E.J. Dionne and the Republican "Go For Broke" Strategy

I'm sorry.  I did it again.  I know, I know....I 'm not supposed to read E.J. Dionne.  But sometimes, the temptation is too much.  Like this morning.  Perhaps it was the headline:  "Mitt Romney and the Go-For-Broke Election".   Whatever it was, Dionne did not disappoint.   Once again, he pontificates from his position well to the left of the nation's center and declares himself to be the center.  Once again, he looks at what Republicans do and finds horror and shame, while ignoring the same conduct from Democrats. 

His attempt to "explain" to all of us the President's pro-business, capitalist ways strikes reasonable people as odd in the face of what we know, what we've heard, what we've seen.  Echoing the fashionable talking point that the President was "taken out of context", Dionne assures us that in the same speech, Obama "...praised “hard work,” “responsibility” and “individual initiative.”  Was this after he minimized the importance of hard work and intelligence, to the affirmation of his sycophantic congregation?

 Dionne does have it right--there are fewer undecideds than in previous elections, a function of the truly distinctive nature of the candidates views.  Ensuring a huge turnout from "the base" is something both candidates have to pull off.  But in Dionneland, only Romney appears to be doing so, while Obama's obvious pandering on gay marriage, birth control and soaking the rich represents the moderate, centrist policies of this moderate and centrist President.  

Finally, there is the concept of a "go-for-broke" election.  Is Dionne serious?  Does he believe that a candidacy built around re-distribution of wealth, the growth of the reach and scope of government, the expansion of the bankrupting capacities of public sector unions, and the demonization of free enterprise--echoing through a the tunnel of David Axelrod's tear Romney apart personally strategy--is somehow something less than a "go-for-broke" strategy? 

Come on, E.J.  Put on your big boy pants.