President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden must think their voters are really stupid.

For example, who is going to believe Biden after he told a large black audience that Romney is going to put "y'all back in chains?" Then there's the Obama campaign, which suggested Mitt Romney might be a felon who tortured his dog, didn't pay any taxes and might be responsible for a woman's death five years after her husband was laid off. Where's the hope and change in that? All we get from Obama-Biden these days is fear and smears.

In Obama's 2008 speech accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president, he said: "If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things."

Obama clearly has no new ideas. The tax-and-spend routine of the last four years is an old Democratic idea going back decades. So Obama has to try and scare voters about Romney and hide from his record of failure.

This election must be about big ideas. Thus far, Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan have presented detailed plans to deal with job creation, fiscal responsibility, energy and a host of other issues. Rather than debate these issues, we've seen Obama trying to change the subject with negative campaign tactics.

Obama-Biden really must believe their voters are too stupid to notice.

Michael Miller

Bluffton