Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Romney's got issues

_{Visual source: Newseum}

Jared Bernstein:

The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) worked a lot better, and at a much lower cost, than is commonly recognized.

TARP and related interventions by the Federal Reserve helped reactivate credit markets long before they would have recovered on their own, helped to stabilize the housing market, helped save the U.S. auto industry and helped prevent recession from morphing into something worse. And they did so for far less than early estimates and prior rescues had suggested were possible.

NY Times:

Campaign Memo
Forget Flip-Flopper; Romney Is Extreme, Says Obama Camp

Mitt Romney may be inclined to start moving to the political center now that he's practically got the Republican nomination won and done, but the Obama campaign would much rather keep him right where he's been for the past few months: in the conservative territory he staked out while battling for Republican primary voters.

Chris Cillizza:

Republicans have a Hispanic problem.

Unless they can find ways to begin convincing the nation's fastest growing population ' Hispanics accounted for half of all the growth of the U.S. population over the last decade ' that the GOP is a potential political home for them, they won't remain a credible national party in 2016, 2020 and beyond.

AP/WSJ:

The pregame warm-up is over.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's urgent task now: Learn the lessons of a primary season peppered with tactical and communications errors that cost time and money while reinforcing doubts about him.

It's a must, even allies say, given that he now faces Democratic President Barack Obama's well-oiled machine, battle-tested and prepared to face the eventual Republican nominee.

NY Times:

The recent flurry of socially conservative legislation, on issues ranging from expanding gun rights to placing new restrictions on abortion, comes as Republicans at the national level are eager to refocus attention on economic issues.

Some Republican strategists and officials, reluctant to be identified because they do not want to publicly antagonize the party's base, fear that the attention these divisive social issues are receiving at the state level could harm the party's chances in November, when its hopes of winning back the White House will most likely rest with independent voters in a handful of swing states.

As political scientist John Sides says, party identification matters. And the Republican brand will be an anchor around Romney's neck.

Colbert King on Reconstruction politics:

'Among their many goals was to keep Bourbon money in Bourbon pockets. They limited the state's taxing power, abolished boards and offices (including the board of education), allowed the state debt to be settled in ways not fully understood today, and prohibited state support for projects such as river improvement and railroad construction.' Any of that sound familiar?

Continuing: 'The Bourbon [Democratic-written] constitution of 1875 was a victory for prosperous . . . Alabamians who did not want to pay taxes to improve the lives of those less fortunate than themselves and who did not want to finance commercial development that did not benefit them directly.' What contemporary political party comes to mind?

Charles Blow:

If Romney is to have a shot in November, he must convince voters that their affinity for the president can diverge from their support of him, that they can be for the president as a person but vote against him, that they can't afford their own affection.

It is an interesting tactic that likely has limited application, but one group that, at this point, seems to me to be most receptive to that argument is unmarried men.

Obama's got a few issues, too, but I'd rather have his odds.