Robert Samuelson Frames The Presidential Debate

Robert Samuelson tells his readers that character assassination by both sides in the election campaign is the wrong way to run an election campaign.  He argues that there are substantive differences between the two candidates that the public should understand.  He describes Obama as "distributionalist", or a Robinhood, who wants to take from the rich and give to the poor.  Romney is an "expansionist" who believes that we can grow our way out of our economic problems.  He assumes that Romney's approach to economic growth, by restoring business confidence, will succeed, but he does not believe that we can grow our way out of our fiscal imbalance.  Samuelson believes that neither side wants to deal with the real problem. Both campaigns should tell voters how they will cut spending on entitlement programs that we can't afford.  They both should become deficit hawks and let the public decide on the best way to cut social welfare spending.  Romney has already told us that he supports the Ryan plan that was passed by the GOP House. Moreover, he can't cut taxes, as he proposes, without implementing the Ryan plan.  Samuelson, of course, know this.  The real point that he wants to make in this article is that Democrats should stop telling voters bad things about Romney's character because it might be working.  Its easier for voters to understand his character than it is to understand the substance that is easily obscured by opinion leaders like Samuelson.