With 17 months to go before the 2012 presidential election, we’re already bombarded with coverage of the presidential wanta-be’s. CNN’s Monday night debate featuring Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain, showed us what we already know: candidates are banking on “anti-Obama” being good enough for American voters.
Political experts tell us that voters are more likely to cast votes against a candidate they don’t like than for someone whose ideas they do like. Monday night, it was obvious that that’s the GOP strategy.
Relentlessly, the New York Times wrote, candidates kept turning the conversation back to the president, bashing him on the economy, the budget deficit, and health care.
It’s a given, that if you’re running for president these two years, you don’t think the in guy is the guy. We get that.
So it’d certainly be refreshing to hear why we should like those seven who are actively running, rather than just more anti-Obama rhetoric about why we should vote against him.
It’s going to be a long campaign.