Over the past few weeks, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has suddenly begun to defend his success, his family and even his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. In return, President Obama’s campaign and the media are crying foul. A lead sentence in a Politico piece on Monday said it all: “Meet Mitt Romney the victim.”
While it’s true that Romney finally appears to have realized that turning the other cheek works better as a proverb than a political strategy, he’s hardly the first of this election season to try to garner some sympathy from voters.
Rick Santorum made an entire campaign out of insisting that he’s often paid the price for putting his moral convictions before politics; Newt Gingrich unendingly blamed the media for insufficiently capturing his awesomeness on the campaign trail; Ron Paul has long made himself the victim of the Republican establishment, for rudely ignoring his advice over the past century, or however long he’s been in Congress.
But playing the victim, as cherished a political tradition as it is, won’t cut it against Obama, who’s proven that playing the aggressor is a much more effective tactic. His combination of professorial condemnation and swift kneecapping of those who would dare to disagree has made him a masterful bully.
So as Romney mounts the fight of his life against Obama, he might want to rethink the victim strategy in favor of something that looks more like Obama’s elbow-throwing. Here’s a handy guide:
Don’t complain about the press. Intimidate it.
In 2008, during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Obama had three reporters from conservative newspapers kicked off his plane. At the time, his adviser Anita Dunn said there simply wasn’t enough room for the three national journos who’d been covering the candidate all along. But somehow, writers from Glamour, Ebony and Jet magazines managed to find seats.
After he was elected, Obama also made the unprecedented move of trying to ban an entire network — Fox News — from the White House press pool. Luckily, the other networks objected and Fox kept its creds.
Still, the message was clear: You’re either with us or flying coach.
Spare no one.
Even Obama’s friends can become the objects of his wrath if they go off-script. The Congressional Black Caucus found this out the hard way last year, when it asserted that Obama could be doing more to pass the American Jobs Act. At a dinner that they hosted, he snarkily told them to “stop complaining, stop grumbling and stop whining.” And while any President has the right to criticize his party, that kind of outright scorn is rare — but, also, very effective.