Mayan campaign mashup 2012: Twisting round to make me think you’re straight down the line

14 08 2012

Let’s play pundit!

C’mon, it’s easy: Just take a stray thought (either your own or one you overheard standing in line for coffee or maybe from that always-wise taxi-driver) and expand it into a Theory of Everything, alternate wrinkling your brow with raising your eyebrows, slip in a cliche or two to assure your audience that you’re not straying too far from the reservation [see what I did there?]—and don’t forget at some point to say, “Look, . . .” And if you can, work in a hand gesture to emphasize your insights; it also helps to sell your sincerity.

Here we go:

“I think one angle which has been neglected is the question of comfort. Mitt Romney is a famously disciplined man, so is it any surprise that he would choose another man with a reputation for discipline? Ryan has, rightly or wrongly, the reputation of a man willing to do the heavy-lifting on arcane budget matters and to make the tough decisions. He’s also known for his punishing workout routine.

“Ryan also knows how to stay on message—a terrifically important factor to the machine that is the Romney campaign. Romney has to know that his running mate will reinforce his message, not step all over it, or, as President Obama once said about Joe Biden, ‘get out over his skis’.

“Romney could have chosen someone who contrasted with his image, someone like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Christie’s blunt talk would have served him well in the traditional attack-dog role assigned to vice presidents, and I think not a few journalists following the campaign would look forward to the jousts between the let-‘er-rip vice-presidential candidates.

“But it is precisely that let’s-wing-it approach to politics which likely put Romney off Christie. And, let’s face it, that Christie is overweight could be seen by Romney as evidence for a general laxity. Could you see these two men sitting down together—well, not over a beer [ha ha!]—to shoot the breeze? You can just see Romney cringe as Christie lets loose with a few choice words.

“Tim Pawlenty, I don’t think, was ever a serious contender. He ran a terrible campaign and quit far too quickly. I think Romney appreciates ambition and boldness, and Pawlently is conspicuously lacking in both.

“I have to say, I’m a bit mystified why he didn’t choose Rob Portman. Ohio is crucial to victory in November, and having Portman on the ticket might have made all the difference. Maybe a chemistry thing.

“Speaking of chemistry, could anyone really see Bobby Jindal running alongside Mitt Romney? Sure, a fine family man, but he’s been shrinking ever since his disastrous Scarecrow-sounding response to the president’s State of the Union speech. And Louisiana, hm, Romney is definitely not a laissez-les-bons-temps rouler kind of guy.

“And the women, well, the women I’m sorry to say were probably never considered due to the Palin factor. Nikki Haley is a first-term governor, as is Susan Martinez in New Mexico, and Kelly Ayotte has been in the Senate for less than two years. These women might be serious contenders in 2016, but putting one of these women on the ticket would draw comparisons the Romney campaign would prefer to avoid.

“It’s also not clear how comfortable Romney is with women. He has four, excuse me, five sons, worked in private equity—a very male, and, I should point out, a very white field—and as an elder in the Mormon Church hasn’t had a lot of exposure to women in powerful positions. Sure, his lieutenant governor in Massachusetts was a woman, but how much interaction has he had with women as equals?

“I mean, look at this campaign staff. It’s all men—all white men. Look, I’m not saying he wouldn’t have chosen a Hispanic candidate if that person was head and shoulders above everyone else, but Romney is clearly most comfortable with people most like himself.

“Paul Ryan is a lot like Mitt Romney. Intense, ambitious, disciplined. A religious man, a family man, and hey, with a nice head of hair [ha ha!] There may be a downside to having someone who seems to reinforce some of Romney’s more robotic tendencies than to soften them, but Ryan’s sincerity likely resonates with Romney’s own straight-arrow demeanor and, who knows, his earnestness may come across as endearing to undecided voters.

