100 Day Sprint: 8 Reflections on Tampa
So the Republican National Convention is over — I’m sure all of you followed the coverage closely on NCPR’s airwaves. Here are my eight takeaways, before I head out camping for a few days and leave politics behind.
Four Positives
1. The message of America as a fundamentally entrepreneurial society, a place where progress happens because individuals hustle to make a buck and build stuff, is a powerful one and it came through loud and clear this week. Even when all the fact-checkers have done their work, and the footnotes have been applied, Republicans make a strong claim to the idea that this is still the core mission of their party: freeing up individuals to succeed (or fail) economically. Like all great political rallying cries, it’s simple and straightforward and, for a lot of Americans, intensely desirable.
2. The Republican Party as an institution is far more diverse than the Republican Party’s base. This is a weird reality of modern political life in America. The GOP is increasingly a movement defined by white, rural folks who want and believe things that are often out of step with the broader cross-section of the US. But the top elected officials, and name brand politicians — and I’m not just talking Marco Rubio and Condie Rice — come from diverse, complex, cosmopolitan backgrounds. I think that chemistry bodes well for the future of the conservative movement.
3. The polls look better and better for Mitt Romney. As the week progressed, we saw numbers from more battleground states suggesting a tie. And in a presidential race, when the incumbent is in a tie, he’s generally in trouble. Romney emerges from the convention with a ton of cash, with a unified base, and with a much broader path to victory than he had just a week ago. Whatever other quibbles emerge (see below), the convention helped position Romney for an upset victory, something I would have said was very, very unlikely mid-summer.
4. I think Mitt Romney’s speech honed in on a real weakness in Obama’s re-election message. Four years ago, when the economy was imploding, Obama pushed some big ideas that weren’t directly linked to the idea of getting people back to work. Too many of the things Obama fought for haven’t even kicked in yet. In an election where it’s all about jobs-jobs-jobs, Romney focused instead on nuts-and-bolts stuff. Whether or not you think his ideas are the right ones, his focus is politically astute. It feels grounded and, to borrow a phrase that Romney would probably embrace, business-like.
Now four negatives.
1. Far, far too much of the Republican message is based on big, whopperish, and meaningful lies. I’m not talking about the little, fudgy stuff that all politicians indulge in. I’m talking about broad strokes, fundamental things that leave you wondering if these guys even bothered to connect the dots themselves. When Paul Ryan is suddenly campaigning as a defender of Medicare entitlements, as someone who thinks the government should have saved even more automobile factories, and as someone who supported the bipartisan debt reduction plan (which he helped scuttle), it doesn’t just border on the Orwellian. It is Orwellian.
2. Far, far too many of the GOP’s attacks on Barack Obama are based on (sorry for the echo) big, whopperish, and meaningful lies. If Obama’s record is so bad, make the case using facts and real stories. Don’t cynically edit video tape to suggest that the president said something that he just didn’t say. Don’t invent lies about the work requirements in Federal welfare programs. Don’t pretend that the stimulus was gobbled up by fraud. If the guy in the White House is really a threat to the Republic, surely you can tell that story right up the middle, with a minimum fudging. The fact that Team Romney hasn’t gone that route, the fact that they’ve been caught again and again telling fibs, will give a lot of voters pause, especially moderate women who could decide the election.
3. Republicans still don’t quite know how to talk about the fact that we live in a big, complicated society where government is integral to just about everything we do — yes, including starting and running businesses. I cover business a lot. And I can tell you on a simple, factual basis that there is almost no significant economic activity in America today, from Wall Street to farms to the new biotech companies that just moved to Saranac Lake, that doesn’t involve government at some level. (In the case of Midwestern agribusiness, government is hardwired into industry.) If the GOP wants to change all that, they need to explain how the change will work. How do we compete with the Chinese (and the Germans and the Canadians) whose companies are boosted regularly by government investment and infrastructure? The “I built that” message works politically and emotionally (see #1 above) but it hasn’t been accurate in America at least since government subsidies built the Trans-continental Railroad and the big dam projects in the West.
