GOP Mood in Tampa? Right Time Right Man

48 of likely voters say Federal Spending Cuts hwould elp the economy 25 feel they would hurt By Clark S. Judge So tonight along comes Mitt Romney.      Over the last three and a half years trillion-dollar bailouts stimulus programs deficits and debt increases have tumbled out of the White House one after another. The president has assured us that this unprecedented spending was the price of recovery. But if so the country feels cheated. For when the merchandise was delivered and the box opened no recovery was inside. In American history no nominee of either party has ever had a better claim on knowing first hand how job creation works in America or on mastery of the management skills needed to fix the governments spending and unfunded entitlement crises. He brings the right experience and abilities to the nationaltable at the right time. Pundits have been telling us that the former Massachusetts governor should downplay the Paul Ryanesque emphasis on the controlling budget in favor of more talk about jobs and growth. But as a Rasmussen poll released last week found a solid plurality of likely voters (48) feels cuts in federal spending help the economy compared to only about half as many (25) who feel they hurt. The same poll found that 53 view tax cuts as good for the economy compared to only 16 who say they hurt.

In other words not only on the presidents record but on what to do to fix the economy Governor Romney is perfectly placed for reclaiming the GOP mantle as the place to fix in Mr. Obamas phrase this mess were in."

I met last week with a senior conservative strategist one of the shrewdest men in Washington. We talked about the Democrats Mediscare tactics. He reflected that the Obama team has made a major mistake in going after Romney & Ryan as they have. The elderly today arent the same people as twenty years ago" he noted. It was Eisenhower the 70s stagflation Carters ineptness and the Reagan recovery that shaped them not the New Deal. Their fear is not that Medicare and Social Security wont be there for them. They fear for their children and they want the programs fixed now. The Administration is making exactly the same mistake with its frenzied attacks on Mr. Romneys wealth and his supposedly heartless focus on spending. This isnt the 1930s or even the 50s. Americans have different economic views and priorities today and Mitt Romney fits those expectations very well. On the day John McCain delivered his acceptance speech to the St. Paul convention I wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the GOP was a party that doubts itself." There were many causes for lack of self-confidence. But none was so corrosive as the failure of spending restraint in Republican congresses and the Bush Administration from 2001 to 2006. Social conservatives felt with good reason that the Bush Administration had gone to bat for the issues they cared about. From the top down the administration was sincerely committed to what is sometimes termed the family agenda and was effective at pursuing it. National security conservatives were generally on board with Mr. Bushs prosecution of the War on Terror particularly after the late 2006 announcement of the surge in Iraq ended a period of corrosive passivity. But federal spending and the size and scope of government were different matters. The late Clinton years budget surpluses and declining federal debt had created new expectations about the fiscal management of the government. New standards made even less tolerable the jump up in domestic spending not to mention the failure after much fanfare to address the erosion of Social Securitys solvency. The financial crisis was still to come but once secure elements of the GOPs base were already drifting away when the party met inMinnesota. The Obama Team effectively played on that disillusionment in the fall and of course there was the Democrats calm focused bearing when the housing bubble burst compared to Senator McCains overwrought response. But even in August those who had once trusted the GOP on economics and restraint of government were in doubt and drift. So as it meets in Tampa the Republican Party is feeling a confidence and energy that were missing four years ago in 2008 while gathering in Minnesota.