"It's already begun. As Romney continues his party-unification tour around the country, Obama has launched attack ads on Bain. Obama's campaign can't afford to let Romney define himself without getting their side of his story out. Behind all the furor over Obama's anti-Bain ads is the beginning of a long set of opposing arguments about government and the economy. The discussions about Romney's personality are a sideshow to fill time for pollsters and pundits.
"The Obama campaign's ads are not attacking Romney's brains, wealth or success. Unlike the allegations that John Kerry did not deserve his silver star or that George W Bush used family connections to avoid military service, none of the ads are denying Romney's accomplishments.
"Instead they are questioning the applicability and desirability of his methods for governing an entire country. The Obama campaign scores only if it persuades people that what was good for Bain won't work for America.
"Obama's actual statements about Romney's time at Bain have been carefully phrased to argue that private equity is 'a healthy part of the economy,' but that being good at 'buying and selling companies' or maximizing profits for investors leaves Romney 'with little understanding of the job that a president needs to do.' Romney's working assumption, Obama says in his speeches, is: 'if CEOs and wealthy investors like [Romney] get rich, then the rest of us automatically will too.' (Obama and his fellow Democrats have their own Wall Street donors to keep happy, but I don't think you can challenge the credentials of a private equity star without pointing out the dark side of corporate restructuring by private equity investors and ruffling a few feathers.)
"So far, what the Obama campaign has given us is just a minor rehash of some old story lines used against Mitt in his failed 1994 Senate run against Ted Kennedy, and then elaborated by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry in the Republican primaries.
"If he ends up simply attacking Romney for union busting, job cutting or 'vulture capitalism,' Obama loses. He only wins if he can persuade people that growing the whole economy requires a policy approach that Romney has already opposed, doesn't appreciate or will not enact. Without that, what evidence is there that a venture capitalist cannot simply apply his skills to growing the entire economy as America's CEO?
"Mitt's campaign has had an easy time defending against the Bain ads by recycling comments from high-profile Democrats (Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former Obama 'car czar' Steve Rattner) who criticized the ads and defended private equity - as if the issue raised by Obama was whether private equity firms ought to be allowed to exist. So far, Romney hasn't needed to go beyond the obvious point - that he knows more about business than a law professor and community organizer - to explain what specific policies he will propose.