"The antiwar movement must step up to its responsibility to make this a referendum on the war".
Winston continued, arguing that right after winning the primaries, Governor Romney's campaign decided to focus on making this a referendum on President Obama's record.
"Let's make this a referendum on everything that's bothering you about life right now," he paraphrased the Republicans as saying, before adding: "It is not a referendum.
He's trying to avoid making this a referendum on his last term and wants to make it a choice between a decisive leader capable of steering a country through great upheaval and someone who is compared to caramel pudding.
"If our opponents want to make this a referendum on Bill Clinton's presidency, they are making a mistake," Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, said in an e-mail message, "both because it's a referendum they would lose on the merits and because Democrats are focused on the future and the change that needs to be made going forward".
The dominance of UK titles in Scotland has made this a very difficult referendum debate for Scottish readers to follow, not least because the Scottish media are dominated by a press that to varying degrees promotes the unionist cause.
There were those in the party who warned of the dangers of making this election a referendum on a project that was still in its birth pangs.
It's an attempt to make this election a referendum on Obama and the economy, rather than a choice between Obama and Romney.
"House Democratic candidates will make this election a referendum on the Republican budget that gives millionaires a $394,000 tax cut while costing seniors thousands of dollars more for Medicare and that gives oil companies a tax cut while giving middle class families a college tuition hike," said Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
But it's crucial to understanding the risk that the Democrats are taking if they set out to make this election a referendum on abortion.
