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Posts Tagged ‘Mitt Romney’
June 20th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Executive Privilege Means Obama Owns Fast & Furious

Today marks a dramatic turn in the Fast and Furious scandal with the Obama White House announcing this morning that the documents sought by House Republicans are protected from disclosure by executive privilege.

For the first time since news broke of the Department of Justice gun-walking fiasco, the President of the United States is claiming an interest in DOJ’s internal deliberations about a program that purposefully armed Mexican drug cartels and ultimately allowed a drug runner to murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

In the short term, the president’s announcement may make House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa’s contempt vote closer than it would have been, if some members decide that an executive privilege claim inoculates Holder from punishment.  My guess is that Obama’s announcement will embolden Republicans on the committee to go ahead with the contempt vote and give Democrats a talking point after they lose.

In the long term, today’s executive privilege claim finally elevates Fast and Furious into a surefire campaign topic for the fall.  As long as the scandal was defended as a policy decision gone bad – especially one that was until today linked to the previous Republican administration – it was unlikely that conservatives would make Fast and Furious into a campaign theme.

But now that’s changed for two reasons.  First, as of today DOJ has rescinded its claim that Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey knew about Fast and Furious, thus admitting that the idea and its consequences belong completely to the Obama administration.  Second, Obama’s claim of executive privilege means that he is now claiming ownership of the program.

I suspect that the documents being withheld would make the case for the resignation or impeachment of Eric Holder or another high-ranking DOJ official.  Claiming executive privilege helps delay the reckoning, but it opens the door for Mitt Romney and others – most notably Issa and other congressional investigators – to ask White House officials directly – and President Obama indirectly – about the president’s knowledge, involvement, and approval of Fast and Furious.

Game on.

June 14th, 2012 at 11:59 am
Kyl vs. Jindal — The Tiebreaker
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Quin makes a characteristically impressive case for why either Jon Kyl or Bobby Jindal would be great vice presidential choices for Mitt Romney. As my column last week made clear, I’m a Kyl man, but I’m certainly not immune to the charms of Jindal, one of the most effective Republican governors in the nation (for proof, see my recent praise for the education reforms Jindal is implementing in Louisiana).

Still, I think Kyl is the superior choice for Team Romney. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Capitol Hill Experience — With Romney never having held elected office in Washington, having a Vice President with preexisting influence and relationships in the Beltway would go a long way towards advancing his agenda. Jindal isn’t exactly a Washington unknown — he spent just under two years as an Assistant HHS Secretary in the Bush Administration and had a two-term stint in the House — but his background pales in comparison to Kyl, who’s been a member of Congress for 25 years. And with Kyl currently serving as Republican Whip in the Senate — the position responsible for counting votes — his skill set is uniquely suited for helping Romney get legislation through Congress.

2. Foreign Policy Experience — Kyl has become a major figure on foreign policy in recent years, leading Republican opposition to both the New START Treaty and the Law of the Sea Treaty (both of which he has been right on, IMHO). Jindal has no commensurate experience. For Romney, who is also a foreign policy neophyte (and whose foreign policy pronouncements — identifying Russia as the nation’s largest security concern and threatening a trade war with China, for instance — have been dotty at times), having someone of Kyl’s stature would flesh out the ticket in the area where the presidency confers the greatest power — and requires the greatest responsibility.

3. Playing the Number Two Role — Let’s stipulate up front that neither Kyl nor Jindal are electrifying speakers. Neither is going to bring to the ticket anything as energizing as Chris Christie’s blue collar pugnaciousness or Marco Rubio’s stirring eloquence. But while Kyl is steady and workmanlike, Jindal can come across awkward and uncomfortable in public appearances. This was famously the case with his 2009 response to President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, a speech so widely panned that it’s thought to have delayed whatever presidential ambitions Jindal may have had by at least one election cycle. And while he hasn’t had a moment that bad since, Jindal can still be halting and uncomfortable when he appears on national television.

Personally, I’m inclined to give the guy a break on this. It’s obvious when you’re watching him that Jindal’s awkwardness is a function of his precociousness. This is the nice kid who’s always been the smartest in his class but has never quiet figured out social cues. That earnestness, however, will make it tough for him to play the traditional attack dog role of the number two on the ticket. Kyl, on the other hand, while hardly a demagogue, would be very effective employing the same strategy as Dick Cheney did as a vice presidential candidate — using his age and gravitas to dismiss Obama as callow and incompetent.

