Game change!
There are moments in a political campaign where a candidate changes the course of an election. Reagan did it twice. First in his debate with Jimmy Carter, with his famous line, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago,” and again when he told Walter Mondale he would not take advantage of Mondale’s youth and inexperience.
We just saw a game change Thursday night. What did Mitt Romney do that changed the course of this election?
While Romney gave a good speech accepting the Republican nomination, it was not his speech that changed the election. It was his decision to invite Clint Eastwood and let Eastwood go off script that changed the election.
While the liberal media elites panned Eastwood’s brilliant mocking of Barack Obama, it connected with millions of real Americans in a way that even Romney’s carefully scripted speech and convention could not.
In his extemporaneous speech, Eastwood hit the homerun that Romney needs. Eastwood summed the election up in a few sentences that are right up there with some of Ronald Reagan’s greatest hits.
Eastwood said, “We own this country. We own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours. And -- so -- they are just going to come around and beg for votes every few years. It is the same old deal. But I just think it is important that you realize, that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.”
You know the Eastwood speech resonated so well with the American people because the left wing media spent so much time trying to call it crazy, rambling or just a failure.
Two days afterwards, the New York Times, the official newspaper of treason and favored rag for those all around the world who hate America, did yet another piece on Eastwood’s speech. The Times managed to find the obligatory anonymous Republican Delegates who grumbled about Eastwood’s appearance, but amazingly enough, they did not have a single delegate who was quoted by name.
Anonymous quotes are liberal journalism’s way of just making stuff up.
Eastwood’s quote and his entire monologue were a game changer. The Romney campaign needs to be all over this because it resonated in a very real way with the American people.
Unfortunately, professional political consultants who would not know what resonates with the American people if it bit them in the backside run most of these political campaigns.
Romney can destroy Obama with the message Eastwood delivered. If Romney’s campaign is smart they will let Eastwood be the voice of his campaign. A few well-placed commercials with Eastwood delivering the same script, albeit cleaned up just a bit.
Remember Clint Eastwood’s voice on the halftime commercial during the Super Bowl?
The message is simple and it will resonate with the average voter who does not tune in until a couple of weeks before the election. The messaging is beautiful and simple. Obama is not doing the job. We the people are the employers of the politicians and all we have to do is let them go.
Or perhaps the Romney campaign can borrow a line from another cultural icon and remind the American people they can tell Obama, “You’re fired.”
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