama revealed his secret weapon for winning the election in 2012.

“I don’t think it requires us to go negative in the sense of us running a bunch of ads that are false or character assassinations,” he said. “We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won’t even comment on them; we’ll just run those in a loop.”

Obama may be onto something. In fact, he may not even need an opposition research team this election. All he needs is a guy with a DVR and the patience, the grit, the sheer fortitude to watch every minute of every Republican debate.

I’d say the strategy has been a success.  While it has strengthened the hand of the second-strongest candidate in the field (Romney, Huntsman is first), it has given people insights into how far out of the mainstream most of the Republican Party has drifted.  It has also forced Romney into statements that will be used against him in the election.  Now if only the president can keep Bachman, Perry, and Cain in the race through the spring (someone check out his campaign donations!).

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.