All about Mitt
I know, I know, it’s piling on, but I can’t help sharing a thought or two about Mitt Romney, and I’m guessing In Boxers have a thought or two as well.
Here’s the irony of 2012: This campaign was supposed to be all about President Barack Obama. A referendum. An election defined by unemployment skyward of 8% and behemoth debt.
The Obama campaign was already well on its way to redefining the terms of engagement, making the debate much more of a “you have to pick one of us” challenge for disgruntled voters.
Then Romney stepped in (or stepped in it, rather) and took the whole paradigm one degree further:
Somehow, the former Bain Capital tycoon managed to make the election a referendum on himself, and on guys like him.
Let me pause for a moment and nod at a couple of realities: Political campaigns at some point reduce politicians to caricatures. Barack Obama was never the “hope-change” messiah that some of his followers wanted to believe in.
And Mitt Romney isn’t the Thurston Howell plutocrat that even some conservatives are now lampooning. But when you’re selling a set of ideas and leadership to hundreds of millions of people, in a short period of time, branding matters.
Right now, Mitt Romney’s brand is all about “47%” and those fancy horses of his that competed in the London Olympics and the car elevator and the $10,000 bet with Rick Perry, and the casual dismissal of “victims.”
He’s the “New Coke” of conservative politics. Really, it doesn’t get much worse, unless you’re Todd Akin. So the question now is, what next?
The bad news for Republicans is that there is no evidence — none, zero — that Team Romney has the mojo to turn this around.
Democrats had the Come Back Kid. Remember that? Bill Clinton knew that when his side was on the ropes politically, he had to storm back with big rallies, big ideas. You couldn’t help feeling that he was having fun, fighting for his life with a grin on his face.
But the GOP is stuck with the grinchy guy who insults his hosts in London, muffs the crisis in the Middle East, and (still) won’t release his taxes.
Oh yeah, and the guy who gave the green light to Clint Eastwood’s infamous “chair” speech, which became the symbol of this year’s Republican National Convention. Oh yeah, and the guy who insulted the cookies of a supporter who had invited him into her home.
“I’m not sure about these cookies,” Romney said during an April campaign stop. “They don’t look like you made them. Did you make those cookies? No, no. They came from the local 7/11…bakery…or whatever.”
So it’s not about one “gaffe” or awkward moment. It’s turning into a question about leadership, about basic skill as a messenger of political ideas, about the ability to connect.
(One of the ironies of modern politics is that it’s still a flesh-and-blood, human contact, one-on-one, let me look into your eye and kiss your baby business. Romney just doesn’t seem comfortable with that stuff, by which I mean comfortable with, you know, people.)
Some Republicans are urging Romney to resurrect his campaign by giving some big, hefty policy speeches, really digging into the challenges that face the American people. I’m all for it. But if Romney had that kind of stuff up his sleeve, wouldn’t we have heard about it by now?
This is a mature, experienced and intelligent politician who still — years after he started running for president – can’t figure out how to talk about his own impressive record tackling healthcare reform.
There’s one other reason for pessimism. While Romney’s campaign has been astonishingly inept, the Democrats have been almost scarily effective this year.
And they’ve been “oppo” researching the Republican — a man who is still not well known by the public — for months.
Even if he doesn’t hand Barack Obama more gift moments, like the one we saw this week, and last week, and the week before, you can bet that Romney will find himself in the hot seat at least a couple more times.
That may be an ugly side of American politics, but it’s been that way since about 1776 and it’s not about to change in 2012. Is Romney ready for the final gauntlet? Let me put it this way: He’ll have to surprise us.
Tags: election12
Larry, thanks for your correction, though I think it is a distinction without difference. Hoover posited a case that wasn’t historically accurate if you consider government aid and government action to be two sides of the same coin – which I do. For example, saying that the government didn’t restrain the activities of the Railroad Barons may be mostly true but government also aided the expansion of railroads through land grants, subsidies and legislation.
This from Wikipedia on Hoover and Rugged Individualism: “When the Great Depression started, Hoover insisted that the market would right itself. However, further into his term, Hoover felt that he was forced into action by the dire circumstances of the depression, but still believed that the government should play a limited role in the American economy.”
