Mitt Romney opens the fall presidential campaign with a bang

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NY Daily News:

Newly anointed as the Republican standard-bearer, Mitt Romney ably used the GOP convention to present the fresh start he envisions for America.

He heads into the final phase of his contest against President Obama on the momentum of well-delivered messages about who he is and what he proposes to do. The overarching takeaway: Romney is a serious man with serious ideas for serious problems — and a fit aspirant for the White House.

After a summer of attacks by Obama and partisans that tried to define Romney as a tax-cheating job killer, he used the convention to frame the contest as one between a candidate pitching new ideas and an incumbent fresh out of solutions.

Recalling Obama’s slogan of four years ago, he said most effectively: “Hope and change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as President when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”

Winningly for this reserved man, he spoke also about family, church, community and pride in the substantial business accomplishments that are the source of his wealth. And, competing for the votes of women, who trend toward Obama, there was mention of his record of appointing women when he was Massachusetts’ governor.

Romney’s success in setting the terms of the debate is a testament to a campaign smartly executed and catalyzed by the selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate. Pending Obama’s Democratic convention rejoinder, the GOP’s man has charge of a conversation that is enormously critical because the U.S. has fallen badly and needs to get up.

The unemployment rate has topped 8% for 42 months, the longest such stretch since the Great Depression. Thirteen million people are jobless and looking for work, including 5 million without paychecks for more than six months. Millions more have stopped searching or are stuck in part-time or low-wage positions.

Just as bad, the middle class is being hollowed out. Over the last decade, family incomes fell by 5% and wealth, meaning savings and investments minus debt, plummeted by 28%.

The struggles represented by the statistics are part of the Obama record and the Romney opportunity. “ What America needs is jobs. Lots of jobs,” he said, with a promise to create 12 million.

The President’s take is that he inherited an epic collapse and has led the country slowly upward. The challenger sees a presidency whose policies not only failed to promote growth but hindered it while adding $5 trillion to the national debt.

Hammering the point, Romney and Ryan have taken full, accurate measure of the country’s ills. On this, it is to their advantage to be explicit.

They were equally out front in proposing large solutions, notably to Medicare’s looming unaffordability.

Conventional wisdom held that it would be political suicide to trumpet a plan to give seniors a choice of health insurance plans, including traditional Medicare, with the government supporting the premiums. Yet that’s what Romney has done, and voters are hearing him out.

Similarly, where Obama is calling for ending the Bush-era tax cuts for Americans with incomes over $250,000, Romney has more dramatically called for cutting income taxes by 20% and making up lost revenue by closing loopholes that have made the tax code a lobbyist’s paradise.

Obama says it can’t be done. Romney and some experts say it can, giving him one more important issue on which to engage the President.

Hidden in the big picture are inconsistencies and impracticalities that will come to the fore in the jousting. They will be duly considered as this nation, closely divided and desperate for renewal, follows a campaign that appears likely to hinge on the large ideas Romney has placed on the table.

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Romney off and running.