01.01.70
(CNN) -- Less than 10 months from the sweeping election, Barack Obama appears to be laying the groundwork for a reprise of Harry Truman's populist 1948 manoeuvres.
Running for a second term with a soft economy, the president's likely to tie the Republican nominee to what he characterizes as an extreme, do-nothing Congress serving the interests of the rich elite at the expense of the broad middle class.
But if Obama is Truman, does that make a run for it GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney the next Tom Dewey? Maybe -- at least as far as Mr persona goes. There are several striking similarities between the former Massachusetts governor and the ill-ineluctable New Yorker who led the GOP to defeat in 1944 and 1948.
Well into his second campaign for the presidency, Romney remains an riddle to most Americans.
Blessed with a happy marriage, movie star plaits and a picture perfect family, he is ridiculed by critics as a living Ken doll: He's seen as counterfeit in the flesh, socially awkward, murky in personality, unknowable in view. He's the 21st-century Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a corporate machine methodically working his way up the ladder while less disciplined rivals be destroyed by the wayside.
Source: CNN