President Obama will appear at Osawatomie, Kansas on Tuesday. I thought Drudge told me he was going on a 14-day vacation. He was just here the other day for the tree-lighting ceremony. So people are puzzled by this trip to a state he didn't win and is unlikely to in 2012. I thought he was going to commemorate John Brown, the psychopathic abolitionist, but instead I was informed by Business Insider that he would deliver a roaring class warfare speech. Why would someone think that? Because the White House put out a press release to say that President Obama would be giving a major speech about the future of the middle-class in America and that his speech would commemorate Theodore Roosevelt's new Nationalism speech, where TR railed against Wall Street and American corporations and chided people for calling him a socialist.
In case you don't know, Newt the Cameleon in Iowa called President Obama a "full-blown Saul Alinsky radical". This is the resurgence of the Bad Newt. The Bad Newt has called President Obama a socialist trying to secularize America. We should remember Saul Alinsky's son broke into uncontrollable laughter with tears streaming down his face when this accusation was first brought against Obama.
Bad Newt has also surfaced with his dog whistles about poor people. Not only should the poor children clean toilets, but the poor are using food stamps to travel to Hawaii. I don't know whether Newt is subtly digging at Obama, who is supposed to be vacationing in Hawaii, or did Newt go back to the Welfare Queen file and updated the accusations the poor drove Cadillacs and turned it into Hawaiian vacations.
Newt was naughty on last night's Mike Huckabee lovefest where the GOP contenders battled with three extreme right-wing state Attorney Generals over policy. Newt contended that he and Heritage Foundation came up with the idea of the individual mandate in healthcare to block Hillarycare and that they never meant it to be taken seriously. What a whopper! Newt was for the individual mandate as late as 2008. Conservatives really did advocate individual mandates as part of their code for taking individual responsibility.
This last item shows you how far gone the so-called conservatives are. Conservatives created the idea of cap-and-trade, individual health care mandates and a host of other ideas, which President Obama thought he could use to gain bipartisan support for his policies. Little did he know that the Right would disavow much of their intellectual wares the minute he became President. And the Republicans have absolutely abandoned their hisoric role in backing infrastructure spending and their creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
I guess this is a result of post-retail politics, the existence of politicians and policy-makers in a self-enclosed glass headquarters removed from the everyday reality of American life. One breath of fresh air came yesterday as Mitt Romney's former business partner of 10 years at Bain Capital candidly admitted that he never thought they were in the "job creation" business as Romney pretends but in the business of making the wealthy wealthier.
The resurgence of Newt is not as unbelievable as common sense tells one. Newt is the composite of all the non-Mitts, including the sex scandals. Some wag said that Romney was the 1% and Newt was their lobbyist. But Newt's former Republican colleagues in the House are not amused. Senator Tom Coburn said it would hard to back Newt because of how he ran the House and his ethical lapses. Guy Molinari called Newt "an evil person" based on his political run-ins with him. Others said he was disdainful of his colleagues, arrogant and a know-it-all. Even Dana Rohrbacker scoffed at Newt's claim that he helped President Reagan defeat Communism. So far, the Obama campaign and the Democrats are simply waiting and watching as all of Newt's Republican,conservative former colleagues come out of the closet. Newt also has a problem with the Southern Baptists, who have called upon him to openly talk about his marital problems in a way that could persuade their congregations that he has repented.
Newt may have defied traditional political gravity. He is a candidate who owns nearly every trait or character flaw that has doomed past politicians. He may just have amassed so many character problems that he has hit the critical mass where it simply doesn't matter anymore to the average voter. If I can walk into a bookstore today and see Kim Kardashian have a novel out, then American culture has gotten so polluted that a seriously and fatally flawed candidate could make it like a Reality Television Show.
Maureen Dowd takes on Newt's love affair with his own mind in today's column "Out of Africa and into Iowa", which explores the funky and idiosyncratic mind of Newton Leroy McPherson.
Perhaps Newt is the political prophet of our time with his creation of Newt,Inc., his conglomerate of think tanks and book and film publishing ventures. In other words, all of politics has been marketized and the traditional categories of political science are dead and gone.
Senator John McCain today raised the voice of the past--not his own but what we used to consider politics. John thought the Republicans were having too many debates and he also said that candidates should back off the anti-immigrant rhetoric because New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado were in play because of the GOP's harsh words against Hispanics. While I agree with his attitude, I don't think people in a tube can restrain themselves.
The aspect that Republicans are having too many debates has a plus side and a negative. The Plus is that individual campaigns are saving a fortune they would have used on advertising. The Negative is that the audience is getting numb and bored and they are geneating a wealth of youtube comments to compose a whole campaign worth of negative advertising. And for the larger point, the debates are showing how degraded the Republican brand has become.
How bad is it? Well, now you have Donald Trump moderating a debate for NewMax on something called the ION channel. I can understand candidates going to see Warren Buffet or even the demonic Jaime Dimon but Trump. The Donald is going to host his version of the political Apprentice. Ron Paul already has protested that "Trump should not become some Republican deity." Jon Huntsman's campaign manager John Weaver laughed out loud about the debate and said his candidate will be watching with a bowl full of popcorn.
But Newt with his finger on the pulse of America said,"Who can turn down the Donald?" Cartoon meets Cartoon. What will be interesting is whether the Donald will debate economic policy with Romney and assure the audience that leveraging businesses is the way to get rich.
The state of the affairs in American politics has drawn the appropriate ridicule of Europeans. This week Der Spiegel printed a piece about the sorry array of Republican candidates and their awesome ignorance about almost anything. The "Shining City on the Hill" has become a laughingstock abroad and increasingly at home.