So even Hoover recognized that his economic theory was wrong, but even after he was forced to reject it he still clung to the theory – even after he recognized that it was wrong. Perhaps “wrong” is not the proper characterization. Yes, the Market would have eventually corrected itself in the case of the Great Depression, and if you don’t consider great masses of people starving to death in order for the Market to correct itself as a problem in your economic theory then it is a perfectly good theory.
First of all, the cultural revolution of the 1960s was certainly not a conservative movement so it seems curious to me that now, liberals are the ones bothered by its downstream results. The problem with the New Deal was not so much that Roosevelt started it as it was that Democratic controlled Congresses (in the 50s, 60s & 70s) and Lyndon Johnson (Great Society) continued it when it was no longer needed, given the post-war economic boom. That is precisely the warning Hoover made in the Rugged Individualism speech.
KHL,
If you have the patience, read the Rugged Individualism speech and you’ll see that Hoover’s theory is spot on. Government intervention is needed in times of emergency but afterwards, must be turned off.
The comments here lamenting the decline of American culture over the last 40 years seem to point to liberal philosophy and its expression in the 60s as a root cause. You’ll remember the conservative opposition (and the ridicule it engendered) to the excesses of the 60s & 70s. How come they get blamed now for the results? Like government economic intervention, liberals never know when to turn it off, but they can always be counted on to lay the blame on conservatives.
Ah, a quick return to finger pointing. Oh well…
Mervel said:
“The things that bother so many Liberals and myself, the massive homes, the materialism, the idea that families should all own two or three cars, suburbs, the ME generation, divorce, violence, porn and drugs, wars of choice (Vietnam, Iraq, etc) are all products of the 60’s.”
I merely pointed out that the cultural revolution of the 60s was not a conservative movement. If those negatives came out of the 60s, why are conservatives blamed for them now? Where else can that finger be pointed?
Yeah I agree. I think our society walked right into hyper-consumerism, you combine that with an obsession with career’s and material success you have this society of continual striving, without thinking about what it means to actually live.
As Faulkner said, “the great steeple chase to nowhere”.
Larry yes I agree with you I find it ironic that the, peace and love movement of the 1960’s seemed to have brought many of the problems that Liberals do not like today. But it was not all bad and many of the things in the 60’s had to be done to have a just society. Many however introduced a cancer into our culture.
But anyway why do you always see the world as “Liberals” and “Conservatives”? The US is not divided into liberals and conservatives who then blame each other for the ups and downs of our country. Up until recently no one even defined themselves in those terms.
I think its another marketing scam, I don’t even buy the terms Liberal and Conservative as any sort of meaningful division to our society.
Look at this idiotic war resolution just passed against Iran, we had one brave person, Rand Paul stand up against this, but both so called Liberals and Conservatives are on the band wagon to start another middle eastern war.
Larry, I read the speech and I come to a different conclusion.
I disagree with nearly everything he said up until he starts talking about how he doesn’t want to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. then I find some points of agreement.
In general I think the speech should be interpreted in the context of the times — that the US had just been through a tremendous financial expansion while at the same time nearly all of Europe had been recovering from the devastation of the First World War. And with the benefit of hind-sight it is clear that he spoke on the eve of financial collapse in the US. I suspect that Hoover, if he were alive today, would have changed that speech.
He had the opportunity to change that speech during the 1930s but continued to speak out against excessive government economic interference (in several speeches and at least one book) during the mid-30s.
Yes, but while he had 150 years of US of American economics to learn from we have nearly 230 years. And we know how the Great Depression ended, how WWII started and ended, how the Soviet Union fell apart and the rise of Russian billionaires during a period of unrestrained capitalism, the rise of basically independent Corporate States like Exxon Mobil…
There is a lot of history to consider and far more complex economic situations to study in the last 80 years than in the first 150. Consider that our population has nearly tripled since 1928 and that US GDP was about $7,000 per capita in 1928 and is somewhere around $42,000 now.
Before WWII the US was a relatively small power on the world stage. Today we are by far the biggest kid on the block.
But Hoover did make some good points: “Nor do I wish to be misinterpreted as believing that the United States is a free-for-all and devil-take-the-hindmost. The very essence of equality of opportunity and of American individualism is that there shall be no domination by any group or [monopoly] in this republic…. It is no system of laissez faire….”