“None of this is to discount the policy implications of the pick, of course, or whether any of this will pan out in November, but I do think this pick tells us something about Romney and what kind of people he would surround himself if he does win the presidency.”

~~~

See how easy that was? Plausible, sober, and completely without recourse to any research whatsoever! I have no idea who his closest advisers are, and I know for a fact that there are some women high up in his campaign, but why bother with the labors of an internet search when I can just pull this stuff out of my navel? (Or, to be honest, from a shoot-the-shit conversation with T.)

Now, I did run a search for his campaign staff before I wrote the piece and found a handy sheet documenting his various staffers and advisers, but I didn’t look at it until just now. Whaddya know, there are a number of women in key positions (chief of staff to the exec director Kelli Harrison, deputy campaign manager Kelly Packer Gage, senior adviser Beth Myers, among others)—but hey, why let a few facts get in the way of punditry?

Besides, a really good pundit knows how to spin away inconvenient truths, noting that “it is well-known that his closest adviser is Bob White, and let’s not forget his campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, who’s been with Romney since the ’08 campaign. It’s not that women don’t have a role, but, with the exception of Myers, they’re all more organizational than strategic.”

Again, I have no idea if any of that is true. If I were a real political reporter and not just a Sabbath gasbag I would talk to people in and around the campaign, closely observe the candidate when he’s with his staff to see who he consults, see who’s quoted in the newspaper and who gives interviews, and then and only then, and based on a general background knowledge of what is expected roles of various staffers and advisers in any campaign, would I venture any suggestions as to the possible meanings of the Ryan pick.

But that’s too much like real work, and the evidence might get in the way of my narrative—and as a pundit, you should never let anything get in the way of your narrative.

That’s how the pros do it.


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Mayan campaign mashup 2012: All hail the king!

11 08 2012

Update in the middle and below

So it’s Paul Ryan, 7-term member of Congress, chair of the House Budget Committee, author of budget plan written in fairy dust, and former prom king.

Huh.

I got nothin’.

Is it a good pick? Bad? Bold? Foolish? I tend to be among those who thinks the veep pick won’t do much to help, although—as the pick of La Palin (or, further back, Thomas Eagleton) demonstrated—can hurt. Ryan is clearly more qualified than the former guv (of Alaska, people, of Alaska!) and is comfortable with the national attention, so he’s unlikely to do Romney any damage. He’s good-looking, which can’t hurt, and young, which is probably good.

After skimming a few pundit commentaries (rubbish), I think I’ll stick with the political scientists. Jonathan Bernstein, who writes a plain blog about politics, put up a late-night/early-morning post at WaPo on Ryan that should be read by everyone who comments on the veepstakes:

Now, beyond that, three points. First, I would downplay to some extent the idea that picking Ryan will establish the “narrative” of the rest of the campaign in any particular way. For the last few months, the veepstakes have been the biggest game in town; if Ryan does reasonably well, he’ll tend to disappear after the convention. That’s what running mates do. . . .

Second, Ryan will almost certainly be seen over the next week or three to have “energized” the party. That, too, is almost certainly overstated. Most of that “energizing” effect is structural, and would have happened regardless as long as Romney chose a “solid conservative”.

Third, I don’t think it will doom the campaign or anything like that, but it is worth noting that this is a shockingly inexperienced ticket, especially when it comes to national security and foreign policy. . . . The only ticket I can think of that was similarly lacking in foreign policy credentials would be Carter-Mondale in 1976, but at least both of them had military service in their backgrounds.

The bottom line about virtually all vice-presidential picks is that they seem far more important to the campaign when they’re made than they turn out to be. That’s probably true for this one, too. But if it does end up having a significant effect in November, it’s almost certainly going to be on the downside, and that’s more likely with Ryan than it would have been with most of the other reported finalists.

As an Obama supporter, I hope he’s right about the downside effect, but whether Ryan is an asset or a drag will depend on how he performs, how Romney makes use of or buries his budget ideas, and how the Obama/Biden campaign responds to the blue-eyed cheddarhead.

(Now, I was going to toss in some wisdom from the folks at The Monkey Cage, but I’m having a devil of a time getting in; I hope this means that journalists are overloading their circuits trying to get some real information—but that may be too much to hope for. I’ll try again later and plug ’em in then.)

*UPDATE* Okay, Larry Bartels at TMC has a post up; unlike Bernstein, he focuses less on the tactical than on the policy implications of choosing a man who

has spent much of his career warning America of “a crushing burden of debt” that “will soon eclipse our economy and grow to catastrophic levels in the years ahead.” . . .

YouGov asked 1000 prospective voters “how the outcome of this fall’s presidential election will affect America over the next four years. Regardless of which candidate you personally support, what effect do you think the election outcome will have on the federal budget deficit?” The response options were “much higher if Obama is reelected” (selected by 35% of the sample), “somewhat higher if Obama is reelected” (11%), “no difference” (36%), “somewhat higher if Romney is elected” (5%), and “much higher if Romney is elected” (12%).

The distribution of responses to this question is a testament to the political effectiveness of Republicans like Ryan and Tea Party activists, who have been loudly bewailing the escalation of the federal debt since Barack Obama became president. Democrats’ counterargument that recent outsized budget deficits reflect fallout from the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, the Bush tax cuts, and the Iraq War seems to have been much less persuasive. Nor have they made much headway, at least so far, in convincing the public that the Republican budget plan authored by Ryan and endorsed by Romney would actually exacerbate the deficit by slashing the taxes of top income earners.

Despite the question wording encouraging respondents to put aside their own candidate preferences, expectations regarding future budget deficits are strongly skewed by partisan predispositions (as measured in a “baseline” survey of the same respondents in late 2011). Most Democrats think deficits will be larger if Romney is elected, while most Republicans (and independents) expect bigger deficits under Obama. As is often the case with politically charged beliefs, this partisan gap is especially large among people who are especially knowledgeable about politics.

Bartels goes on to discuss the poll results in some detail, leaving off anything more about the choice of Ryan. He does note at the top that expectations about the debt and deficit mattered a great deal to prospective voters, but the evidence for that is unclear.

Ah, and while I was writing up the Bartels post, here comes John Sides and Lynn Vavreck with a post on the polling of the pick. Most haven’t heard about him, and of those who have, most don’t know exactly who he is.

And what do the people who know Ryan think of him?  In these surveys, about 28% reported having a favorable view and 29% reported having a unfavorable view.  Those who had strongly unfavorable views outnumbered those with strongly favorable views—suggesting that unfavorable opinions are more intensely held at this point in time.  These ratings are affected by party, of course: on average about 54% of Republicans have a favorable impression of Ryan compared to only 10% of Democrats.

What about independents and undecided voters? Their opinions tend to be unfavorable.  About 26% of independents have an unfavorable impression of Ryan, while 21% of independents have a favorable impression.  A majority (52%) of independents did not have any impression of Ryan.

Among undecided voters, the same things holds: 57% had no opinion, but unfavorable opinions tended to outnumber favorable opinions (25% vs. 18%).

The upshot, as sides and Vavrek observe, is that his relative obscurity gives him a chance to introduce himself on his own terms, although the

tendency [toward a negative view] among independents and undecided voters is potentially troubling for the Romney-Ryan ticket.

Can Ryan change the impressions of those who have them?  Probably not.  Can he shape the impressions of those who don’t have them, and shape them in a favorable way?  That’s the big question.

Even if Ryan is great, he’ll hardly be the main factor in the election: the economy, gas prices, job numbers, the Eurozone, and those pesky unknown unknowns (especially on the foreign affairs field) and how they are handled by the candidates at the top of the ticket matter much more than Ryan.

Romney is, after all, the one “running for president, for pete’s sake”.

