Mitt Romney, the GOP's Anti-Visionary
I'll admit it: I'm not entirely sure what to say about Mitt Romney's convention-capping speech tonight, in part because Mitt Romney appears not to have been sure what to say either.
It's kind of amazing, actually. Romney managed to say even less about what he would do as president than he usually does. Despite Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan's promise earlier today that Romney would discuss his plans for the country in "granular" detail, Romney offered almost nothing in the way of a governing vision, much less specific legislative goals. Instead, he criticized Obama for running up too much debt, and, in practically the same breath, for cutting spending on Medicare and the defense budget. Vote Republican!
The closest Romney got to a specific policy promise was his declaration that he'd set North America on the course for energy independence by 2020 as part of his jobs plan. Which sounds pretty awesome, I agree. But it would have sounded much more awesome if he had also promised to feature dragons, centaurs, and unicorns at the National Zoo by the same year, and been just as plausible. But it hardly matters, because that's not what the GOP actually stands for in 2012. The party barely stands for anything. And Romney, the man who once declared himself a non-partisan Republican, a moderate whose views were "progressive" is not just visionless but is at this point actively anti-visionary. Republicans are against Obama, and not a whole lot else. That's something. But it's not much.