Obama vs. Romney: Battle of the Fairness Doctrines For months, President Obama has been making the case for what he calls the "American values of fair play" and accusing Republicans of pushing policies that unfairly benefit the rich over the middle class. The message is at the core of the campaign Mr. Obama's aides want to run against Mitt Romney, a man who they believe personifies the advantages wealthy people enjoy in an economy that has struggled for years to recover. But now it's clear that Mr. Romney is not about to cede fairness to his rival. In a new argument that he first offered in a primary victory speech on Tuesday, Mr. Romney is laying claim to his own version of the fairness issue. He argues that the policies pursued by Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies are fundamentally unfair to Americans. "I see an America with a growing middle class, with rising standards of living," he said, speaking in New Hampshire. This America is fundamentally fair. "And as I look around at the millions of Americans without work, the graduates who can't get a job, the soldiers who return home to an unemployment line, it breaks my heart," Mr. Romney added. This does not have to be. It's the result of failed leadership and a faulty vision. Call it the clash of the fairness doctrines. Mr. Obama and his advisers are betting on the frustration that many Americans feel when they see the growing gap between the economic successes of the wealthy and the continuing struggles of the middle class. And they scoff at the idea that Mr. Romney might lay claim to a fairness argument. "I have a high regard for the American people," said David Axelrod, a senior strategist for Mr. Obama. I don't think that they are going to be ultimately taken in by rhetoric that completely contradicts the reality of who he is and what his program would do. In an interview with The Caucus, Mr. Axelrod said that Mr. Romney argues for a trickle-down economic policy that directly benefits the wealthy. He quipped that Mr. Romney's embrace of fairness reminded him of a line by George Burns: "All you need to succeed in show business is sincerity, and if you can fake that, you got it made." "He can moralize about those things," Mr. Axelrod said of Mr. Romney. But his records don't match. Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies have spent much of the last several months trying to highlight the fairness issue. The president spoke about it in his State of the Union address in January. And Congress has debated Mr. Obama's "Buffet Rule," which the president casts as a measure to address fairness in the tax code. "When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich," Mr. Obama said to the joint session of Congress. It's because they understand that when I get a tax break I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference. But Mr. Romney, in his New Hampshire speech, made it clear he is unwilling to let his rival own that issue. And his words suggested that he wants to redefine how the American public looks at the question of fairness. Mr. Romney assailed what he called the "unfairness" of a lack of school choice, contribution requirements for union workers, higher benefits for government workers and growing federal debt that will burden future generations. "We will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the very taxpayers they serve," he said to loud applause. And - and we will stop the unfairness of one generation passing larger and larger debts onto the next. Stuart Stevens, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, declined to discuss the specific thinking about the campaign's embrace of fairness as a new theme in Mr. Romney's speeches. But he hinted that the new language would help Mr. Romney frame the next six months as a referendum on Mr. Obama's record in office and the impact on people's lives. "This is the beginning of an ongoing conversation where people are going to have to ask themselves do they believe that President Obama has accomplished what he set out to accomplish," Mr. Stevens said. Do they think their lives have improved? Mr. Stevens said that efforts to dissect Mr. Romney's speech in New Hampshire was "green room chatter" that would not matter in the end. "Someone who just got a promotion, got a new house, got a new car, and is able to tell their kid that they can go to college - that person is someone that believes that life is going in a positive direction," Mr. Stevens said. Unfortunately, there are a lot fewer of those people because of Barack Obama's policies and his failure. Neither campaign seems willing to give an inch on the question of which candidate would better address the sense of unfairness among the middle class. That suggests that the debate will intensify during the next six months as Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama both fight over how to define fairness in the context of the country's economic crisis. Whichever candidate wins that rhetorical battle may have the upper hand in convincing voters to turn out for him.