Why Deficit Hysteria Sells

salon.com — President Obama’s reelection prospects depend on swing voters considering not just the current state of the economy, but also the factors that led us here and the economic vision that Mitt Romney would bring to the presidency. Romney’s hopes, on the other hand, depend on those same voters either ignoring or rationalizing away the context that Obama tries to introduce and simply voting him out because of their profound economic anxiety. This often results in maddeningly deceptive messaging from Romney and his allies. There’s nothing very complicated going on here, just an attempt to connect an everywoman’s despair about what a weak economy has done to her family with a bunch of scary-seeming statistics about spending and debt under Obama.

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