The Root's contributing editor David Swerdlick argues in a piece for New York's Daily News that the candidate's answer to a question about his "big idea" didn't make any sense.
When CBS' Scott Pelley asked Mitt Romney what his "big idea" was in this election, he went bold and unpredictable with: "Freedom."
It's the "I'm going to Disneyworld" of campaign answers — everyone's for it, no one's against it and most already feel like they have a personal understanding of what it means. It sounds so good that you can't blame Romney for saying that he wants "to restore the kind of freedom that has always driven America's economy" in last night's "60 Minutes" interview. You want to take him seriously, but based on his track record, you really can't.
Taken in the context that conservatives understand it, "freedom" is just how Romney described it — using the power of the free market to create more wealth, which leads to more investment, which leads to more jobs, which leads to more freedom, and so on. It's a compelling exposition of the American capitalist system. But in the context of this campaign, it's utterly untethered to the record.
Read David Swerdlick's entire piece at the New York Daily News.
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David Swerdlick is an associate editor at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.