By now everyone has heard the Mitt Romney "slip" to Time magazine that he would wait to enact austerity measures because of the dramatic toll it would take on GDP. Yes, you read that right... Romney now admits that Austerity as offered by the tea party rank and file, would devastate our economy and drive us into a recession of depression as Krugman has predicted. SO now he is saying that he would stand against his congressional allies to oppose such measures if he were president.
There has been a rather predictable knee-jerk reaction to this statement with many saying that he will recant once he is told what he should have said. I suggest something different...
I believe what we are seeing is the beginning of his general campaign strategy. With Austerity driving the potential breakup of the EU, and with the crumbling infrastructure starting to take its toll on voters, Romney is going to place himself to the left of the tea partiers in an attempt to attract moderate voters. This is a cynical ploy to say... "yep, I would do what Obama would do, but this way you dont have to live with that untrustworthy muslim in office." I suggest this slip a slip at all. He is laying out his general strategy to the "moderates." "I am not as crazy as the tea partiers, and I am not a black/radical/foreign as Obama." Policy has little to do with it. He already gets that it doesnt really take a CEO to run a country, and that the VC world doesnt work with voters. What he does get is blind hatred, and he is planning on using that.
His underlying plan is the same as always, the selling off of all public good in the U.S. from its schools to meat inspections. Plenty of profit to be made by all of his friends, even the ones that already own NASCAR teams. And I believe it is true that he will not enact Austerity right away. He will first privatize everything, then use government dollars to pay for the more expensive way of doing things. You know... the Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Jan Brewer way. The only real Austerity to be imposed is cutting government accountability offices so that we dont know everything just got a whole lot more expensive.
So gentle readers, look for more "slips" in the future, along with a recant or two perhaps. But the messaging will be clear... "you will not have to deal with austerity if you vote for me..." Except of course, you will.