Politico reports that there’s dissent in the Romney campaign over whether Mitt Romney should highlight the terrorist attack in Libya or stay exclusively focused on his economic message:
And indeed, POLITICO has learned that Romney now plans a major speech on foreign policy at some point after Wednesday’s debate, probably next week. The speech will focus on “a failed foreign policy and how we arrived at this moment, where people are storming our embassies, [and] the Iranians are storming ahead with their nuclear program,” said a senior Republican close to the campaign.
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But the campaign is sticking with its day-to-day message on the economy — a view promoted internally by Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist, who is among those arguing that issue is what voters will use to judge whether Obama deserves a second term. “As messy as the world looks, it’s not voters’ primary concern,” a top aide said. “And if we’re not talking about their primary concern, we’re not winning.”
So instead of having Romney lead the charge against Obama on Libya, the campaign plans to let Congress take care of it:
Instead, the Republican ticket will leave calls for an investigation to Capitol Hill, where both Republicans and Democrats have complained about the briefings they have received. “Let Congress do it: It’s a bipartisan thing, and that’s a better place for us to be,” a Romney adviser said.
The killings in Libya represent a serious threat to Obama’s credibility and his argument of cool competence in battling terrorism over the past three-plus years. Obama and his aides, after initially blaming an anti-Muslim film produced in the United States for inciting the violence, has gradually conceded it was the result of organized and premeditated terrorism.
Romney did have an insipid op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today about foreign policy, but he said next to nothing about the terrorist attack in Libya.
Meanwhile, American Crossroads has a new web video criticizing Obama for campaigning in Vegas after the attacks:
