President Obama's complex campaign message poses a challenge The slogans of both campaigns are simple: "Putting Jobs First" for Mitt Romney, "Forward" for President Obama. But when it comes to the core message that each candidate is trying to get across in TV ads and campaign appearances, Romney has boiled it down to a simple argument. Obama has not. As the president himself readily acknowledges, the simplicity of his Republican challenger's case lends itself to easy persuasion. Romney, Obama told campaign donors last week in Beverly Hills, reminds voters constantly of their unhappiness with the stalled economy. "That's the essence of their campaign," he said. It's very easy to put on a bumper sticker: 'It's Obama's Fault.'  Blaming Obama is indeed the premise of Romney's argument, along with a promise to create jobs by shrinking government. Obama's counter-argument is layered with nuance and complexity. It starts with an attempt to undercut Romney. As a corporate buyout executive, Romney shipped jobs overseas and reaped millions of dollars in fees from takeover deals that destroyed U.S. factory jobs, the Obama campaign says. As Massachusetts governor, Romney built a poor record on job creation, the argument continues. Turning to his own record, Obama tells voters that he inherited an economy on the brink of collapse and averted a depression. He takes credit for a resurgence in manufacturing, the rescue of the automobile industry and the creation of more than 4 million jobs since February 2010. Obama also slams Republicans in Congress for blocking his plans to stimulate more jobs. To inoculate himself from potential setbacks over the summer and fall, he warns of economic trouble spilling over from Europe. In the end, Obama says, he would keep the country moving forward while Romney would take it back to theGeorge W. Bushpolicies that wrecked the economy in the first place. All in all, it is more a narrative than a bumper sticker, and that's a potential problem for Obama. Complicating matters are caveats in the narrative. It's not that Romney was wrong to reap profits on corporate buyouts, goes one, it's that the factory jobs lost along the way show that Romney was not concerned about the lives that were upended by his lucrative deals. "Simplicity is important," said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. A powerful message has to be self-explanatory. It is no easy feat for a president to craft a compelling argument for a second term in tough economic times, as Jimmy Carter andGeorge H.W. Bush can attest. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton each showed how a challenger can shape a clear message calling upon voters to oust a president who has failed to turn around an ailing economy. Reagan and Clinton each had the good fortune of an economy on the mend when they went on to seek reelection. "The messages you can run on have to reflect reality," said John G. Geer, author of "In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns." Obama can't run on 'Morning in America.' So he has to go to a more complicated argument. However simple Romney's case, his success is no sure thing. Polls have found Obama retaining a slight edge over Romney, whose periodic missteps have given the president ample fodder to turn against his rival. Most recently, Romney appeared in Las Vegas with Donald Trump, who upstaged the candidate by suggesting anew that Obama has failed to prove he was born in America and thus qualified for the presidency. Still, Don Sipple, a veteran Republican ad maker, suggested Obama's case for reelection could prove too convoluted for many of the battleground-state voters who will decide the election in November. "Obama may have this wonderful case that he can make in a courtroom against Romney," Sipple said. But campaigns are not conducted in a courtroom. A built-in advantage for Romney, he said, is voter anger over high unemployment. "All he has to do is tie Obama to the discontent," Sipple said. He has a much simpler task. Tad Devine, a top advisor to Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 campaign for president, said Obama's main messaging task is to give meaning to the "Forward" slogan. There remains plenty of time for Obama to do that, he said, with maximum exposure in his September speech at the Democratic National Convention, his fall debates with Romney and the closing months of heavy TV advertising. For now, he said, Obama's top priority is to stoke doubts about Romney's record in business and government. "It's very important for them to define Romney on the terms of their choosing, particularly on job creation," Devine said. You can't try to do too many things at once. So far, the path each side has taken suggests a larger struggle over the election's framework, said John C. Green, an Ohio political scientist at the University of Akron. Will it be a referendum on Obama, which would work in Romney's favor, he said, or a choice between two competing visions for the country, which would help the president? Either way, Green said, both sides have good reason to strive for simplicity. "The electorate tends to respond to clear messages," he said. And the electorate generally doesn't do as well in interpreting nuance.