~~~

Okay, further updates down here.

Update2: I mentioned skimming rubbish punditry earlier, but I do want to highlight James Fallows’s take, not least because Fallows is never rubbish.

He focuses on the substance—or, I should say, the lack thereof—of the Ryan Budget plan, and provides some good links to boot.

I think the choice of Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate is a good one for the country. It makes the race “about” something, beyond just being a negative referendum on how the economy is going under Obama. And the Republican vision and program, if Romney and Ryan should win, immediately becomes something more specific than “the opposite of Obama’s.” This is how we think elections are supposed to work, and Romney’s decision will make plan-vs.-plan, vision-vs.-vision comparisons more likely — as opposed strictly to gaffe-vs.-gaffe. For those reasons, good choice, congratulations to Romney and Ryan, and let the real campaign begin.

One request: I hope that when reporters are writing or talking about Paul Ryan’s budget plans and his overall approach, they will rig up some electro-shock device to zap themselves each time they say that Ryan and his thoughts are unusually “serious” or “brave.” Clear-edged they are, and useful in defining the issues in the campaign. But they have no edge in “seriousness” over, say, proposals from Ryan’s VP counterpart Joe Biden.

How much substance (or the lack thereof. . .) matters in a presidential campaign is debatable, but yes, it would be nice if those writing about a policy would actually look at that policy.

