Mitt Romney's theme of "optimistic nostalgia" was well-received by Republican convention-goers, but could it open him up to attacks from the Obama campaign that he lacks a forward-looking vision? That's what MSNBC's Chuck Todd suggested Thursday night.
"A two-word phrase that I've given to the speech is 'optimistic nostalgia,'" Todd, the host of MSNBC's Daily Rundown, told Rachel Maddow. "I was struck by how many times I felt like I heard phrases that included the words 'return to,' 'restore to.' And it played very well in this crowd, and I've heard that before."
But Todd added that there's a risk to embracing that theme.
"It also reminded me of another recent nominee's speech that did that. And at the time it played well, but it handed the incumbent Democratic president something to run against. And that was Bob Dole in '96, and Bill Cinton. Bob Dole was talking about nostalgia, where he was almost trying to paint the the Clinton presidency as ... sort of a bump that got in the way of the story of America. And I felt like that's what Romney was trying to do tonight. But I think there's a risk there, if you look like you're looking too nostalgic. Are you looking forward enough?"
Todd said he thinks the Romney campaign is aware of the problem.
"Now I actually think that they've worried about that," he said. "Because I heard at the end the word 'future' three times, to say 'no, no, no, we are talking about the future.' But [optimistic nostalgia] just felt like the whole theme. And I wouldn't be surprised if you see the Obama folks sort of respond to this sort of nostalgic past, to try to move forward."
Maddow appeared to agree. "There is a reason why Obama picked that campaign slogan, 'forward,' I think anticiapting that kind of nostalgia that you're talking about, Chuck," she said.
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As a 69-year-old, I could be nostalgic too, but as a dad helping pay down my daughter's college loans, and concerned that my generally good health won't last forever as I make do on Social Security, I have to be forward-looking. What I see in the Romney vision is not very encouraging for the long term. Whatever warm fuzziness the RNC elicited is cold comfort juxtaposed on the stated positions on Romney's warmongering tone at the end of his speech and some pointed suggestions about pressing social intrusions into family planning, religious freedom, quality of education and broader quality of life overall. Chuck was right. It's the same old GOP clinging to an imagined past, when what we need is more clear visions for the future.
In recent years the GOP has taken on a sort of 'good old days' style of campaigning... as if things were all oh so better in the past.
The past... when there was no women's right to vote... when 'No Coloreds' signs were everywhere... when there were no child labor laws...
What I think is intreresting is that there was no talk at all about real job creation by his party. Only that more tax cuts would make things better...I found it interesting that Romney talks to women while being fine with cuting womens health care...about abortion in any case...to make the claim he is for womens rights..yet shut the door on their personal health is absurd to me. I really have to wonder if he believes any of his own statements.
Sentimental appeals to the past were a standard tactic of the early fascists, who evoked traditions and trades and ways of life that their elite backers had had a big hand in destroying.
No difference here. Just a very narrow view of what 'counts': yourself, your family, your neighborhood. That's it. The limitations of the GOP were proudly on display.
Romney´s audience that looks
like Eastern Germany seems to be spellbound with his paradoxical speech. Yet, according
to Jesus Christ, you should judge a man by his work and not by his word. Even though I did not hear any of the
republican mantra, I got an understanding of the speech´s discussions. As I heard the discussion of the republican
presidential convention, I wonder how some Americans even journalists can be so
idiot to be fool by Romney and his dirty gang of vampire’s bloodsuckers. A man who made billions by sending thousands
of Americans workers home broke without health and dental insurance and even
took the life of the wife of a fellow American. A man who let American
industries in desolation, which were worse than Katrina because he gave jobs to
the Chinese to get cheaper product. He sounds
like der deutsche Reichkanzler Adolph Hitler who led Germany into
destruction.