Steve Benen, fast becoming my favorite commentator,did a short piece in the Washington Monthly about the Right's fixation about the perception that President Obama doesn't perceive America as exceptional. Benen points out that President Obama is the only President ever to call America "exceptional" and points out he did it again at the Asian Summit but no one on the Right seems to have listened. A frequent reader of this blog wrote in that conservatives have made us all "exceptional"--"they've put us all on the short bus".
But in case you want to "learn" more about our exceptionalism, you can ever buy Newt Gingrich's recent book on the subject or Glenn Beck's holiday offering, a biography of George Washington with information you have never known before. Probably the fake information provided by David Barton about George Washington's faith.
I'm waiting for the Right to finally catch on to the fact that American exceptionalism was a term coined by Karl Marx to explain why the country had no strong socialist traditions or roots. So then we can go straight to President Obama using the term in "Marxist" ways based on Saul Alinsky's radicalism to bring socialism to American through secularism.
As Mitt Romney said yesterday, "Do you want this nation to be run by our government?" Think about that. What are the alternatives, Willard? Bain Capital? Equity Fund managers? The last time I looked our government--for better or worse--was elected by its people. That's why we call it representative democracy.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Steve Benen on The End of Retail Politics
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly today takes up my theme of yesterday's post the end of retail politics.
He notes that the Des Moines Register poll,which is conducted by the Iowa Caucus guru Ann Selzer, has Gingrich in the lead, followed by Ron Paul, and then Mitt Romney. This despite the fact that Newt had not opened a state office there until a few days ago,and hasn't aired an ad. Mitt Romney is competitive there, despite avoiding the state much of the year and openly downplaying the Caucus to dampen expectations. Even Ron Paul, who does have an active organization in the state, has rarely appeared there.
Benen quotes Jeff Zeleny, the New York Times reporter,that the natura of retail politics may be a "thing of the pass" since candidates are replacing in-person visits to the early states with media interviews and debate performances. Benen concludes that at least for Republican politics the change occured with "the Fox effect" where the channel news station acts like a perpetual townhall of the Republican candidates.
I share Benen's view--wish--desire that the Republicans wake up after New Hampshire and wish they had spent more time actually shaking hands and kissing babies. The tenure of the whole Republican process has run counter to this and therefore you can have the strange circumstances of a Herman Cain "suspending" his campaign as a business decision, so as to allow him to take his money and create a PAC. Even though he defiantly "suspended his campaign, observers still conclude he has a political future.
Benen argues that this "post-retail politics" undercuts the case Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally made that people can kick the tires of candidates and that this ritual is one which benefits the nation at large. If Newt can simply air-drop in and win, what is the purpose of the Iowa Caucus?
It's that time--Time to check the Intratrade betting board. 45.3% say Romney will win the nomination; 34.5% say Gingrich and strangely Huntsman has pushed up to 6%, perhaps because establishment figures are beginning to sing his praises.
Obama wins re-election at 50.8%.
He notes that the Des Moines Register poll,which is conducted by the Iowa Caucus guru Ann Selzer, has Gingrich in the lead, followed by Ron Paul, and then Mitt Romney. This despite the fact that Newt had not opened a state office there until a few days ago,and hasn't aired an ad. Mitt Romney is competitive there, despite avoiding the state much of the year and openly downplaying the Caucus to dampen expectations. Even Ron Paul, who does have an active organization in the state, has rarely appeared there.
Benen quotes Jeff Zeleny, the New York Times reporter,that the natura of retail politics may be a "thing of the pass" since candidates are replacing in-person visits to the early states with media interviews and debate performances. Benen concludes that at least for Republican politics the change occured with "the Fox effect" where the channel news station acts like a perpetual townhall of the Republican candidates.
I share Benen's view--wish--desire that the Republicans wake up after New Hampshire and wish they had spent more time actually shaking hands and kissing babies. The tenure of the whole Republican process has run counter to this and therefore you can have the strange circumstances of a Herman Cain "suspending" his campaign as a business decision, so as to allow him to take his money and create a PAC. Even though he defiantly "suspended his campaign, observers still conclude he has a political future.
Benen argues that this "post-retail politics" undercuts the case Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally made that people can kick the tires of candidates and that this ritual is one which benefits the nation at large. If Newt can simply air-drop in and win, what is the purpose of the Iowa Caucus?
It's that time--Time to check the Intratrade betting board. 45.3% say Romney will win the nomination; 34.5% say Gingrich and strangely Huntsman has pushed up to 6%, perhaps because establishment figures are beginning to sing his praises.
Obama wins re-election at 50.8%.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Are Retail Politics Dead?
This year's Republican race for their nomination has been strange beyond the characters. Candidates hawk books and DVDs in states whcih may or may not become important late in the process. Newt Gingrich previews a movie in Staten Island with less than a month before the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire shortly thereafter. The phenomenon of candidates keeping surprising schedules and attending minor events for self-promotion still unsettles political professionals.
I understand the Republicans having endless debates because they broadcast Repubican views without any cost to the candidates' campaign chests. But the deliberate omisson to organizational detail is still puzzling. There are those, and their numbers are increasing, who argue that the nuts and bolts of campaign organization and mobilization are out of touch with the American reality of a nation of couch potatoes. All you need is the expertise of the New Age Roger Ailes and Roger Ailes himself to run a campaign.
I still favor organization, voter mobilization and the usual tricks of Get Out The Vote but I concede I was woefully wrong in 2010 when in areas of intense Democratic organization tea bag candidates did well. And in the age of Citizens United, how much influence do individual voters have anyway? I have poisted continually the efforts being put in place to restrict the voting of key constituencies, who usually favor Democrats, but I think this is all part of the larger picture of having a type of virtual politics.
Political observers claim this trend was becoming apparent at the end of the 2008 campaign, one which saw Barack Obama revolutionize American political campaigns. We saw the Obama campaign efforts but miss the more distrubing signs on the horizon as more fake political entities were being generated. 2009 brought the heyday of astroturf movements such as the Tea Party. Corporate interests could create their own imitation of authentic popular movements. And it will be interesting to see whether this dominates in 2012. I've written before that Obama can not run his type of campaign while serving as a sitting President. He will have to adopt a hybrid model, while the Republican can use the machinery of the right-wing media and a cluster of astroturf groups to simulate popular support.
Perhaps the most dramatic contrast with this new way of politics is the Occupy Wall Street Movement, a shocking manifestation of popular sentiment with alot of the old techniques used by political movements in the past. The sharp contrast with normal politics should wake us up to the erosion of normal politics in our system.
Let's see what happens in the next few months. Governor Bradstad of Iowa claims that the Caucus right now is a free-for-all. He says that Ron Paul has the best political operation in the state, the most traditional elements like signs and placards and the most motivated voters. Rick Santorum has actually campaigned in all 99 counties and Michelle Bachmann has spent a good deal of her time in the state. This used to be a state where such techniques paid off handsomely. Bradstad said that the real results will be determined by the last two debates and the last minute advertising. In other words, the past techniques will not yield the results they used to.
In New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman has pinned his entire campaign on camping out in the state and working every traditional venue from American Legion halls to diners to pick up votes. Even though Willard Romney lives there now and has fawned over the Repubican politicians in the state, even recruiting their local birthers, he hasn't sealed the deal. Will Huntsman even register among the leaders at the end?
Once we're out of these states, we are into a mixed bag and states with diverse media markets and a more diverse electorate. At that time, the media campaigns will become dominant.
I hope some of the old ways survive. I think we saw this with the labor mobilization against the Ohio state law banishing collective bargaining, the recalls in Wisconsin, and of course the Occupy Movement. Techniques can change;IT and the Social media is used. But organization still demands persuading local people of your point of view and maintaining a dedicated core who will fight for your cause.
I'm not sure we are seeing this at the national level. Perhaps the reason is the lack of faith in our own institutions.
I understand the Republicans having endless debates because they broadcast Repubican views without any cost to the candidates' campaign chests. But the deliberate omisson to organizational detail is still puzzling. There are those, and their numbers are increasing, who argue that the nuts and bolts of campaign organization and mobilization are out of touch with the American reality of a nation of couch potatoes. All you need is the expertise of the New Age Roger Ailes and Roger Ailes himself to run a campaign.
I still favor organization, voter mobilization and the usual tricks of Get Out The Vote but I concede I was woefully wrong in 2010 when in areas of intense Democratic organization tea bag candidates did well. And in the age of Citizens United, how much influence do individual voters have anyway? I have poisted continually the efforts being put in place to restrict the voting of key constituencies, who usually favor Democrats, but I think this is all part of the larger picture of having a type of virtual politics.
Political observers claim this trend was becoming apparent at the end of the 2008 campaign, one which saw Barack Obama revolutionize American political campaigns. We saw the Obama campaign efforts but miss the more distrubing signs on the horizon as more fake political entities were being generated. 2009 brought the heyday of astroturf movements such as the Tea Party. Corporate interests could create their own imitation of authentic popular movements. And it will be interesting to see whether this dominates in 2012. I've written before that Obama can not run his type of campaign while serving as a sitting President. He will have to adopt a hybrid model, while the Republican can use the machinery of the right-wing media and a cluster of astroturf groups to simulate popular support.
Perhaps the most dramatic contrast with this new way of politics is the Occupy Wall Street Movement, a shocking manifestation of popular sentiment with alot of the old techniques used by political movements in the past. The sharp contrast with normal politics should wake us up to the erosion of normal politics in our system.
Let's see what happens in the next few months. Governor Bradstad of Iowa claims that the Caucus right now is a free-for-all. He says that Ron Paul has the best political operation in the state, the most traditional elements like signs and placards and the most motivated voters. Rick Santorum has actually campaigned in all 99 counties and Michelle Bachmann has spent a good deal of her time in the state. This used to be a state where such techniques paid off handsomely. Bradstad said that the real results will be determined by the last two debates and the last minute advertising. In other words, the past techniques will not yield the results they used to.
In New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman has pinned his entire campaign on camping out in the state and working every traditional venue from American Legion halls to diners to pick up votes. Even though Willard Romney lives there now and has fawned over the Repubican politicians in the state, even recruiting their local birthers, he hasn't sealed the deal. Will Huntsman even register among the leaders at the end?
Once we're out of these states, we are into a mixed bag and states with diverse media markets and a more diverse electorate. At that time, the media campaigns will become dominant.
I hope some of the old ways survive. I think we saw this with the labor mobilization against the Ohio state law banishing collective bargaining, the recalls in Wisconsin, and of course the Occupy Movement. Techniques can change;IT and the Social media is used. But organization still demands persuading local people of your point of view and maintaining a dedicated core who will fight for your cause.
I'm not sure we are seeing this at the national level. Perhaps the reason is the lack of faith in our own institutions.
Performance Artist Suspends Book Tour
Ending his press conference with the words to the theme song for Pokeman, Herman Cain suspended his campaign at the Atlanta campaign office ,which was scheduled to open today. Taking a leaf from Newt Gingrich's career, he announced his Plan B was to create CainSolutions to promote his infamous "9-9-9" Plan and his foreign policy ideas. The last is not a joke.
Cain emphasized that he was suspending his campaign because of the "false allegations" by women who said they had been harrassed and one woman who detailed a 13-year sexual relationship with him. To a crowd who chanted "GLORIA", his wife's name, he said that he was suspending the campaign because of the hurt these allegations did to him and his family. There was literally no mention of whether he may have acted in a hurtful way. This was not a Gary Hart performance.
Only yesterday his campaign posted on his website a section "Women for Herman Cain" to elicit contributions. Even before he made his announcement, Herman Cain had not contacted any of his donors and his campaign until the final moment said that Cain was not withdrawing.
The Manchester Union Leader yesterday opined that Charisma was not a qualification for President. Cain, who had been a lobbyist for many years, touted his credentials as a businessman and a total outsider. But as the Union Leader made clear Cain had absolutely no understanding of policy in any dimension or even a rudmentary understanding of how the government worked.
But Cain had emerged as the Tea Party favorite on the strength of his motivational speaker dynamic. Actual political operatives were and remain puzzled over his total lack of organization or desire to have an organizsation, his habit of booking appearances in non-primary states, and his taking a month off for a book tour as his poll numbers rocketed. He had simply not bothered to campaign until very recently in Iowa and New Hamsphire.
It seems that Rachel Maddow may have had the last word on Herman Cain. he was a performance artist and his campaign was a great art project.
Cain emphasized that he was suspending his campaign because of the "false allegations" by women who said they had been harrassed and one woman who detailed a 13-year sexual relationship with him. To a crowd who chanted "GLORIA", his wife's name, he said that he was suspending the campaign because of the hurt these allegations did to him and his family. There was literally no mention of whether he may have acted in a hurtful way. This was not a Gary Hart performance.
Only yesterday his campaign posted on his website a section "Women for Herman Cain" to elicit contributions. Even before he made his announcement, Herman Cain had not contacted any of his donors and his campaign until the final moment said that Cain was not withdrawing.
The Manchester Union Leader yesterday opined that Charisma was not a qualification for President. Cain, who had been a lobbyist for many years, touted his credentials as a businessman and a total outsider. But as the Union Leader made clear Cain had absolutely no understanding of policy in any dimension or even a rudmentary understanding of how the government worked.
But Cain had emerged as the Tea Party favorite on the strength of his motivational speaker dynamic. Actual political operatives were and remain puzzled over his total lack of organization or desire to have an organizsation, his habit of booking appearances in non-primary states, and his taking a month off for a book tour as his poll numbers rocketed. He had simply not bothered to campaign until very recently in Iowa and New Hamsphire.
It seems that Rachel Maddow may have had the last word on Herman Cain. he was a performance artist and his campaign was a great art project.
George Will Wants To Stop the Coronation
George Will, when he gets very motivated,actually channels the fine writer he once was. Today's column in the Washngton Post, "Romney and Gingrich, from bad to worse" is a return to form.
Will already sliced and diced Mitt Romney in a scathing column recently but couldn't help himself from returning to the scene of the crime. he says that Romney's main objection to contemporary Washington is that he's not the one currently administering it. Will claims, without much conviction, that Romney's "conservatism-as-managerialism" would be an improvement upon today's "bewildered lberalism", wherever that is.
But Will lets his verbal skill soar on the subject of Newt Gingrich. "Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make Washington repulsive." Will knows that Newt's bombast as a "transformative" person is high enteraintment. Will says that Newt would have made "a marvelous Marxist,believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how." Quoting Churchill about John Foster Dulles, he alludes that Newt "is a bull who carries his own china shop around with him."
At another section of the piece, Will quotes Genesis,"Unstable as water, thou shall not excel."
Money quotes: "There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich's unrepented role as a hired larnyx for interests profiting from such government follies as ethanol and cheap mortgages. His Olympian sense of examption from standards and logi allowed him fresh from pocketing $1.6 million from freedie Mac ( for services as a"historian"), to syay,"If you want to put people in jail,"look at "politicians who profited from" Washington's environment.
Will likens the GOP's desire to nominate Mitt Romney to their folly of nominating an able Tom Dewey to run against Harry Truman. The voters basically disliked Dewey as they do Romney.
Will then makes a weak pitch for Rick Perry, who is advised by his wife, and then touts the conservative credentials of Jon Huntsman. This is the most expansive section of the column, which recaps Huntsman's opposition of corporate welfare, his desire to privatize Freddie Mac, repeal No Child Left Behind, Paul Ryan's budget proposals (which disappoint me) and his nuanced understanding of foreign policy.
Will is not alone in recognizing Huntsman's qualities. Christy Todd Whitman urged Huntsman yesterday to run as a third party candidate since she has despaired that the Republicans can ever return to sanity. Former Governor Tom Ridge has also voiced support for Hunstman. Ironically, he is doomed because he agreed to serve as President Obama's ambassador to China, a move which early in the Obama administration I noted in this blog was a stroke of genius on the President's part to negate the one possible Republican who could defeat him.
While Will stresses Huntsman's conservatism as the world used to know the term, Huntsman was a successful two-term Governor of Utah and the greatest job creator running for the Republican nomination outside of Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. He also was rational on subjects like same-sex civil unions (remember we're talking Mormon Utah here),climate change and the environment where he worked with governors of surrounding states on cap-and-trade proposals. Huntsman comes from a very rich family and has possessed the good grace to enter public service as an ambassador under three Presidents. Besides riding a motorcycle, Huntsman listens to Captain Beefheart, which probably disqualifies him from the Republican Party.
Huntsman is literally not registering on the polls. He has concentrated his efforts on an intensive ground game in New Hampshire with the awareness that independents can vote in the primary. If Huntsman disappears after New Hampshire , his campaign will have made a lasting contribution in their brilliant attack ads against Mitt Romney.
But George Will's column reflects the very widespread discomfort among Republicans and "normal" conservatives about the current Republican presidential contest. They are asking, "Where's the Beef?"