Update3: Oh, god, I just realized: This pick means we’ll be hearing more about/from Bill Kristol, the hackiest of hacks and a man who is wrong about everything. He promoted Ryan in various media, which means (sigh) that he promoted himself as well.

Romney almost certainly—or, at least, I fervently hope—paid no attention to Kristol in deciding on Ryan, but do you think that will stop Kristol from trumpeting his powers of prognostication or other pundits from applauding his pull?

Ye gads.


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Mayan campaign mashup 2012: You can’t touch this

10 08 2012

Oh, that Mitt, such a sense of humor:

“[O]ur campaign would be — helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature.” […]

“[W]e only talk about issues. And we can talk about the differences between our positions and our opponent’s position.” Romney said of his own campaign: “[O]ur ads haven’t gone after the president personally. … [W]e haven’t dredged up the old stuff that people talked about last time around. We haven’t gone after the personal things.”

“I’m running on my record as a businessman, so you can’t talk about my record as a businessman.”

Aaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaahaaahaaahaaahaaahaaaahaaahaahaahaahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahhahhahahahahah!

You’re killin’ me, guv’ner!

(h/t: Igor Volsky, ThinkProgress)


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Mayan campaign mashup 2012: Logic and lies, redux

17 07 2012

So, a week or so ago I noted Romney’s odd adherence to rules in the Ultimate Fight otherwise known as the presidential campaign.

I considered this odd for two reasons: One, there are (almost) no rules in a presidential campaign, but, two, he nonetheless believes that others should follow rules that he sets but doesn’t (necessarily) follow himself.

Anyway.

The whole tax return-and-Bain shebang is blowing up and besides his testimony before a Massachusetts state panel and documents filed with the SEC listing him as sole shareholder in Bain Capital LLC and the $100K salary and statements made to the press at the time, his campaign (and various surrogates) argues that there is no evidence linking him to Bain after 1999.

He’s also insisting that there’s no reason for him to release his returns since Teresa Heinz Kerry didn’t release her returns in 2004—because, as one commenter noted, Romney is apparently running for First Lady.

Another commenter [at the Update at the bottom of the James Fallows’s post] wondered if he’s not playing his own version of the long game, trying to draw out his critics only to smite them as they stand—but how would this work, exactly? How is the tactic of saying “this shouldn’t matter” going to make it all not matter?

No, more convincing were the rebuttals to Romney-as-ninja suggestion:

Like many Captains of the Universe, Romney has an absolutely huge sense of entitlement. He is just dripping with condescension when he answers questions about this stuff.  He has always been brittle when his record has been questioned, even when it was done with kid gloves by fellow republicans….

I know the “campaign” is probably in full pushback mode, but I wonder if Mitt, personally, really even understands how important this is.  He behaves in every way like it is something he can dismiss with a wave of the hand… At the end of the day, Romney is the one deciding on the direction of this campaign.  And right now I think we see that he just doesn’t think is anyone’s business.

I didn’t get into the psychology of Romney’s refusal to deal, but Entitled Prick makes more sense than Strategic Sensei.

In any case, I still don’t know how much any of this is going to matter come November, but this has all  been so poorly handled that I have gone beyond mere schadenfreude into delighted amazement: Did he really think he could run on his business record and not have that record questioned?

Odd. Very, very odd.

