romney's clinton problem

Chris Graythen/Getty

Obama has received a bounce in the polls from his convention, and though we'll have to wait a few days to know for sure, it looks quite sizeable. That narrow gap is widening, which makes Romney's uphill battle all the steeper - at this stage, the challenger should be several points ahead to have a decent shot at victory in November.

According to Nate Silver's analysis of the polling data, the pivotal moment seems to have been Bill Clinton's barnstorming speech on Wednesday. Thus the Republican pundit Alex Castellanos's instant reaction to the Clintonator's speech - that it was "the moment that probably reelected Obama" - suddenly does not seem so hyperbolic. Obama, boyishly grateful, has appointed his predecessor the Secretary of Explaining Stuff.

It's extraordinary for an ex-president to be able to make the political weather like this. Having already paid tribute to Clinton I won't here marvel at how the talents and tenacity of the man himself made this possible, or discuss Obama's belated realisation that it was worth making the effort to get Big Dog fully onside. Instead, let's consider the other politician responsible for making Clinton such a potent force in this election: Mitt Romney.

For weeks now, the Romney campaign has been busy turning Bill Clinton into an electoral hand grenade. In TV ads and interviews, they have been contrasting Clinton - still remembered for having run a budget surplus in office - to Obama. Clinton is the "good" Democrat (centrist, fiscally responsible) Obama the "bad" (liberal, fiscally reckless).

You can see why the Romney campaign did this - the aim was clearly to reach independent voters who like Clinton, aren't naturally Republican, but aren't sure about Obama. One consequence of this strategy, however, was to reinforce the perception among voters that Clinton is an authoritative, non-partisan arbiter of this election and of economic and social policy in particular.

Hmm, now how could that possibly go wrong?

On Wednesday evening, of course, the grenade blew up in their faces. And given how much Clinton is enjoying himself, it is going to keep blowing up in their faces, every week, from now until November 6th.

Comments

[larry parker]

It still too early to tell if the Clinton speech will have a lasting effect....But it does highlight how the world would have been different if Al Gore used Clinton in the 2000 election (instead of ignoring him totally).