Democrats Say They Win Either Way as Republicans Brawl
For months David Axelrod, President Obama’s longtime senior strategist, has argued with evident anticipation that Mitt Romney offers a glass jaw when he boasts that his business record sets him apart as a presidential candidate. Now Mr. Romney’s Republican rivals have beaten the Obama team to the punch, and Democrats could hardly be more pleased.
“It’s a total win-win,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who is working with Priorities USA, a group supporting Mr. Obama’s re-election but independent of his campaign. “Either Romney will be the nominee or one of those other, even more unelectable candidates will be.”
The Republican sniping this week — with rivals lumping Mr. Romney, a former venture capitalist, with corporate raiders and even “vultures” — highlights a tricky issue for a party that historically has prided itself on backing business and eschewing class-based political attacks as un-American. The economy has delivered scant gains for many middle-class and blue-collar workers over the past decade, and the Republican base now includes large numbers of these workers.
Even before the Tea Party movement arose three years ago in the wake of the big bank bailouts, the party base had grown more populist, heightening long-standing tensions between Main Street and Wall Street Republicans. The Romney rivals plainly are playing to the ascendant, anti-Wall Street grassroots.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/us/politics/romney-attacks-may-help-democrats.html?pagewanted=all
= new reply since forum marked as read