4. Republicans are still trying to win by making nervous, angry white people more nervous and more angry. A lot of the GOP’s leaders know that the “real America” no longer looks like the America that their white, rural Christian base prefers, and never will again (See #2 above). And they know that the vast majority of new Americans, and people of color, are incredibly industrious, driven and responsible. They are exactly the kind of people who will build the next America. But in this election cycle, the GOP has doubled down on the message that “entitlement people” and people without proper birth certificates (closeted Muslims, most likely) are in cahoots with shiftless government bureaucrats. The goal (apparently) is to steal from decent, entrepreneurial white Americans in the heartland so that lazy bums in places like Chicago and LA can lie around on couches watching TV. This message — and the effort to stifle voting in black and Hispanic neighborhoods — may win Republicans an election in 2012, but it’s bad for the country and bad for the future of the party.
So there are my thoughts. Still a lot to chew on. Social issues? Clint Eastwood? Comments welcome below.
Tags: election12
Personally I think the President does not have that much control.
The business cycle has ALWAYS occurred, we have never had a period without recession and expansions, nobody even the “evil” rich wants a recession. Not one single president or leader in any country has ever really known how to stop a recession.
i don’t often say this about jdm, but this is correct! obama did enough to stave off a depression — which sure ain’t nothing — but there hasn’t been enough to ignite a robust recovery. and why is that? the dirty little fact is that presidents don’t get to make domestic policy all by themselves. congress has a lot of power. and republicans in congress have been using that power to systematically oppose measures that would make the economy better.
on second thought, i was a bit too hasty. the inadequacy of the government response to the economic crisis hasn’t just been about republicans. obama erred by not asking for a bigger stimulus in the first place. and conservative democrats like ben nelson tried to make the stimulus smaller. (of course if we didn’t have the anti-majoritarian filibuster in the senate then the ben nelsons of the world wouldn’t have mattered, but that’s a topic for another thread.) but at every turn, the republican alternative would have been worse. their policy is herbert hoover’s. ask yourself how well that worked out.
“The 8 years under Bush had a lower level of poverty and a lower level of unemployment than Obama, its not hard to look that up.”
Unemployment was at 4.4% in March of 2007 before the housing bubble burst and it peaked at 10% in October 2009, and has drifted downward ever since, now standing at 8.3%.
So, Mervel, you figure that all of the damage that was created by the implosion of the economy in 2008 immediately became something that Obama owned in January 2009? He should have been able to fix it all immediately? Despite Republicans fighting against every move he made from the get go?
Mervel, speaking of things you can look up, after Black Friday in 1929, it took five long years for unemployment to peak, and twelve years (plus the start of WW II) to get back down under 5%. This wasn’t a plain vanilla business cycle your boys left us with.
Mervel, quoting statistics doesn’t tell a story.
Under Bush we had 2 major wars going on with the military accepting large numbers of young people who tend to be among the poorest in society because they are just starting out in life if for no other reason.
Under Bush we had millions more people employed by Federal and State governments.
Bush gave us his famous tax breaks which were what we would call today “a stimulus”. It was a far larger stimulus than what Republicans complain Obama created.
Under Bush we were in the midst of the confluence of several economic bubbles that burst late in his term. Under Bush the government and the people in general were incurring huge amounts of debt and spending it wildly.
The party is fun when you’re drunk and have the lampshade on your head but then when you awake to morning in America with a hangover and find you maxed out your credit cards on wine women and song things don’t look like so much fun. That is what happened. Dont blame Obama for your hangover.
Is our current mess “business as usual” or something much deeper? Both parties are failing us on the real issues of our time. As economist James Hamilton has noted 10 out of the last 11 recessions were caused by spikes in energy prices. It was the rise in oil prices that brought on the financial crisis in 2008, choking off growth. The rise in oil prices since early 2011 has put the economy back in the doldrums, and led to talk of a double dip. New sources of oil are more expensive to produce and require higher prices, but these higher prices–around $90.00–slows the economy. Gas consumption is down 4.4% over a year ago, and the country is using 2 million fewer barrels per day than 4 years ago. Long periods of sustained economic growth may simply not be possible now. That may be the new normal. In that case all the political chatter about “liberal” and “conservative”, keynesian economics or supply side, are largely irrelevant to our current predicament.
JDM says ” You can pretend it could have been 3x worse or 4x worse, but it’s definitely bad enough to say he could have done much better.”
True and the Republicans have done everything in their power to keep it from getting better so they could blame Obama and make him a one term president. They said that was their number one priority at the beginning of his administration and they have spent 4 years following that plan above all else.
here’s a recent krugman column illustrating the obama-has-made-mistakes-but-republicans-are-the-real-problem dynamic.