He also made (in retrospect) some blatant errors: “It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of fear of want, than humanity has ever reached before. Progress of the past seven years is proof of it….” He said that just before the big crash and the Great Depression. Today there are some really good examples of the abolition of poverty and the fear of want; consider Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, or Kuwait. They all do a better job than we do by that measure. And there are more.
Vermont, Minnesota, and Utah do a great job of reducing poverty also. The thing they have in common with some of those countries is that they are the same size.
If your going to make international comparisons you have to compare apples to apples. A more valid comparison for example to the US would be all of Europe, including the Balkans, or all of Russia, or China or India or other large mutli-ethnic societies spanning large geographical areas.
Even still however our poverty rate is too high for our abilities and our resources. We will never be Switzerland, New Hampshire might end up being Switzerland, but as a country we will never be like Switzerland, unless we boot a bunch of people out and got real mean about immigration. I am not sure those countries you mentioned are ones I want to emulate, particularly now that we see the cracks and fissures in the European welfare state models.
I would like us to become a much smaller power on the world stage and re-focus our efforts on our own citizens and our own issues and problems. I think the Canadian approach to foreign policy is one to look at. Use diplomacy, be involved, but take the Grover Norquist approach to the military, small enough that we can drown it in the bathtub. Large military machines seek out conflict to justify their size and that is what we have had going on in this country since WWII.
I will never understand small government people who like a large war military? The military is the most dangerous part of the government. I mean one of the reason’s that we have the second amendment is to protect us from our own military if they go outside of the constitution. That is what my gun nut friends say, so why would they want a large military????
“There is a lot of history to consider and far more complex economic situations to study in the last 80 years than in the first 150.”
There is almost no point in commenting after a statement like that, but I’ll give it a shot. We could start with the USA’s transition from an agricultural economy to the world’s preeminent industrial power. On second thought, I haven’t the energy for this nonsense. Get a better grasp of history and we might have a discussion. You almost did me in with the rugged individual stuff, but this beats all. Exxon Mobil? Have you never heard of Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford or J.P. Morgan? How’s that for some economic complexity?
Apples to apples? Why do you hate America?
We are the ONLY apple! There aren’t any other apples to compare us to. We are the greatest nation on Earth. Everyone else is a lemon, at best!
Seriously, if our socio/economic system is the best then why can’t we compare it to anyone else’s? But if you want to compare to Europe then we should make a fair comparison and including the Balkan states along with the rest of the EU isn’t fair; until pretty recently they were in the Soviet sphere. Same with the Baltic states. Put the rest of the EU up against us and they look pretty strong even while giving their citizens a far better social safety net.
Of course our military has been protecting during the longest US military engagement: WWII and the Cold War. We will have brought our troops home from Afghanistan and we will still be occupying Europe as a bulwark against the threat of Stalin.
“Today there are some really good examples of the abolition of poverty and the fear of want; consider Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, or Kuwait.”
You’ve really outdone yourself now. The “abolition of poverty” might ring true unless you are a “guest worker” in one of those countries. Kuwait? Are you kidding me? That place is a human rights nightmare.
KHL,
I may have misunderstood your recent comments and if so, I apologize. Is it possible you are providing a comedic alternative to Saturday Night Live for those of us who don’t want to stay up that late? The comment about Stalin was the tip-off.
Larry, the examples you cite certainly represent people and corporations that created empires and made lots of money. And ExxonMobil is after all in the lineage of Standard Oil. But there just isn’t any comparison between the complexity of some modern multinational corporations and Henry Ford’s auto company before 1928.
And the Industrial Revolution was great and all but it was run on mostly water wheels and coal fired steam engines. They put Newton’s laws to good use but since 1928 we’ve been though the Jet Age, the Atomic Age, and the Computer Age. We’ve had a Sexual Revolution, and a Green Revolution, and Revolution Number 9. Heck, Ayn Rand hadn’t even written any books yet in 1928, how could Hoover possibly understand economics like we do today?
I’m serious about Stalin. Why else would we be protecting Europe?
I don’t know, I do know that the only person to stand up against the pre-war against Iran declaration was Rand Paul a Republican. I don’t know, as far as I am concerned you can have your so called Liberals…. have you ever spoken against them? From what I can see all ditto heads are the same both on the Left and on the Right, and they all like war.