h/t Andrew Sullivan, Daily Dish; James Fallows

~~~~

Note to transition2balance: I tried writing a post on the plagues and pestilences which befall poor maidens who turn libber—but it wasn’t funny, wasn’t funny at all.

I guess what they say about feminists and humor is true. . . .


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Mayan campaign mashup 2012: Logic and lies

6 07 2012

Mitt Romney is an odd man.

Okay, yeah, not a fresh observation, but I’m not talking about his odd sense of humor (pretending a waitress played grab-ass with you? really?) or his awkwardness carrying on back-and-forth conversations with the ordinary folk, or even his gosh-gee-gollyisms. (As someone with a fondness for retroisms, I kinda like this, especially because I think it’s completely sincere.)

No, I’m talking about the split in his personality between the logical man and the one with his pants on fire.

Sullivan and ThinkProgress have done bang-up jobs tracing Mitt’s every last doubling-back on his own words and records, as well as the campaign’s enthusiastic uninterest in the truth—unexceptional tactics in the winning-is-the-only-thing presidential campaign—but I haven’t seen as much about Romney’s rigidity regarding rules.

Did you watch any of the GOPper primary debates? Neither did I, but I did watch chunky excerpts of them, and it was clear that Mitt could be thrown off his game by someone else breaking what he saw as the rules. There were the peevish “I’m talking/I didn’t interrupt you, don’t interrupt me” moments, and the attempt to counter the more outrageous charges thrown his way by insisting “that’s just not true!”

Terribly effective, that.

Or consider his response to the disbelief that he would strap a beloved family pet to the roof of a car for a long trip to Canada: he noted there was no room in the car and hey, he built a windshield, so what was the problem? Perfectly logical, he did nothing wrong, so there was no more need for any further discussion of the terror inflicted on poor Seamus.

More substantively, consider his responses to queries about his taxes and his grudging tardiness in releasing the tax form. Some of that grudging may be for a good reason—he’s made very good use of his tax attorneys, and I’d guess that someone in his campaign must be aware of the optics—but he seems genuinely put out that anyone would question him about the way he worked over the tax code. I pay every dollar I owe and not one penny more, he’s said, which, while likely technically true, is rather beside the point. In Romney’s eyes, however, submitting to the rules, even rules which one’s accountants have stretched to the screaming point, is all that matters, and anyone who’d suggest otherwise is simply small-minded or out to get him.

Similarly, it is perfectly legal to open overseas bank accounts, provided, again, one follows the rules on these matters—and I would be very surprised if Mitt Romney didn’t follow the rules. But, dude, you’ve been running for president of The Goddamningnest Best Country in the History of the Universe for the past five or six years, and it didn’t occur to you in the meantime to bring all of your dollars back to The Goddamningnest Best Country in the History of the Universe, lest it appear that your patriotism stops at the bottom line?

I mean, shit, I’m not much for nationalism nor am I bothered in general by foreign bank accounts, but even I think the president shouldn’t be dividing his monies among nations. This reaction may not be logical, but I’d bet it’s not rare.

Sure, one could say that because Romney is such a stand-up guy, he thinks following rules ought to be enough, but given his penchant for lying about Obama, I think we can safely forego the “stand-up-guy” bit.

Still, it appears that he does believe that when he follows the rules, that ought to be enough—and when it is not, he does not know how to act.

It’s unclear how much campaigns matter—events beyond the candidates’ control nonetheless tend to control presidential elections—but assuming they matter at least a little, Mitt’s adherence to the rules could get him in trouble with an opponent who writes his own rules.


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Mayan Campaign Mashup 2012: misc bits

15 01 2012

So unfair. So irresistible.

Greg Marmalard

Mitt Romney

I  should be better than this: comparing a presidential nominee to a fictional character from Animal House.

I really should. But like I said: irresistible.

~~~

On a more serious note, some conservatives in the Republican party are wondering if Mitt is really one of them, or whether he’d govern as a moderate if elected president.

To which I respond: not really, and probably not.

Not really: He’s an establishment guy, through and through, who smiles when he’s irritated and whose voice falls to a faux-whisper when denouncing the perfidy of the president. In the past, presenting as an even-keeled establishment type would have been more than enough to, well, establish oneself as a presentable conservative Republican, but today, among the excitables,  if you’re not constantly outraged, you’re suspect.

So he is, justly, suspect.

As to how he’d govern if elected, there’s a good chance, as others have pointed out, that he’ll try to do what he says he’ll do.

Yes, he governed Massachusetts as a moderate Republican—just as he said he’d do. Now he espouses conservative social policies, has surrounded himself with conservative advisers, and says he’ll govern as a conservative Republican.

Take him at his word. Really.