James Bullard: “True and the Republicans have done everything in their power to keep it from getting better so they could blame Obama and make him a one term president.”
I totally agree, and I don’t think there is any better way to say it. Obama lacks leadership.
He has the majority in the Senate. He has the White House. He can’t get anything done. For two years, he had a filibuster-proof Senate.
Very few could do worse than he has done given his opportunity.
In fact, a House majority and a filibuster-proof Senate was just what Obama needed. He is good at rubber-stamping stuff.
I could have done that!
But faced with opposition, he hasn’t got a clue how to lead. That’s why his supporters have to whine and moan. Poor Obama. Poor poor Obama. Those bad Republicans are soooo mean and soooo tought. They don’t want you to succeed, and there are sooo many of them.
Very unbecoming for the president to need such coddling.
you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
more substantively, i kind of agree that it’s “very unbecoming for the president to need such coddling.” but this is a bug of our system of government. our system requires a fair amount of consensus to get things done. it’s not like britain or canada. if the minority decides go all-in on obstruction, then they have a ton of leeway to thwart the majority’s agenda. that’s what we’ve been seeing.
The never ending mistake people make is looking for a hero.
They want someone to save them when often the only one that can save them is themselves.
I think people do this so that when things go wrong, they can blame someone else.
I believe we are going through a difficult time because the needs of the workplace are rapidly changing, due primarily to automation and computerization.
Business has never been about hiring as many workers as possible. Business is finding ways to produce more with fewer workers.
This is what I see that is going on.
President Clinton got a lot of things done only having the Executive Branch of government in his power.
Part of the issue is probably just the basic inexperience and lack of qualifications of this President, I mean 1/2 of one senate term, that’s it for the guy as far as experience goes.
But that is neither here nor there at this point. Romney did a good job in Mass as gov, he seemed to be a much better gov than he is presidential candidate though!
Update on Ryran. I just read an article in the New Yorker about Ryan, it seems he lied about his time in a marathon. Anyone who runs and runs marathons and local races realizes that you can be off on races in your past as far as time goes give or take 5 minutes on a marathon for example. However you usually remember your PB, and you are not off 2 hours! Ryan claimed his PB marathon was under 3 hours, something like 2:55, which is an outstanding time, something any runner would remember. His actual time was OVER 4 hours, this is a different world a different category of running; you would not flub something that big if you are a runner. For me this is very disturbing, I expect people to lie or push the facts on political things, but this to me is a character issue.
Jeese, Mervel, Ryan’s been lying through his teeth on tons of stuff, and it’s his marathon time that gets to you?! Like it’s OK when folks lie all the time about political stuff, but personal stuff is a big deal?
Yes.
Come on Walker, I mean as a runner I see really lying about your marathon time that is so blatant as really strange, running is about personal milestones, its amateur also, there is no rational reason to lie about your time, it is a mindset that I can’t relate to at all.
Politics I just assume they will say anything, we make them lie, we don’t want the truth, we would never elect someone who actually told us the actual truth.
Ah, the electorate embraces the Big Lie. That’s great!
But Mervel, these are self-professed Christians. Thou shalt not…
I want the truth…
Well you know would anyone have voted for President Obama if he had told the truth about what he could accomplish? OK yeah this is really a bad recession, I won’t be able to actually do much about unemployment and job growth or poverty, but I can work on health care and hopefully get us out of Iraq. OK for me that is a good plan, but he would not have been elected telling the truth.
Its all pie in the sky, everyone wants a secular savior, they don’t exist. So then we devolve into all of these side issues etc. Obama lied just as much as Romney, Bush and Ryan, they all lie, like I said they would not get elected if they did not.
Now that is different from lying about your running times, a politician lying about the limits of what they can do is normal and part of the game, but lying about how fast you run shows something deeper, a bigger problem.
I was reading through this thread and was just about to ask what Mervel suggested above..
My question is, if Bush is to blame and Obama inherited so much, why didn’t he say it was a very big mess he inherited and it was going to take some time to dig out from under it?
From my view, Romney/Ryan speak sensibly about the economy – do the math. We all have to tighten our belts for the next generation and beyond.
“Well you know would anyone have voted for President Obama if he had told the truth about what he could accomplish?”
You honestly think that Obama knew in 2008 how intransigent Republicans would be, that they would be willing to stifle every measure to help the nation and bring us to the brink of insolvency in order to make him a one term president? You think he would have wasted his first two years when he had a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate trying to come up with bi-partisan approaches if he had known how utterly obstinate would the response would be?
