In an appearance on Monday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume was asked by host Bill O’Reilly just how negative he thought former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney should go in the presidential campaign against President Barack Obama.
According to Hume, there will be some negative ads from Romney, but nothing like Obama who has really no other alternative.
“My thought about that would be that Romney will undoubtedly run a lot of ads that add up to saying that, and he will say it a lot himself and so will his surrogates on the campaign trail,” Hume said. “I think Romney has — look, I think Obama’s record is such a burden to him that he has no real choice but to go negative and go negative hard, which to a great extent he has.”
The reason Romney shouldn’t go as negative, Hume said, was to set up a contrast between him and the negativity of Obama.
“I think Romney is in a different position because when people turn to the prospect of, ‘Well OK, what happens if we elect him’ — he needs to radiate something of a positive spirit … I would just say that people need to believe that if they turn to him, he can make things better. And if he seems morose and negative all the time, he’ll fail to convey that sunny spirit. He needs a bit of sunlight in his message and I think that’s important to him. In a way that’s the game and it’s too late for Obama. He can have all the sunlight in his message that he wants. The results kind of speak for themselves.”