By Philip Rucker

The Washington Post

July 15, 2011

By making the economy an almost exclusive focus of his campaign, Romney has raised the expectations for what he eventually will propose and has some policy gurus in his own party openly wondering whether the presidential front-runner has sound proposals to deal with the big problems he says he is uniquely positioned to solve.

“I think at some point he has to say more than just, ‘I’ve got 25 years experience and I’ve done it,’ ” said Steve Bell, a former top policy adviser to Senate Republicans. “Somebody’s going to say, ‘Well, what do you mean you’ve done it? ... Other than just platitudes, what specifically are you going to do to create jobs?’ ”

Bell, now a senior director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, speculated that Romney is “afraid” to offer specifics, adding: “The answers to some of these problems, if you are really rigorously honest about them, are answers that will make the tea party element of the party unhappy.”

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Economic Policy Project