The 2012 presidential campaign is, well, “almost like an Etch A Sketch,” as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s top adviser Eric Fehrnstrom infamously asserted.
Speaking after Romney’s big win in the Illinois primary in March, Fehrnstrom continued, “You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”
Fehrnstrom and Romney undoubtedly spent weeks trying to undo the colossal misstep that’s now simply known as the “Etch A Sketch gaffe.”
The mainstream media and Romney’s opponents, of course, twisted Fehrnstrom’s words beyond recognition. That was expected, as any big slip-up will be pounced on by the opposition the moment it hits the airwaves.
The real question is: What if Fehrnstrom was right?
The Republican presidential primary has been a battle of the like-minded. The candidates are identical in almost every way, except maybe wardrobe.
The GOP candidates want to cut taxes, cut spending and move money out of Washington and into the hands of the American people. The only real argument is over who could get this job done best.
Come November, it’s a whole different ball game.
While the GOP contest has been about sweater vests and tax returns, the general election in November will be about differing policy and political platform. More than anything, it will be about the things that actually interest voters who are in need of a job.
What Fehrnstrom meant to say is, “Hey, when we face President Obama in the fall, we’re going to take a whole different approach. We’re shifting gears and we’re connecting with voters on a broader base.”
The general election campaign will be miles apart from what we’re seeing now, mainly because we won’t be seeing two or three identical candidates. We’ll be seeing President Obama face a Republican nominee who represents everything anti-Obama.
Granted, when a campaign lacks big priority arguments, the smaller ones become big, and sometimes they illicit outright falsities.
In the 2000 Republican presidential primary, Arizona Sen. John McCain took heat from an anonymous smear campaign that claimed he had fathered a black child out of wedlock. In reality, the claims were in reference to the McCains’ adopted daughter from Bangladesh.
In 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was pushed out of the Democratic presidential primary namely because of a clip from his concession speech following the Iowa caucuses. The “Dean Scream,” as it’s now known, took an exuberant speech and portrayed it as the big media gaffe that ended his campaign.
This year’s Republican primary is so void of actual substance it’s laughable.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum aired the ridiculous “Obamaville” ad, which puts a cheesy 1970s horror-film spin on the state of American politics – an ad rendered useless in gaining traction.
Things like this don’t matter in a general election because there are pertinent issues involved and people’s livelihood at stake.
We’ll soon have two major candidates that clearly differ in their political ideology and positions on economic issues, and that’s what their arguments will center on.
We’ll have no more arguments over who has more money or who is buying the election, because in all likelihood the two sides will have equal financial and organizational resources.
Soon, we can move on from the petty arguments over tax returns or how many Cadillacs Romney owns – things that have dominated the GOP primary election this cycle.
Don’t worry. There is, in fact, light at the end of the tunnel. And I think I speak for every politically-inclined individual when I say: Let’s get this show on the road.
Matthew Westfall is a 23-year-old mass communication senior from Winchester, Va. Follow him Twitter @TDR_mwestfall.
 
 
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Contact Matthew Westfall at [email protected].