About the only real liberal I can think of who is a sitting Senator is Bernie Sanders and I don’t know how he voted. My guess is that he skipped the vote on a non-binding resolution that was meant more for domestic consumption than as a real policy position.
The reality is we are already involved “secret” conflict with Iran.
Larry, I really DO enjoy making Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh style rants with a leftist perspective. I’m going to have to do them more often. Stay tuned.
Stalin died in 1953.
Really!!????!!!! Well then our brave troops can now come home from Europe in VICTORY!!!! Close all the bases in Europe the need to keep them there is over!
KHL, what!!!!! why didn’t anyone tell us about this, does the military know!
I agree with you we should look at the poverty rates in much of Europe and be relatively depressed about our own, which is higher.
I think for so long all we have heard is that we are the richest country in the world. This is no longer factually true in many cases, depending on how you look at the numbers. I think right now for example the Median income in Germany is higher than in the US. Our average is often higher because we have such massive inequality. But the a middle class person is wealthier in Germany than in the US and they have fewer poor people.
So this begs the question, where is Germany? Are they in Afghanistan? Are they getting ready to go to war with Iran? Do they spend upteen trillions on their defense? No they spend their money on their own people and let us get killed running around the globe on these various adventures. Also having military bases in Europe is ludicrous. Germany should defend itself against Russia or China, after all they are wealthier.
Everyone around the Globe loves Canada, they are the foreign policy model for the US. Plus once again they have health insurance, our health insurance is being spent on F-22’s and B-2 Bombers and nuclear submarines.
We can’t be exactly like Canada, but we could try to be a lot more like them than we are.
It isn’t all bad for us overseas. Most people really do like us. We are kind of like the NY Yankees. A small number of people really hate us, lots of people love us and many people love to pretend to hate us.
Sorry to disappoint, Mervel, but we’re doing better than Germany, at least according to several measures (Median Household Income, GDPPC) I found on Wikipedia. As for Canada being a foreign policy model for the US, I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that. It’s a crazy enough statement that I would like to hear your explanation.
Why is it a crazy statement?
When and if we do finally move to a government that is smaller, more effective, more efficient, less controlling and more free, it will by definition include a much much smaller military. But that does not mean we disengage from the world stage it means we follow a more Canadian approach to world affairs.
So if we decide to attack Iran pre-emptivly which looks right now to be the direction we are heading, only Rand Paul had the guts and the honor to stand up against the latest war resolution; I would be willing to do that as long as the Canadians and the French lead the invasion. Without that happening we are doing something wrong.
We have not decisively won a single war/conflict since WWII with the exception of Grenada and Panama, I would think we might want to reconsider what we are doing.
So what you meant to say was that Canada should be a foreign policy model for the US. As written, you said it is a model. Either way, I disagree. All the countries that fly under the radar do so with our protection, to one degree or another, whether they acknowledge it or not. We (and the UK) have been doing the heavy lifting militarily for the West since the end of WW II. Israel holds the line in the Middle East. War with Iran? Better that than letting those lunatics have nuclear weapons. Maybe THAT war will end THIS depression and Obama can go down in history as an FDR-like god. Far-fetched? We’ll see.
Mervel, the “first shots” have already been fired. There was the Stuxnet virus sent to cripple some of Iran’s nuclear industry equipment. Iran captured one of our drones which we said was impossible but a college professor in Texas showed it was easily done by hacking the drone software. There have been targeted assassinations on both sides…
The Black Budgets allow lots of acts of war to occur without any real oversight by Congress – or to be more accurate, a few members of Congress have oversight but if they disagree with what is happening they can’t do much about it because if they said what was going on they would be in violation of their security clearance, thrown off the committees and possibly prosecuted.
“We (and the UK) have been doing the heavy lifting militarily for the West since the end of WW II. Israel holds the line in the Middle East.”
I would agree with this Larry. My point is mainly why? We need a more equitable sharing of the military load among our allies. We spend more on our military than all of our allies and enemies, combined. That makes no sense, we have to have some sort of sense of proportion. I don’t like a giant government a giant military is part of a giant government. Why do we spend so so much more than any other country on the face of the earth on our military? I understand having to spend more than Russia and China, they are still our main existential threats, but 5 times as much? How inefficient are we?