Romney's Performance Sounded Good, But Devil Is in the Details

About Brad Bannon:

Brad Bannon is president of Bannon Communications Research, a political polling and consulting firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups, and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns.

The Republican National Convention was long on happy talk and short of substance. The GOP presidential and vice presidential candidates told us what nice guys they are and that the country is headed in the wrong direction. What the candidates and their surrogates didn't tell us was where they wanted to take the country or how they would get us there.

The lack of substance at the GOP conclave was ironic because the Republicans used their giant media photo op to criticize President Barack Obama for being long on style and short of substance during his 2008 presidential campaign. The GOP claims that Obama was able to win the White House by using vague platitudes like "change" to cover up the specifics of his plan to bring European style socialism to America.

But that didn't stop the Republicans in Tampa from using vague platitudes to cover up their plans to hand over the United States to the Koch brothers and their banker and billionaire buddies. Now you can't accelerate the transfer of wealth to the financial big dogs unless you take the money from somebody else. The irony here is that the big dogs are driving to the U.S. Treasury with Mitt Romney in a cage on top of the roof of their armored car.

[See a Slideshow of the 11 Most Memorable Political Convention Speeches.]

You can hardly blame candidates Romney and Ryan for not talking about the devil in their details because their plan would scare the living daylights out of voters. The blueprint for their administration is in the budget that Paul Ryan wrote and Mitt Romney says he supports. The Romney/Ryan budget would let corporate canines like the Koch brothers avoid paying their fair share of taxes. But there's no free lunch for bankers and billionaires, so the GOP would make up the money by cutting back on free school lunches for poor kids, funding for healthcare for seniors, education loans to college kids, and prenatal care for pregnant women. Forget about all that, we can't afford them and find $4 billion a dollars in tax freebies for the oil companies.

The happy talk should give Romney a bounce which will last a week until the president gets his boost from the Democratic convention. Then we'll get down to the nitty gritty which will blow away all the happy talk and hot air that came out of Tampa.

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Barack Obama,

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2012 presidential election,

Mitt Romney