“Obama lied just as much as Romney, Bush and Ryan…”
OK, let’s have a list, Mervel– what were Obama’s big lies?
Kathy, there is really only one reason that we all have to tighten our belts for the next generation, and that reason is the massive Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations combined with getting us involved in two totally unnecessary wars. Well, that plus the disastrous effects of business deregulation. If we restored sensible levels of taxation and sound regulation, we’d be in fine shape, once we pull out of this mess.
But with “conservative” Republicans in charge, better tighten away.
Hi folks –
Lots of good, spirited debate here, but also a growing amount of ad hominem stuff and invective. If you feel your temper rising, take a break. If you think you need to label someone else, call them names, mock them, take a longer break. There are plenty of places on the web for shouting and name-calling. So come back to the basics: Argue your points with facts, logic, accurate information. Offer your opinions. Disagree with other people’s opinions, without denigrating other people.
I know you guys get it — so take a deep breath and go to it with spirit and civility. And have a great Sunday morning.
–Brian, NCPR
But Walker I guess that is part of the point we are looking at. I essentially agree with a good part of your post, not all of it. We need better regulation and the wars were I think huge huge mistakes that we will pay for, for a long time.
However that was the argument in 2008. President Obama now owns all of those issues, the question is why didn’t he do anything about it? I don’t know if his promises were a “lie”, I don’t think they were, I think they were part of the normal things you have to say to get elected. Romney and Ryan are spinning the same tales. When I listen to the arguments it does seem as if people are acting as if Obama has not really been President for the past term or that Democrats were not in total control for a part of that period. I think those were very compelling arguments in 2008 and they were the reason he was elected. So now what?
Our job is to try to see through it and look at what they actually can and will do.
I guess I have to be educated here. I’ve re-read the last several posts and fail to see any serious invective or ad hominem stuff. Maybe I don’t understand the definitions of these terms.
Re “All pols are liers,” etc., http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/opinion/blow-the-gop-fact-vacuum.html?_r=1, which cites stats about the WaPos Fact Check column, among others.
“Pants on Fire” (worst lie)
Obama: 29% of claims
Romney: 46%
Romney WINS!
I know some here have cited studies that claim disputing a lie only reinforces it for many people, but I think Obama made a big mistake by not using independent fact checkers for his campaign’s claims, and thereby minimize it’s lies and distortions (e.g., some of the Romney job outsourcing claims).
While some voters might be confused by back and forth over lies, the very fact that one side consistently lies, and another didn’t might actually make a difference.
PNElba- Ditto that.
wrong. democrats had 60 seats in the senate for all of five months.
do i really have to point out for the umpteenth time how unreliable jdm is?
Democrats in the Senate have the Blue Dog members to contend with also.
Mervel has a point about lying. Politicians lie professionally. This season seems over the top, but its not unprecedented. The republicans are shameless about it this year. But lying about personal stuff indicates potentially deep character flaws.
As George Costanza says: “….it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Yeah, I’ve heard a couple of mentions on that ” lying about the marathon time” thing. When you think about it, a person puts that amount of time and pain into preparing for and running a marathon, when every second you cut from your time must come from incredible effort, I could see that competitors would take honesty about one’s time pretty seriously. Not exactly like fudging a golf score or the size of a fish. A little more like those creeps who tell everyone about their military medals for heroism but never got closer to combat than the motor pool in Ft. Polk, LA.
Good for Ryan, if those are his true colors.
hermit: “do i really have to point out for the umpteenth time how unreliable jdm is?”
whatever.
Apparently it was an overwhelming task for Obama to have to persuade one member of the opposite party to get anything passed. Monumental that he could accomplish so great a feat.
It’s a wonder how he was able to get anything done, what with only 59 senators in his own party and a majority in the House.
I can’t imagine the awesomeness of his leadership ability to overcome a 59-41 senate for all but 5 months and get legislation passed.
But, now that you clarified this point, I can see how awestruck everyone is. Obama had to deal with only 59 senators in his own party. Wow! How did do it? Such power. Such leadership.
