Originally Posted by
Mal
Well, he has been trying this when it does come up. I don't frankly get the impression it's been working with the base right, and it's likely to be too nuanced to play with low info. undecideds, who couldn't care less about federalism theories and don't hear the dogwhistle there. It's much easier for Democrats to just paint him as running away from his own record, and as part of the overall picture they're trying to project of him as having few discernible principles.
In my experience, these are not "folks who might lean Republican" - people who are self-declared as economically conservative and socially moderate are overwhelmingly just Republicans, whether they self-label as such or not. I don't discount that there are a lot of these people who would have been terrified enough of Santorum that they might have sat out the general or even voted for Obama (indeed, I made that very point in a number of posts on the GOP primary thread), although I think that says more about GOP drift than the actual independence of these so-called independents, and to a large degree it will be negated by dampening Tea Party turnout. Romney's apparent sanity and calm provide cover for folks who prefer the Republican brand, yes. But if you're suggesting it will move the needle for actual independents and undecideds who didn't vote for McCain, however, I'd suggest I'm not the one being naive. I guess it's possible a significant portion of the undecided public's impression of the President is that he's now some sort of bully because he spoke too loudly in support of his signature domestic policy, and perhaps that impression will override any of the personal negatives the Democrats attempt to pile on Romney's persona over the next 6 months, but I'll need to see some evidence of a lot of people (who aren't Republicans) actually believing that, because it feels a little like false consensus effect to me. My impression has been that the general consensus is currently quite the opposite, based primarily on periodic polling of personal approval ratings, which show a broad disparity in favor of the President to date.