So to all of the excitables hyperventilating about the true shape of Romney’s malleable heart, settle down: he may not really be one of you, but he’ll govern as if he were—and isn’t that enough?

~~~

The former senator of Pennsylvania is shocked, shocked! that someone is lying in campaign politics:

The new ad by the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future hits [Rick] Santorum on supporting earmarks, backing the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” raising the debt ceiling five times and voting to “let convicted felons vote.” The ad will be broadcast in South Carolina and Florida. . . .

“That is an absolute lie,” Santorum said of the ad’s claim. “I voted for a provision that that said if a felon serves his term, serves his parole and probation, and then after that period time he can be restored his voting rights, which is exactly the law that’s here in South Carolina. But we had a federal law at the federal level. … Gov. Romney should be saying to his PAC say take that ad down, it’s false. It gives the impression that I want people to be voting from jail.” [emph added]

Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.

(Credits: still photo from Animal House footage; WBUR.org)


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Mayan Campaing Mashup 2012: Mitt’s unwit

12 01 2012

Shocking news: I am not a fan of Mitt Romney.

I’m not at all clear why he’s running for president, other than that he wants to be president, and I don’t think he’d be any good at the job.

I also think that for all his professionalism as a campaigner, he doesn’t really understand what the presidency requires.

Matt Yglesias has a nice take on this:

Of course there is envy in America, but there’s also spite. And I think you see some of it in Romney’s reply. He has a lot of money, personally. That money is very useful to him in a number of ways. It lets him consume more goods and services. It offers him security against the ups and downs in life. It lets him be assured that his kids will have a leg up in life. But over and above that, Romney seems to revel in the idea of being better than the lower orders of society and resists the leveling impulse even though it would in concrete terms leave him with plenty of money.

I don’t know if he’s spiteful or not, but  statements about envy and [the out-of-context] “I like being able to fire people” make it difficult to conclude otherwise.

Narrative, man, narrative! You do not want to feed your weaknesses: it doesn’t turn the weakness into strength, but strengthens the weakness. Tch tch tch.

Anyway, this gives me another chance to pull out a much-used Rousseau quote:

[I]f one sees a handful of powerful and rich men at the height of greatness and fortune while the mob grovels in obscurity and misery, it is because the former prize the things they enjoy only to the extent that the others are deprived of them; and because, without changing their position, they would cease to be happy, if only the people ceased to be miserable.

This is not the impression you want to leave with would-be voters.

h/t  James Fallows


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Campaign 2012: Mitt speaks!

8 10 2011

Anything goes in politics.

I have declaimed this often and loudly on this and other (well, TNC’s and sometimes Emily’s) blogs: the only thing that matters in political campaigning is what works. That’s it.

What about the law? If breaking the law doesn’t work, don’t do it. Most of the time it doesn’t, but some of the time—particularly as regards campaign finance—it doesn’t matter: any final rulings on the matter take place after the election and involve only a fine, if that.

More to the point, I see no point in getting OUTRAGED or offended! by campaign rhetoric  because so much of this rhetoric is designed to rouse one’s base, which pretty much has the effect of OUTRAGING and offending! the other side.

C’est la vie politique, in other words.

Anyway, there are limits the O and o! tactic, in that presidential candidates need to convince the undecideds to toss their votes to them. You don’t want to O & o! these folks, you want to bring them along; given that by definition they’re already more skeptical of your candidacy, you don’t want to do anything which causes them to squint their eyes, twist their lips, and say that’s dumb.

I nominate former governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech to the Citadel for the squint treatment.

He says a lot of contestable items in the speech, repeating, for example, the canard that Obama has “apologized” for America. Whatever: that’s a Republican theme manufactured to sow doubts about Obama’s fealty to the US, and while there is no evidence of any sort of “apology tour”, this attempted theming is a standard part of any political campaign (see: Al Gore and his alleged invention of the Internet).

This, however, is dumb:

I will not surrender America’s role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President.
You have that President today.

Uh-huh.

All of the other nonsense about a military build-up and world leadership and big sticks are interpretive-partisan matters, that is, whether or not you see it as nonsense likely varies on where you stand. Romney may or may not believe that the Navy has been “hollowed out”, but it is within the realm of possibility that he thinks that the shipbuilding rate of 9 [nine what? nine ships? which ships?] is alarmingly low, and that increasing this to 15 will secure the nation.

But this, that President Obama wants a weak America, does he really believe that?

Please.

Romney is often hit with the charge of a Gumby candidacy: he’ll bend and fold and spindle himself into any shape his audience wants. From pro-choice to pro-life, pro-gay rights to anti-, from moderate to rightist, from the craven sane to the craven un-sane—again, whatever works.

But declamations on the president’s devotion to this country are dumb. Yes, there is a rump portion of the Republican electorate who question Obama’s bona fides, but there are likely many more who simply think he’s wrong; they question his strategy, not his motives.

Now, this latter group may not care if Romney dissects Obama’s heart, but as any Republican nominee will have to contest in a national election, he’ll want to avoid saying anything to his base that could cause undecideds to squint at his words.

Saying that Obama doesn’t want a strong America is squint-worthy for two reasons:

1) He authorized the killing of Osama bin Laden and drone strikes which have killed dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, gave the go-ahead in the capture of Somali pirates, and in his positioning of special-ops military teams around the world, has made clear that the US will do what it will do, regardless of national borders and international law.

(I have my own disputes with some of his actions, but I am in the minority in questioning what I see as presidential overreach.)

In any case, Romney is working against easily-available and hard-to-dispute evidence, such that he leaves himself open to the question of “what would you do differently in these cases?”, a question which allows him no good answers.

2. Along the same lines, he leaves himself open to the questions along the lines of  “do you really believe that President Obama wants a weak America/doesn’t put America first/doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism/etc.?”

This is dumb because, again, there’s no quick-and-easy way to answer this question, not only because of the evidence, but also because of the presumption of bad-faith.

Pundits and operatives can engage in bad-faith, but the president is supposed to be bigger than all that, he’s supposed to be generous and broad-minded and able to embrace all of America. (Yeah, yeah, I know, but what can I say: it’s a campaign trope.) He’s supposed to say stuff along the lines of “My opponent and I both love this country, but only one of us has what it takes to lead the nation forward.”  He’s not a bad man, he just has bad ideas.

You want questions which allow you in your response to demonstrate both your generosity and superiority. You want questions which allow you to focus unreservedly on your policies and vision, on your depth and far-sightedness. You want questions which allow you smoothly to rise above, even as you whack away at your opponent.

“Governor Romney, in your speech before the Citadel you stated that President Obama does not want the United States to be the strongest country in the world. Do you really believe that? Do you really think your opponent wants to destroy America? ” is not that kind of question, because any attempted smooth rising-above will be stuck on your own bad-faith words.

Which is why opening himself up to this line is. . . dumb.

(Edited for typos, grammar, and some nasty syntax errors.)


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Categories : Politics

My brain scatters

15 03 2011

Look at this man:

T-Paw!

Do you not think: Midwestern Mitt Romney?

Same high forehead, slightly shorter hair, similarly fairly-successful governor of an M-state, same general corporate sensibility with the occasional plaid-and-guns image thrown in, more tolerant of creationism, less Mormon, also not-yet-officially-running to be the GOP nominee for president.

Oh, and similarly empty empty empty.