Will already sliced and diced Mitt Romney in a scathing column recently but couldn't help himself from returning to the scene of the crime. he says that Romney's main objection to contemporary Washington is that he's not the one currently administering it. Will claims, without much conviction, that Romney's "conservatism-as-managerialism" would be an improvement upon today's "bewildered lberalism", wherever that is.
But Will lets his verbal skill soar on the subject of Newt Gingrich. "Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make Washington repulsive." Will knows that Newt's bombast as a "transformative" person is high enteraintment. Will says that Newt would have made "a marvelous Marxist,believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how." Quoting Churchill about John Foster Dulles, he alludes that Newt "is a bull who carries his own china shop around with him."
At another section of the piece, Will quotes Genesis,"Unstable as water, thou shall not excel."
Money quotes: "There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich's unrepented role as a hired larnyx for interests profiting from such government follies as ethanol and cheap mortgages. His Olympian sense of examption from standards and logi allowed him fresh from pocketing $1.6 million from freedie Mac ( for services as a"historian"), to syay,"If you want to put people in jail,"look at "politicians who profited from" Washington's environment.
Will likens the GOP's desire to nominate Mitt Romney to their folly of nominating an able Tom Dewey to run against Harry Truman. The voters basically disliked Dewey as they do Romney.
Will then makes a weak pitch for Rick Perry, who is advised by his wife, and then touts the conservative credentials of Jon Huntsman. This is the most expansive section of the column, which recaps Huntsman's opposition of corporate welfare, his desire to privatize Freddie Mac, repeal No Child Left Behind, Paul Ryan's budget proposals (which disappoint me) and his nuanced understanding of foreign policy.
Will is not alone in recognizing Huntsman's qualities. Christy Todd Whitman urged Huntsman yesterday to run as a third party candidate since she has despaired that the Republicans can ever return to sanity. Former Governor Tom Ridge has also voiced support for Hunstman. Ironically, he is doomed because he agreed to serve as President Obama's ambassador to China, a move which early in the Obama administration I noted in this blog was a stroke of genius on the President's part to negate the one possible Republican who could defeat him.
While Will stresses Huntsman's conservatism as the world used to know the term, Huntsman was a successful two-term Governor of Utah and the greatest job creator running for the Republican nomination outside of Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. He also was rational on subjects like same-sex civil unions (remember we're talking Mormon Utah here),climate change and the environment where he worked with governors of surrounding states on cap-and-trade proposals. Huntsman comes from a very rich family and has possessed the good grace to enter public service as an ambassador under three Presidents. Besides riding a motorcycle, Huntsman listens to Captain Beefheart, which probably disqualifies him from the Republican Party.
Huntsman is literally not registering on the polls. He has concentrated his efforts on an intensive ground game in New Hampshire with the awareness that independents can vote in the primary. If Huntsman disappears after New Hampshire , his campaign will have made a lasting contribution in their brilliant attack ads against Mitt Romney.
But George Will's column reflects the very widespread discomfort among Republicans and "normal" conservatives about the current Republican presidential contest. They are asking, "Where's the Beef?"
Friday, December 2, 2011
Newt Wins The Nomination--Phew!
So we have been spared the gruelling prospect of watching more GOP debates now that Newt has proclaimed he will be the nominee. Rasmussen reports have Newt sky-rocketing in the polls and PPP, the Democratic polling firm has Newt pulling even with Mitt in New Hampshire, leading by large margins in South Carolina, Florida and Montana. However, for whatever reasons, Newt failed to make the deadline for Missouri.
So that's it. It would mean we won't have to watch the debate sponsored by Donald Trump and Newsmax in Iowa. That really deserves some comment but I can even put my mind around it.
Newt and his lovely bride Callista raise alot of interesting political science issues if he became the nominee. Richard Nixon lost the governorship of California and made a comeback by reinventing himself. But what do you make of a man who had to resign as Speaker of The House, second in line to the Presidency, was fined $300,000 for ethics violations, has had three marriages and numerous affairs, lobbied for the hated health industry and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and is notorious for being disorganized and a rhetorical bomb-thrower? Could such a person actually become President?
I get conservative e-mails all the time that Newt will whip President Obama in debates. Newt even joked he would allow Barack Obama the use of teleprompters--this being the lame right-wing meme that Obama can only recite what's written for him. For reasons best known to the Right, they always neglect when Obama showed up to talk to the House Republicans and on national television more than held his own on a range of subjects without notes or teleprompters. Or how about the open healthcare debate with Republicans at the White House? Three hours without a note in front of him and he routed the Republicans who came loaded for bear.
Newt has proposed six Lincoln-Douglas debates because Newt has nothing else to do and President Obama actually has to run a country. But this has excited conservatives who suddenly want to back an "intellectual" against someone who "pretends" to be one.
The Washngton Post today ran a piece that describes a Newt White House as one of ideas. But ideas can really be awful. Take Newt's idea to eliminate school janitors and get the kids to clean up. Or his idea to eliminate child labor laws before poor children don't know how to work and any money they get is from illegal activities. Or his idea that children should clean school toilets. I think he was channelling his early days in the orphanage with that one.
But the Newt campaign raises real questions. Can a political figure be so beaten up by scandal and corruption that he is immuned to any further damage? Newt's sudden rise as the anti-Mitt has taxed his campaign organization, the first group of whom quit during the summer. Now if you see his campaign schedule, it consists of book-signings and showings of films with his wife. Have we now moved into the realm where retail politicking is unnecessary?
From what I can gather Washington conservatives, especially older ones, remember the glory days of Newt taking over the House. In fact, his base is senior citizens. What these people want is someone who will beat up on President Obama and they believe that Newt is that person. That Newt was for climate change, cap and trade, individual mandates for health care and for Medicare Part D is irrelevant. They firmly believe that if the GOP nominee just attacks Barack Obama, the American people will come to their senses and defeat him. Of course, no one has started to figure out what then would come next.