4. The Future — My own preference is for the vice presidency as a sort of emeritus post, reserved for senior statesmen whose presidential ambitions either (a) never existed or (b) are exhausted. That also prevents the VP’s political interests from clashing with those of the president, a situation which has caused many an unsettled White House in years past. Ideally, I’d like it to be a terminal position, which makes sense for Kyl, who is retiring from the Senate this year and has forsworn any further electoral ambitions.

Jindal, by contrast, just turned 41 and has a bright future ahead of him regardless of whether he gets tapped for the post or not. His current gubernatorial term lasts through January 2016, which would line him up well for a presidential run should Romney lose. Alternately, he could run against Democrat Mary Landrieu when her seat in the U.S. Senate comes up in 2014. In the interest of retaining Jindal as one of the party’s main leaders well into the future, these options seem preferable to me to marooning him in the vice presidency, which more often than not — barring presidential death or departure — puts an end to one’s career in elected office.

Regardless of whether you support Jindal, Kyl, or someone else, there’s one thing that has to be admitted about the veepstakes: Unlike this year’s presidential race, there’s an embarrassment of riches.

June 7th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Bill Clinton’s Id Endorses Romney
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For a man who successfully campaigned for the presidency twice, you have to marvel at Bill Clinton’s lack of message discipline (or any discipline, for that matter). During the 2008 presidential campaign, Bill was a consistent thorn in Hillary’s side, what with his pronouncement that Barack Obama was “playing the race card” against him and his characterization of the presentation of Obama’s record as “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

Back then, the pop psychoanalysis of Clinton was that he couldn’t handle the idea of Hillary in the White House, occupying the spotlight that was rightly his, and was thus subconsciously serving up self-destructive rhetoric to dampen her prospects for beating Obama. This theory wasn’t particularly plausible given the Clintons’ joint lust for power and the fact that it violated Occam’s Razor — which would have instructed us that Clinton is simply impulsive and egotistical.

In 2012, the analysis seems to have become inverted. Last week, Clinton praised Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital on CNN, calling his record “sterling.” Then, earlier this week, he told CNBC that there is nothing much wrong with private equity, that the country is in “recession,” and that the Bush tax cuts should be extended, even for high earners (he’s walked back that latter part since). Putting Clinton back on the couch (never a safe place to be with the former president), the armchair shrinks are now speculating that Clinton’s eruptions owe to a desire to undermine Obama and set the stage for another Hillary presidential run in 2016.

Allow me to offer another, less convoluted thesis. Clinton knows that his presidency was historically inconsequential. Apart from his impeachment scandal, the only notable occurrence of his time in office was the expansion of the economy — not small ball to be sure, but also largely the product of co-opting Republican ideas on spending and deficit reduction, balanced budgets, welfare reform, tax cuts, and free trade. Still, it’s what Clinton hangs his hat on and it gives him an opportunity to sneer at Obama’s economic shortcomings, a pastime he no doubt has enjoyed ever since candidate Obama gave the Clinton Administration’s legacy short shrift during the 2008 campaign. So, if you’re Bill, why not take your affection for the business world out for a spin every once in a while just to rub it in Barack’s face?

Clinton’s habit of repeatedly undermining Obama is not evidence of a Freudian ego orchestrating a brilliant Machiavellian plot to install his wife back in the White House; It’s simply the product of an id that has broken its leash, relentlessly and uncontrollably attempting to establish Clinton as the alpha dog of the modern presidency. As we should all know by now, the former president is motivated more by desire than by reason.

This is not the work of a grand strategist. This is a sort of cry for help from a man so insecure that he needs constant validation even after eight years in the White House. He is to be pitied.

May 31st, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Romney Dings Obama on Solyndra

Standing across the street from Solyndra’s Fremont, CA headquarters today Mitt Romney articulated well just about everything that’s wrong with President Barack Obama’s Solyndra fiasco.

From CNN:

“This building, this half-a-billion-dollar taxpayer investment, represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team. It’s also a symbol of how the president thinks about free enterprise. Free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends.”

CFIF readers are no strangers to the Obama administration’s crony capitalism vis-à-vis Solyndra.

The fast-track loan approvals that benefited a major 2008 campaign bundler, the renegotiated terms that leapfrogged private investors in front of taxpayers in the event of a default, and the unnecessary risk of $535 million in taxpayer money on an unproven solar technology that ultimately flamed out are permanent reminders of how this White House’s corrupt politics and bad policies result in debt-exploding outcomes.

