A new Salon column by UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller responds to what Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom called “hit[ting] a reset button for the fall campaign.” Moving from the primary to the general election, Fehrnstrom remarked, “everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”
Schaller argues that the Etch-a-Sketch metaphor is apt in that Romney aspires to “invite all center-right voters, be they hardcore conservatives or libertarian Republicans or fence-sitting moderates, to compose whatever sketch of him they find most appealing — and then vote, accordingly, for him.”
Instead of the presidential election, Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun column focuses on Maryland’s 6th District, which he calls “the only consequential contest on the ballot.” He writes that the Western Maryland district was recently redrawn to include to include chunks of heavily Democratic Montgomery County, with the intent to unseat Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett. Bartlett will debate Democratic nominee John Delaney four times in the next two weeks.
Update (10/18/2012): See Schaller’s newest Salon column, responding to the presidential debate, “Cool cat Obama shows his claws.”
Tags: CAHSS, PoliticalScience