~~~

I have been getting a large amount of truly boring spam, almost all of which was directed to my “Music Thief” page.

“Interesting approach to this issue. I learned alot [sic]. Thank you much for this!”

For a list. Uh-huh.

Anyway, I stopped updating it awhile ago, so I had no reservations in deleting it.

Let’s see if the spamsters latch on to another page.

~~~

Why oh why do I need a prescription for levothyroxin?

I’ve been on the exact same does for 10 years, and in the years before that, the dose moved only slightly upward or downward.

Sure, yearly checks of thyroid levels makes sense, but absent any changes, why can’t I simply get this from the pharmacist?

That seems to me a decent alternative for all kinds of drugs (not least of which are many birth control pills): an initial scrip needed, and, if no problems, a conversation with a pharmacist for ongoing renewals.

Yes, there’s a background to this: I’ve been trying to get my scrip renewed but the doc hasn’t called it in the pharmacist, nor has she contacted me to let me know if there’s a problem. And I’m out of pills.

(Yes, I called before they ran out. I figured the prescription would be called in before I ran out. Silly me.)

This is more annoying than anything: I’ll hit up a local urgent care clinic if I don’t hear from someone at the clinic—generic synthroid isn’t hard to score, as it’s neither a narcotic nor does it have any street value—but I’d rather avoid the expense and time-suck.

Grrr.

~~~

I woke up wondering What was the name of that guy from Jurassic Park? And that movie with Nicole Kidman? And that weird movie I watched in French (and didn’t understand) with I think Isabel Adjani? And (brrr) Event Horizon?

Neil. Neal. Something Neil. O’Neill. Ed? Ed O’Neill? No, that’s the  Married With Family-guy. Ed Harris. No. Dammit. Maybe not Neal at all. Maybe Harry. Or George. Or Lincoln.

What the hell? Why can’t I remember?

And why am I thinking of this? He’s not all that interesting an actor; I’ve got nothing for or against him. What the hell?

Sam Neill.

Criminy. I am losing my mind.


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