Americans can’t afford another day of this fiscal irresponsibility; let alone another four years.

May 16th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Mark Cuban on Higher Ed Costs Could be Advice for Romney

Tech billionaire and owner of the reigning NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban correctly identifies the disconnect between the way policymakers talk about higher education spending and its true value to college students:

The President has introduced programs that try to reward schools that don’t raise tuition and costs. They won’t work.  Right now there is a never ending supply of buyers. Students who can’t get jobs or who think that by going to college they enhance their chances to get a job. Its the collegiate equivalent of flipping houses. You borrow as much money as you can for the best school you can get into and afford and then you “flip” that education for the great job you are going to get when you graduate.

Except those great jobs aren’t always there. I don’t think any college kid took on tens of thousands of dollars in debt with the expectation they would get a job working for minimum wage against tips.

At some point potential students will realize that they can’t flip their student loans for a job in 4 years. In fact they will realize that college may be the option for fun and entertainment, but not for education.

One of the hardest hit employment segments in the Obama Economy are college grads with too much education, too much education debt, and not enough work experience.  In a contracting economy, jobs go to those with years of on-the-job training and the financial flexibility to work multiple opportunities.

If Mitt Romney wants to put Barack Obama’s most blindly loyal constituency in play this election, he should pull no punches tying Obama’s spending and business regulations to the dearth of job opportunities available to college students and recent grads.

May 3rd, 2012 at 8:16 pm
More Paul than Romney Delegates at GOP Convention?

On Monday, I shared a story about how Ron Paul’s fervent supporters are outmaneuvering the Romney campaign in the state-by-state process of selecting delegates to the GOP’s nominating convention in Tampa, FL.

Here’s more evidence from the Washington Times:

Exploiting party rules, loyalists for the libertarian congressman from Texas in recent days have engineered post-primary organizing coups in states such as Louisiana and Alaska, confirming what party regulars say would be an effort to grab an outsized role in the convention and the party’s platform deliberations.

In Massachusetts, the state where Mr. Romney served as governor, Paul loyalists over the weekend helped block more than half of Mr. Romney’s preferred nominees from being named delegates at state party caucuses — even though Mr. Romney won his home state’s primary with 72 percent of the vote.

And from the Las Vegas Sun:

In a letter delivered Wednesday to GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, the RNC’s chief counsel said if Ron Paul delegates are allowed to take too many slots for the national convention, Nevada’s entire contingent may not be seated in Tampa.

John R. Phillippe Jr. said that while his letter is not binding, “I believe it is highly likely that any committee with jurisdiction over the matter would find improper any change to the election, selection, allocation, or binding of delegates, thus jeopardizing the seating of Nevada’s entire delegation to the National Convention.”

Clearly, the RNC fears that mischief at the Sparks convention this weekend could result in Ron Paul delegates taking Mitt Romney slots and then not abiding by GOP rules to vote for the presumptive nominee on the first ballot in Tampa. So they are trying to force McDonald to ensure that actual Romney delegates fill 20 of the 28 national convention slots, thus removing any mystery of who they will vote for.

H/T: Teagan Goddard’s Political Wire

May 2nd, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Maybe Romney Should Choose Labrador for Running Mate

No, I’m not suggesting Romney atone for his past sin of strapping his family dog to his car on vacations by making a canine his running mate.  (Though most veeps at campaign time are called attack dogs.)

Rather, I’m reacting to an intriguing interview between Juan Williams and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), a Tea Party congressman from the Class of 2010 who also happens to be Mormon and from Puerto Rico.

He opposes the DREAM Act, but is a staunch advocate for reforming the cumbersome legal immigration process.  As Williams says, Labrador “has been involved in trying to block virtually every one of President Obama’s major legislative initiatives.”  He also “openly mused” about supporting a Tea Party challenger to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) when it looked like Boehner might cave-in to President Obama’s demands to avert a government shutdown last summer.

As for how Labrador would advise Romney to reach out to Hispanic voters after a bruising primary season:

“I would tell, Romney, as I would tell anybody, is that we need to start talking about being a party of inclusion, we need to start talking about how we’re a, a party for legal immigration, that we actually want to reform the system so people can actually come to the United States in a legal, safe way.”