Kathy, when the first Bush tax cut went through, I took my $300 and sent it to the Concord Coalition, the bipartisan non-profit that fights for reduction of the national debt. It was pretty obvious where all this was going. As for the unfunded wars, it reminds me of Republican analyst Kevin Phillips warning that we were going the route of Britain and the Dutch, world powers for a while. At some point, they over-reached and started to decline. That is the risk of those two unfunded wars. The wars and tax cuts, not entitlements are the cause of our current debt problems. Bush and Cheney were very cynical. They didn’t come to the American people and ask them to assume fiscal responsibility through a war tax because they knew what the answer would be. The wars were put on the charge card–not a very fiscal responsible thing to do. Many folks will find it a bitter pill to swallow, if they have to tighten their belts after such gross mismanagement.
Well the weird thing is that as a marathoner, I don’t see it as extremely competitive except against myself and that is how most of the runners I know feel, at least in the North Country. Sure there is a competitive spirit particularly between people who run about the same times, but you honestly want your competitor to do their best also, you are happy for the other person, even if you are disappointed they edged you out.
So to lie about your time in a big way (which is nuts sense these things are easily tracked and recorded), I just find very very odd. Like I might miss remember some of my times by a couple of minutes, I am sure I remember a couple of them in my favor! But to say I run sub three when I am really running over 4 hours is not really possible to forget, it would have to be intentional. Its like putting a 46 patch on your jacket or car when you have not actually climbed them; it makes no sense; the actual accomplishment has nothing to do with the patch or time. I find it materially different than saying well Obama “gutted” welfare, when what he really did was change some provisions, to me that is political hyperbole and a course of normal business.
“Romney has a secret plan to address all your questions. Elect him and then he will tell you. If he tells you now, you won’t vote for him.”
The plan isn’t a secret. It is laid out at the campaign’s website. You might not like it or agree with it but it isn’t a secret. These speeches are not for specifics. The DNC convention this week will be more of the same.
I thought Brian Mann was going camping for a few days but apparently he doesn’t trust us while he’s away. He has to check in on us like we’re a bunch of High Schoolers.
Hey Brian! Go toast some Smores; we’ve got it covered here.
Okay, where the hell is the liquor cabinet in here? Dale must have moved it in the big update.
I have learned something new here — Mervel is a marathon runner. Wow! Good for you Mervel!!! It hurts me just to think about it.
But I find it really strange that you are more upset that Ryan lied about his marathon time than that he lied about public policy. He can lie about his running time or how much he bench presses or about his suavity with the ladies. I don’t care. But when he lies about something that might affect how a single mother is able to provide for her kids I get pissed off.
That’s because you are what you call yourself.
knuck, politicians lie. The one’s you like do the ones you don’t like do. You are still waiting for a number of broken promises from the president. They affect single moms, soldiers, etc.
Paul, they’re just not equivalent. Ryan claims that the ACA would cut $800 billion in actual services from Medicare, something that he himself has actually proposed, while in fact, the ACA trims its $800 billion by reducing payments to hospitals (something they have signed off on) without reducing services to seniors. That is a monstrous lie– an exact reversal of reality. There is nothing equivalent coming from the Democrats.
The idea that ” all politicians lie” is poison to a democratic system. I refuse to believe it. I believe that there are many politicians, if not most of them, who try to do certain things. They tell people “elect me and this is what I am going to work for”. That is a promise to hold to a certain set of principles. It isn’t a promise that they will actually accomplish those particular things if everyone fights against them.
Taking statements of intent as a promise is foolish. That is how divisiveness is sown.
Well knuckle you must be pissed off a lot.
None of these guys “piss me off”, as I have such low expectations, I was simply commenting how odd I find it that someone would lie about those other things, it does show a deeper character issue. Running marathons is not some sort of accomplishment or even means you are in that great of shape, it just means you like doing it and will train to do it, you could easily do one if you wanted to, which is why lying about it is so weird. Politicians build their cases based on shoestring evidence, they all do, is that lying? Sometimes I suppose, but in these cases it is mainly hyperbolic language.
Here’s how Politifact rates the two candidates overall for truthfulness:
Romney:
17% – True
13% – Mostly True
28% – Half True
16% – Mostly False
17% – False
9% – Pants on Fire
Overall: 42% False
23% – True
24% – Mostly True
26% – Half True
12% – Mostly False
14% – False
1% – Pants on Fire
Overall: 27% False
Note especially that almost one in ten Romney statements rates Pants-on-fire false, versus one in one hundred Obama statements.
Source: Politifact
Oops– the second set of figures should be labeled “Obama”.