I’m not too sure whether the “we’ll wake up one day to socialism if Obama is elected” line of attack is going to work this time around — Obama’s been president for almost 3 years, and as far as I’m concerned, so far, none of us have been sent to the Gulag’s yet. ¹ Nevertheless, Mitt Romney seems to think that this rhetoric is a sure-shot way to get Iowa Caucus goers to vote for him tomorrow:

“I think president Obama wants to make us a European style welfare state, where instead of being a merit society, we’re an entitlement society, where government’s role is to take from some and give to others. What I know is if they do that, they’ll substitute envy for ambition, and they’ll poison the very spirit of America and keep us from being one nation under God,” Romney said.

I would hope that people aren’t so stupid as to believe that if Obama didn’t bring socialism during his first term, he’s really going to bring it during his second term. But the truth is that rhetoric like this works, and works excellently. Labeling Obama as a “foreigner” has become a time-tested strategy for Republicans ever since John McCain ran for President against Obama in 2008 and deployed Sarah Palin to fight for “real Americans”. The effectiveness of these attacks have been jaw-dropping, as polls have consistently come up with results such as “51 percent of GOP voters believe Obama was born abroad” and “52 percent of GOP voters believe Obama sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists.”

Clearly, Romney won’t hold anything back when it comes to campaigning against Obama. Republican voters might eat it up, but I think that the ground is going to slide from beneath his feet if he gets the chance to deal with the general electorate.