Undecided voters found literal descriptions of Romney’s plan SO radical they didn’t believe them.

[kpete]

It's Paul Ryan's Party: With Romney VP Pick, Movement Conservatives Openly Control GOP At Last
By Jonathan Chait

The premise of my April profile was that Ryan had become the leader of the Republican Party, with the president himself relegated to a kind of head of state role, at least in domestic affairs. As Grover Norquist put it, the only requirement for a nominee was enough working digits to sign Ryan’s plan. Ryan’s prestige within the party is unassailable. If he doesn’t want something to happen, it won’t happen (say, several bipartisan deals to reduce the deficit that he squashed.) If he wants something to happen, however foolhardy (like putting the entire House GOP caucus on record for his radical budget plan despite a certain veto) it will happen. It is Ryan’s party.

The only real question left was how to handle the optics of this reality. Theoriginal operating plan of the Romney campaign was to run against the bad economy, and then implement the Ryan Plan, which of course is a long-term vision of government unrelated to the current state of the labor market. Romney’s campaign had been bravely insisting for weeks that the plan was working, or that it was due for a 1980-like October leap in the polls, but clearly Romney did not believe, or had come to disbelieve, its own spin.

So Romney is conceding that the current track of the campaign is headed for a narrow defeat and has decided to alter its course. Obama has successfully defined Romney as an agent of his own economic class, a ploy that was clearly designed to make the attacks on Romney’s policy agenda hit home. (Focus groups had previously found that undecided voters found literal descriptions of Romney’s plan so radical they didn’t believe them.)

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/paul-ryans-party.html

[Kalidurga]

1. So we have to tone down the truth?

What do we have to say to make people understand? "Look they really do mean to kill you" I guess that is too much truth. Maybe "Ok, they do mean to kill you, but not until after you retire."

[DearAbby]

2. It will be discussed more

Media will have to cover it. Detail by gory detail. Once it's on teevee...

[Electric Monk]

3. "Theoriginal operating plan of the Romney campaign..."

Theoriginal