So that's it. It would mean we won't have to watch the debate sponsored by Donald Trump and Newsmax in Iowa. That really deserves some comment but I can even put my mind around it.
Newt and his lovely bride Callista raise alot of interesting political science issues if he became the nominee. Richard Nixon lost the governorship of California and made a comeback by reinventing himself. But what do you make of a man who had to resign as Speaker of The House, second in line to the Presidency, was fined $300,000 for ethics violations, has had three marriages and numerous affairs, lobbied for the hated health industry and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and is notorious for being disorganized and a rhetorical bomb-thrower? Could such a person actually become President?
I get conservative e-mails all the time that Newt will whip President Obama in debates. Newt even joked he would allow Barack Obama the use of teleprompters--this being the lame right-wing meme that Obama can only recite what's written for him. For reasons best known to the Right, they always neglect when Obama showed up to talk to the House Republicans and on national television more than held his own on a range of subjects without notes or teleprompters. Or how about the open healthcare debate with Republicans at the White House? Three hours without a note in front of him and he routed the Republicans who came loaded for bear.
Newt has proposed six Lincoln-Douglas debates because Newt has nothing else to do and President Obama actually has to run a country. But this has excited conservatives who suddenly want to back an "intellectual" against someone who "pretends" to be one.
The Washngton Post today ran a piece that describes a Newt White House as one of ideas. But ideas can really be awful. Take Newt's idea to eliminate school janitors and get the kids to clean up. Or his idea to eliminate child labor laws before poor children don't know how to work and any money they get is from illegal activities. Or his idea that children should clean school toilets. I think he was channelling his early days in the orphanage with that one.
But the Newt campaign raises real questions. Can a political figure be so beaten up by scandal and corruption that he is immuned to any further damage? Newt's sudden rise as the anti-Mitt has taxed his campaign organization, the first group of whom quit during the summer. Now if you see his campaign schedule, it consists of book-signings and showings of films with his wife. Have we now moved into the realm where retail politicking is unnecessary?
From what I can gather Washington conservatives, especially older ones, remember the glory days of Newt taking over the House. In fact, his base is senior citizens. What these people want is someone who will beat up on President Obama and they believe that Newt is that person. That Newt was for climate change, cap and trade, individual mandates for health care and for Medicare Part D is irrelevant. They firmly believe that if the GOP nominee just attacks Barack Obama, the American people will come to their senses and defeat him. Of course, no one has started to figure out what then would come next.
The Sinking of The S.S. Willard
Until this past week, Mitt Romney had been pursuing the Nixon '68 strategy of avoiding one-to-one interviews with reporters to create the atmosphere of his inevitability. The problem with this strategy is that you have to be prepared for the day you start granting interviews and his first shot out of the gate on Fox News created more gasps and raised more doubts about his suitability for both the Republican nomination and the presidency itself.
Romney's strategists have opted to have a button-down version of Mitt Romney as solely that of a businessman--a line he mentions anytime he speaks--and that he is not a politician. The problem with this is that he has been running for a variety of offices since 1995, served as a Governor of Massachusetts, and has been running for President for 10 years. And his campaign always emphasizes that he looks like a president with his hair and looks.
Remember that catastrophic interview Ted Kennedy made when he started to run against Jimmy Carter for the democratic nomination? Asked why he was running for President (remember he's going against a sitting President of his own party), he simply could not answer the question. The effects of that interview doomed his run.
Something like that happened with Mitt Romney's warehouse interview with Fox News'Brett Beier. Brett Beier simply asked Romney straight questions, which any candidate should be able to roll off fluent answers. Obviously, with Mitt Romney, it is no surprise--given his constant changing of positions over the years and even in this campaign--that Beier would ask , without mentioning the word "flip-flopping" about his different positions. Romney got the sour look My grandmother used to get and responded,"We (meaning the reporter) don't have a clean understanding of my positions." The discomfort of Romney and his innate condescension, which appears in every debate,came across and provoked comments from across the conservative spectrum and the straight media.
This is a man without the politicians touch, just as Nixon was. Bob Dole used to comment that Richard Nixon had to literally practice shaking hands and acting like a politician. Romney appears like this also. Jonah Goldberg appeared on television to comment that Romney looked like an East German creation of a robot to seem like a politician. But Goldberg's most damaging observation about the interview was that for all this pretense that he is simply a successful businessman he came across more as a politician than the rest of the Republican running.
Ed Klein, the author of this week's Time magazine profile of the Romney campaign, appeared on Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night and made several good observations. Klein noted that presidential candidates tend to give alot of face time to reporters during all the time up to the primaries and then they shut it down. He said the reason for this was to cultivate the reporters as well as for the campaign to get a feel how the candidate will run and for reporters to get a more emphatic sense of the candidate. He noted that he had a close relationship with Bill Clinton but then Clinton shut him down after Labor Day before the primaries. He said that the Romney camp would not let him interview the candidate for his piece on the pretext that Romney gave alot of interviews during the 2008 campaign. The net effect is that the candidate loses all touch with what questions he or she would be expected to answer from the press.
This morning Mitt made a second attempt by apearing on Fox and Friends and went after Newt as a Washington insider. I'm sorry but the businessman trope seems off for this election. In the doldrums of the economy last year, it would seem that the public would respond to someone who claimed knowledge of the economy and was a businessman. But with the changing dialogue created by Occcupy Wall Street, an equity fund manager no longer seems like a businessman and Mitt is so obviously a representative of the so-called 1% that it is tough to see how long this image can stand up to scrutiny over another 14 months.
