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An excellent summary of why a Romney win would make the playbook for future
races: lie and hope no one notices/cares.
Mitt Romney’s campaign insults voters By Editorial
Board<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-posts-view/2011/12/07/gIQAoEIscO_page.html>,
Updated: Friday, November 2, 12:34 PM

THROUGH ALL THE flip-flops, there has been one consistency in the campaign
of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: a contempt for the
electorate.

How else to explain his refusal to disclose essential information? Defying
recent bipartisan tradition, he failed to release the names of his
bundlers<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-romneys-secret-bundlers/2012/06/09/gJQAkAqkQV_story.html>—
the high rollers who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in
donations. He never provided sufficient tax
returns<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/romney-earned-nearly-14-million-in-2011-paid-141-percent-tax-rate-campaign-says/2012/09/21/e62e5096-0417-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_story.html>to
show voters how he became rich.

How, other than an assumption that voters are too dim to remember what Mr.
Romney has said across the years and months, to account for his
breathtaking ideological shifts? He was a friend of immigrants, then a
scourge of immigrants, then again a friend. He was a Kissingerian foreign
policy realist, then a McCain-like hawk, then a purveyor of peace. He
pioneered Obamacare, he detested Obamacare, then he found elements in it to
cherish. Assault weapons were bad, then good. Abortion was okay, then bad.
Climate change was an urgent problem; then, not so much. Hurricane cleanup
was a job for the
states<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/hurricane-sandy-highlights-how-obama-and-romney-respond-to-disasters/2012/10/29/85ae66a2-21db-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html>,
until it was once again a job for the feds.

The same presumption of gullibility has infused his misleading commercials
(see: Jeep jobs to
China<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/30/four-pinocchios-for-romneys-jeep-ad/>)
and his refusal to lay out an agenda. Mr. Romney promised to replace the
Affordable Care Act but never said with what. He promised an alternative to
President Obama’s lifeline to young undocumented immigrants but never
deigned to describe it.

And then there has been his chronic, baldly dishonest defense of mathematically
impossible budget
proposals<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-romneys-tax-plan-still-doesnt-add-up/2012/10/28/3ba4d9d0-1fa4-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_story.html>.
He promised to cut income tax rates without exploding the deficit or
tilting the tax code toward the rich — but he refused to say how he could
bring that off. When challenged, he cited “studies” that he maintained
proved him right. But the studies were a mix of rhetoric, unrealistic
growth projections and more serious economics that actually proved him
wrong.

This last is important — maybe the crux of the next four years. History has
shown that it’s a lot easier to cut taxes than to reduce spending.
Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush promised to do both,
managed to do only the first and (with plenty of help from Congress)
greatly increased the national debt.

Now Mr. Romney promises to reduce income tax rates by one-fifth — for the
rich, that means from 35 percent to 28 percent — and to raise defense
spending while balancing the budget. To do so, he would reduce other
spending — unspecified — and take away deductions — unspecified. One of the
studies he cited, by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, said Mr. Romney
could make the tax math work by depriving every household earning $100,000
or more of all of its charitable deductions, mortgage-interest deductions
and deductions for state and local income taxes.

Does Mr. Romney favor ending those popular tax breaks? He won’t say. But he
did take issue with Mr. Feldstein’s definition of the middle class: Mr.
Romney said he would protect households earning $250,000 or
less<http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-george-stephanopoulos-and-mitt-romney/>.
In which case the Feldstein study did not vindicate the Romney arithmetic —
it refuted it. Yet the candidate has continued to cite the study.

Within limits, all candidates say and do what they have to say and do to
win. Mr. Obama also has dodged serious interviews and news conferences. He
has offered few specifics for a second-term agenda. He, too, aired
commercials that distorted his opponent’s statements.

But Mr. Obama has a record; voters know his priorities. His budget plan is
inadequate, but it wouldn’t make things worse.

Mr. Romney, by contrast, seems to be betting that voters have no memories,
poor arithmetic skills and a general inability to look behind the curtain.
We hope the results Tuesday prove him wrong