Comments on: The Bain of Mitt’s Campaign? http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2012/07/16/the-bain-of-mitts-campaign/ A NonPartisan Analysis of Presidential Politics Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:45:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Matthew Dickinson http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2012/07/16/the-bain-of-mitts-campaign/comment-page-1/#comment-28335 Matthew Dickinson Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:26:28 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/?p=12950#comment-28335 Bert,

I don’t disagree. A similar argument, however, might be that the Swift Boat ads targeted Kerry’s military leadership at a time when the key issue was who was better able to lead the war on terror. In the end, I don’t see much evidence that the Swift Boat ads had much effect, despite their potential relevance to the major campaign issue at the time.

]]> By: Bert Johnson http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2012/07/16/the-bain-of-mitts-campaign/comment-page-1/#comment-28332 Bert Johnson Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:00:04 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/?p=12950#comment-28332 I think the Bain stuff is (marginally) more relevant to the overall campaign than the Swift Boat material in 2004 because it’s basically a proxy war over the main issue in the campaign: the economy. As Romney uses Bain to tout his economic credentials, Obama is using Bain as part of a broader argument that goes something like: “This economy isn’t my fault, it was caused by irresponsible companies (Bain, for example!) and the previous administration.” Granted, this back-and-forth will change very few people’s minds, but those very few might be swing voters, who will probably weigh the state of the economy heavily in their considerations.

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