Gail Collins yesterday had a terrific column in the New York Times about how Mitt Romney must be the most repressed candidate since Richard Nixon and suggested Romney take a day or two off to decide on what date his positions on everything changed and work up a rationale for this and stick to it. Most people know that Mitt Romney as a Mormon bishop, something he hasn't talked about, was very anti-abortion, even visiting women in the hospital to talk them out of the procedure. But once candidate for Senate he became pro-choice and invoked his mother and a relative who had a flawed procedure when it was illegal. So Mitt Romney doesn't have to say as he does now that he studied the issue and investigated the notion of a fetus before changing his mind. But on almost every other position, he has to draw the line when everything changed.
The sense of privilege hangs in the air whenever Mitt or one of his sons talks about everyday life. Mitt's son fondly talked to reporters about their family thanksgiving. But he referred to their $12 million home in California as a modest two-bedroom home, which reporters were quick to point out as 3,500 square feet and primo real estate.
Probably David Axelrod nailed it at the beginning of the campaign as saying that Mitt Romney was "weird". There is something totally tone-deaf about Romney. Today,unemployment dropped to 8.6%, the lowest since 2009 and private job growth this year will be the best since 2006. Romney issued a press release condemning the Obama administration for the numbers and said he would never tolerate so many unemployed. This might be plausible if his other campaign remarks didn't counter the indifference to taking measures to help the middle class. But even so, you can't spin the news the way Romney does. You can spin it but you have to acknowledge it is better news than we've heard in months.
Political pundits frequently mention the "who would you like to have a beer with" question as indicating a candidate's likeability. Romney doesn't drink beer, even though he coyly fessed up to having one and smoking a cigarette in his rebellious teens. On this, pundits have gone further that Romney's inability for small talk and retail politicking comes from never having hung out at a bar and shot the shit. When you released today that your secret vice is chocolate milk, you aren't advancing the image of your common man status.
The other issue that surfaced over the past week have been stories about Romney's volcanic temper and incidents big and small over the years. It's one thing if they were derived from frustrations with business or something people could understand, but all of them came from times when Romney was expected to act like an average citizen like have a license for his motor boat. The impression you get is a highly privileged person who can explode if he doesn't get his way, not the calming, deliberate image his campaign wants to portray. It is not like you will get to chose between calming Mitt Romney and No-Drama Obama. Obama's anger is usually signalled by his tapping his right foot.
The more Romney is exposed through debates and the campaign trial the higher the negatives he gets from the Republican base. While negatives should be expected to rise as a campaign heats up, almost all Republican observers believe he has won every debate, despite what I have said in my blogs. But the net effect is that Romney's appeal to Republicans gets worse. Since he began his campaign, his negatives have steadily risen to now 40%. In the past that was fatal but as we've seen in the last two election cycles that is no longer the rule. And there remains a mysetry as to why he just doesn't seem to break the 23-24% mark in preference polls.
While he still has not made the sale, there is the other question. In a general election, does he believe that what he has said to win the Republican primary will not be used against him as he tries to portray himself as a moderate to win independents and moderates. Remember he has not internalized the radical change in campaigning in the YouTube,twitter, Facebook era. He lost the 2008 campaign just before this became a dominant factor. Ed Klein remarked that the Romney people don't seem to understand that their candidate will have to understand that everything is open and known and that you just can't pivot like you could do in the past and assume another political persona for the general election.
Whatever you think of President Obama it seems and feels and sounds authentic. Mitt Romney does appear, feel or sound authentic and he makes plastic look real. Remember every Republican candidate in 2008 couldn't stand him. As the campaign moves on, I can't see Romney wearing well.
The GOP chairman in Iowa already has said that Romney can't win there despite the campaign's announcement that they are now playing to win the caucus. But no one ever expected him too. Tomorrow is the Mike Huckabee debate so that everyone is supposed to attack Newt Ginrgich as the next Non-Mitt. So even if Romney is declared the winner, it's not going to help.
My take is that Romney will not have a real chance to win the Presidency unless he loses New Hampshire and makes a comeback,which shows he has inner strength and the guts to pull himself off the floor. We have not seen anything to let us know whether Romney is anything but a privileged son who started life at third base, who managed to amass a fortune by leveraging other companies. We have no sense of struggle, doubt or overcoming odds.
Of anyone I think Jon Huntsman is the most sensitive to Romney's great vulnerabilities and has produced television ad after television ad that skewers him.
Romney's strategists have opted to have a button-down version of Mitt Romney as solely that of a businessman--a line he mentions anytime he speaks--and that he is not a politician. The problem with this is that he has been running for a variety of offices since 1995, served as a Governor of Massachusetts, and has been running for President for 10 years. And his campaign always emphasizes that he looks like a president with his hair and looks.
Remember that catastrophic interview Ted Kennedy made when he started to run against Jimmy Carter for the democratic nomination? Asked why he was running for President (remember he's going against a sitting President of his own party), he simply could not answer the question. The effects of that interview doomed his run.
Something like that happened with Mitt Romney's warehouse interview with Fox News'Brett Beier. Brett Beier simply asked Romney straight questions, which any candidate should be able to roll off fluent answers. Obviously, with Mitt Romney, it is no surprise--given his constant changing of positions over the years and even in this campaign--that Beier would ask , without mentioning the word "flip-flopping" about his different positions. Romney got the sour look My grandmother used to get and responded,"We (meaning the reporter) don't have a clean understanding of my positions." The discomfort of Romney and his innate condescension, which appears in every debate,came across and provoked comments from across the conservative spectrum and the straight media.
This is a man without the politicians touch, just as Nixon was. Bob Dole used to comment that Richard Nixon had to literally practice shaking hands and acting like a politician. Romney appears like this also. Jonah Goldberg appeared on television to comment that Romney looked like an East German creation of a robot to seem like a politician. But Goldberg's most damaging observation about the interview was that for all this pretense that he is simply a successful businessman he came across more as a politician than the rest of the Republican running.
