The Republican campaign -- in black and white

Thomas Edsall finds plenty of evidence that the Republican campaign will be based on widening the gap between black and white, rich and poor, govenment and people.  Mitt Romney is several leagues down the road already.  His campaign exploits America's split personality.  Evidence of that split lies in stats that have been around for decades.

The campaign strategy adopted by Romney attempts to mitigate one of the problems facing Republicans pressing for major domestic spending cuts: the American public is highly conflicted on the subject of providing aid to people in need. While strongly opposed to “welfare,” decisive majorities support more spending in key public policy areas.

Polls conducted since 1972 by the General Social Survey show that by margins of two to one, voters consistently say too little is spent on the poor, on education, on health care, on drug treatment — the list is long.

This internal conflict on the part of voters – opposed to welfare but supportive of programs for the poor — demonstrates how important it is for each side to frame the debate in terms favorable to its own cause  — just what Romney is trying to do with his use of the catch phrase “entitlement society.” ...Thomas Edsall, NYT

Reframing the "entitlement" issue has been taken up by Romney, full time.

Romney’s goal is to persuade swing voters of the imminent moral and material danger that Obama and the Democratic party pose. Here are three more lines from [a] Romney op-ed:

Over the past three years, Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an Entitlement Society.

If we continue on this course for another four years, we may pass the point of no return. We will have created a society that contains a sizable contingent of long-term jobless, dependent on government benefits for survival.

Government dependency can only foster passivity and sloth.

This is not the Republicanism of compassionate conservatism, far from it. In recent weeks, the former Massachusetts Governor has laid down a set of markers planting himself firmly on the right – just as Obama has begun to stake out a more leftward position. In outline, we are seeing the beginning of the general election campaign. ...Thomas Edsall, NYT