'Kill Romney'
By: Alexander Burns
August 9, 2011 06:53 AM EDT
Smith and Martin peer ahead at the general election:
Barack Obamas aides and advisers are preparing to center the presidents re-election campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romneys character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee.
The dramatic and unabashedly negative turn is the product of political reality. Obama remains personally popular, but pluralities in recent polling disapprove of his handling of his job and Americans fear the country is on the wrong track. His aides are increasingly resigned to running for re-election in a glum nation. And so the candidate who ran on hope in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his likeliest opponent.
In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obamas high command has even studied President Bushs 2004 takedown of Sen. John F. Kerry, a senior campaign adviser told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a challenger.
Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney, said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.
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