Where Does Romney Go From Here?

     It's not clear. With Bill Kristol now admitting that attacking Obama on the economy isn't working-Kristol went as far as saying the Obama did a pretty good job cleaning up Bush's mess-what is left?

     So why should we vote for Mitt again? http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/09/so-why-should-we-vote-for-romney-again.html

     Kristol seems to want an ideological fight over the size of government. He thinks that Romney should play up the Ryan Medicare plan. Yet, his reasons for not doing so seem pretty sound. Indeed, the news seems to keep getting worse for Romney. Initially, they did a pretty good job neutralizing the attacks of the Obama team by accusing the President of "being the only President in history to cut Medicare."

     While this wasn't true, it was in the early going rather effective as it put Democrats on their heels in the first few weeks. However, the polls now show that Obama has taken a solid lead on Medicare. This shows that the Dems have rallied on this issue.

     Indeed all the numbers seem to be going the wrong way for Romney. His lead among the elderly has dropped from 20 points prior to the conventions to only 4 points now.

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line

     https://prospect.org/article/romneys-wrong-right-move

     He's also lost his lead on the economy. The only thing he still leads on is the deficit-and even here, he really shouldn't lead, of course.

     We've also heard a lot of back and forth with the conservatives who are not happy. Ryan sniffed that conservatives are never happy.

     http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/09/ryan-conservative-pundits-always-complain-136478.html?hp=l3

     What seems likely is that should Romney lose-and it looks like he will-Ryan will likely bail on him pretty quickly. There's already a pro-Ryan spin among conservatives that Ryan has been muzzled.

      Romney will be criticized for not running as an ideological conservative. Ryan will need to throw Romney under the bus to save his own standing:

      "If the Republican ticket loses in November, the rush by Mr. Ryan and other 2016 hopefuls to position themselves for the Iowa caucuses “is going to look like Best Buy the night after Thanksgiving,” said Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him.”

     http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/09/dumping_on_the_chief_watch_pt3.php?ref=fpblg