TIME Ideas: What Are the Best Next Steps for Romney and Obama?
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TIME IDEAS What Are the Best Next Steps for Romney and Obama? Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012 |
Penn: President Barack Obama has some key advantages that he should press in the battle against Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee. First, a gender gap is emerging with Obama leading by as many as 19 points on women’s issues in some polls and holding on to this advantage may be the key to victory. The Republican party has backed itself into a corner when it comes to women’s rights. Therefore Obama should be looking to revive the Violence Against Women Act that needs a constitutional fix, raise equal pay for equal work (even men favor that!) and in general revisit the safeguards that moms need to protect their kids in an increasingly turbulent online world. In 1996, no TV would be manufactured without a v-chip. Today it’s the cell phones and computers that need a v-chip so that parents can let their younger kids use these new technologies without fear about how they can be misused.
Second, Obama has now pulled ahead even among independents and that means that continuing to emphasize that he has a sound approach to balancing fiscal responsibility with our nation’s values and priorities is critical to his re-election. David Brooks may say he went too far in criticizing the Ryan budget, but the truth is that the President is on the right track with the idea that Romney-Ryan is a ticket to electoral oblivion, just as Dole-Gingrich came to stand for unacceptable cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
Third, Obama needs to win the 26% of the electorate whose households earn more than $100,000. He connected with them last time and they were his key to victory in 2008 — his margin twice-over came from this important and growing group of professionals and households with dual incomes. That’s why “Buffett rule” days are as likely to lose him votes as gain them — these voters want to know what Obama is going to do to create new jobs through innovation and by mastering the global economy. That’s where he can retain and even make gains with this group.
Fourth, he should remind the voters that every day he is working to make their lives better. That’s why news like the FCC’s new database to track stolen cell phones and smartphones is not small bore — it’s the kind of thing that shows how the administration is looking out for people and their everyday problems.
Obama has a lot of advantages now as we begin to enter the one-on-one phase of the election and he has to press these advantages to win.