Ed Klein, the author of this week's Time magazine profile of the Romney campaign, appeared on Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night and made several good observations. Klein noted that presidential candidates tend to give alot of face time to reporters during all the time up to the primaries and then they shut it down. He said the reason for this was to cultivate the reporters as well as for the campaign to get a feel how the candidate will run and for reporters to get a more emphatic sense of the candidate. He noted that he had a close relationship with Bill Clinton but then Clinton shut him down after Labor Day before the primaries. He said that the Romney camp would not let him interview the candidate for his piece on the pretext that Romney gave alot of interviews during the 2008 campaign. The net effect is that the candidate loses all touch with what questions he or she would be expected to answer from the press.
This morning Mitt made a second attempt by apearing on Fox and Friends and went after Newt as a Washington insider. I'm sorry but the businessman trope seems off for this election. In the doldrums of the economy last year, it would seem that the public would respond to someone who claimed knowledge of the economy and was a businessman. But with the changing dialogue created by Occcupy Wall Street, an equity fund manager no longer seems like a businessman and Mitt is so obviously a representative of the so-called 1% that it is tough to see how long this image can stand up to scrutiny over another 14 months.
Gail Collins yesterday had a terrific column in the New York Times about how Mitt Romney must be the most repressed candidate since Richard Nixon and suggested Romney take a day or two off to decide on what date his positions on everything changed and work up a rationale for this and stick to it. Most people know that Mitt Romney as a Mormon bishop, something he hasn't talked about, was very anti-abortion, even visiting women in the hospital to talk them out of the procedure. But once candidate for Senate he became pro-choice and invoked his mother and a relative who had a flawed procedure when it was illegal. So Mitt Romney doesn't have to say as he does now that he studied the issue and investigated the notion of a fetus before changing his mind. But on almost every other position, he has to draw the line when everything changed.
The sense of privilege hangs in the air whenever Mitt or one of his sons talks about everyday life. Mitt's son fondly talked to reporters about their family thanksgiving. But he referred to their $12 million home in California as a modest two-bedroom home, which reporters were quick to point out as 3,500 square feet and primo real estate.
Probably David Axelrod nailed it at the beginning of the campaign as saying that Mitt Romney was "weird". There is something totally tone-deaf about Romney. Today,unemployment dropped to 8.6%, the lowest since 2009 and private job growth this year will be the best since 2006. Romney issued a press release condemning the Obama administration for the numbers and said he would never tolerate so many unemployed. This might be plausible if his other campaign remarks didn't counter the indifference to taking measures to help the middle class. But even so, you can't spin the news the way Romney does. You can spin it but you have to acknowledge it is better news than we've heard in months.
Political pundits frequently mention the "who would you like to have a beer with" question as indicating a candidate's likeability. Romney doesn't drink beer, even though he coyly fessed up to having one and smoking a cigarette in his rebellious teens. On this, pundits have gone further that Romney's inability for small talk and retail politicking comes from never having hung out at a bar and shot the shit. When you released today that your secret vice is chocolate milk, you aren't advancing the image of your common man status.
The other issue that surfaced over the past week have been stories about Romney's volcanic temper and incidents big and small over the years. It's one thing if they were derived from frustrations with business or something people could understand, but all of them came from times when Romney was expected to act like an average citizen like have a license for his motor boat. The impression you get is a highly privileged person who can explode if he doesn't get his way, not the calming, deliberate image his campaign wants to portray. It is not like you will get to chose between calming Mitt Romney and No-Drama Obama. Obama's anger is usually signalled by his tapping his right foot.
The more Romney is exposed through debates and the campaign trial the higher the negatives he gets from the Republican base. While negatives should be expected to rise as a campaign heats up, almost all Republican observers believe he has won every debate, despite what I have said in my blogs. But the net effect is that Romney's appeal to Republicans gets worse. Since he began his campaign, his negatives have steadily risen to now 40%. In the past that was fatal but as we've seen in the last two election cycles that is no longer the rule. And there remains a mysetry as to why he just doesn't seem to break the 23-24% mark in preference polls.
While he still has not made the sale, there is the other question. In a general election, does he believe that what he has said to win the Republican primary will not be used against him as he tries to portray himself as a moderate to win independents and moderates. Remember he has not internalized the radical change in campaigning in the YouTube,twitter, Facebook era. He lost the 2008 campaign just before this became a dominant factor. Ed Klein remarked that the Romney people don't seem to understand that their candidate will have to understand that everything is open and known and that you just can't pivot like you could do in the past and assume another political persona for the general election.
Whatever you think of President Obama it seems and feels and sounds authentic. Mitt Romney does appear, feel or sound authentic and he makes plastic look real. Remember every Republican candidate in 2008 couldn't stand him. As the campaign moves on, I can't see Romney wearing well.
The GOP chairman in Iowa already has said that Romney can't win there despite the campaign's announcement that they are now playing to win the caucus. But no one ever expected him too. Tomorrow is the Mike Huckabee debate so that everyone is supposed to attack Newt Ginrgich as the next Non-Mitt. So even if Romney is declared the winner, it's not going to help.
My take is that Romney will not have a real chance to win the Presidency unless he loses New Hampshire and makes a comeback,which shows he has inner strength and the guts to pull himself off the floor. We have not seen anything to let us know whether Romney is anything but a privileged son who started life at third base, who managed to amass a fortune by leveraging other companies. We have no sense of struggle, doubt or overcoming odds.
Of anyone I think Jon Huntsman is the most sensitive to Romney's great vulnerabilities and has produced television ad after television ad that skewers him.
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