Sounds like a reasonable pitch to me.

April 30th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
GOP Convention: Ron Paul Revolution?

The Daily Caller explains the (tortured) delegate math that is giving GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul – yes, he’s still running – control of state delegations to the national convention; and with them, the ability to impact Mitt Romney’s march to the nomination.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul claimed another come-from-behind caucus victory this weekend, announcing that approximately 74 percent of the delegates to Louisiana’s state GOP convention will be Paul supporters.

Louisiana has a unique system of selecting delegates to the Republican National Convention. Twenty delegates are selected based on the results of the state’s March 24 primary and another 26 delegates are based on the outcome of the state’s caucus process.

If you’re confused it’s probably because you remember that Rick Santorum won 49 percent of the Louisiana primary vote back in February.

And that’s not the only Santorum victory that ultimately went to Paul:

Earlier this month, Paul won 20 of 24 delegates awarded by Minnesota congressional district conventions. Paul had received a significant 27 percent of the vote in the state’s Feb. 7 caucuses, but Santorum had won nearly every county in a major blowout.

According to The DC, Paul is also on the verge of winning a majority of the GOP’s delegates from Iowa, even though he came in third behind Mitt Romney and Santorum in the Hawkeye State.

Moreover, there are as many as six other states where Paul is poised to control a majority of delegates even though he didn’t win a majority of the primary votes cast in any of them.

If you, like me and perhaps Mitt Romney’s crew, considered Paul’s campaign an afterthought, it may be time to move the Veepstakes chatter to the backburner and ask a much more interesting question – What, exactly, does Mr. Paul want in exchange for his endorsement at the GOP’s Tampa convention?

April 25th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Jimmy Carter Likes Romney After Favoring Huntsman

Just when he thought it was safe to grab hold of the GOP presidential mantle, Mitt Romney gets the worst kind of endorsement – a thumbs-up from Jimmy Carter.

Said Carter: “I’d rather have a Democrat but I would be comfortable — I think Romney has shown in the past, in his previous years as a moderate or progressive… that he was fairly competent as a governor and also running the Olympics as you know. He’s a good solid family man and so forth, he’s gone to the extreme right wing positions on some very important issues in order to get the nomination. What he’ll do in the general election, what he’ll do as president I think is different.”

To be sure, Carter’s statement about being “comfortable” with Romney isn’t as bad as the former Democratic president’s labeling one-time Romney rival Jon Huntsman as an “attractive” candidate and “very attractive to me personally.”

However, Carter’s justification for being comfortable with Romney does reinforce the conventional wisdom that Romney’s conservatism is a veneer whereas his “moderate or progressive” past is the truer indicator of how he’ll govern as president.

To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, maybe we’ll have to elect Mitt to see how he’ll govern.

H/T: Political Wire

April 10th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Romney Enjoying 60 Percent Approval Rating … Amongst Romney Advisers
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So ubiquitous is coverage of presidential candidates in this 24-hour news cycle era — and so pervasive is the numbness that results — that it’s easy to lose sight of some truly bizarre developments in this year’s election cycle; developments that have seen their novelty rusted away by saturation coverage.

Among them: the signature achievement in the political career of Mitt Romney, the almost certain Republican nominee for president (especially with Rick Santorum leaving the race today), is so deeply unpalatable to conservatives that it even divides his advisers. Consider this, from Politico:

Two of the five members of [Mitt] Romney’s recently announced Health Care Policy Advisory Group have a record of opposition to his Massachusetts health care reform plan.

Paul Howard, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a new addition to Romney’s advisory team, wrote in late 2010 that Romney’s plan has resulted in a dramatic increase in insurance costs for small businesses.

He also said it’s “no secret” that the state plan was the “template” for President Barack Obama’s federal health care law.

Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and another new Romney health adviser, was sharply critical of Romney’s health plans in 2007 while Atlas was supporting New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

“Mitt Romney’s legacy is the creation of a multibillion dollar government health bureaucracy that punishes employers and insists middle income individuals either purchase health insurance or pay for their own health care,” Atlas told reporters. “The former is a mandate, the latter is a tax and neither one is free market.”

Lest the point be oversold, we should note that past Republican nominees have accessorized their necks with similar albatrosses. John McCain, for instance, was the co-author of a federal campaign finance law loathed by conservatives because it is inimical to political free speech. But there’s still a slight difference: Romney’s policy liability deals with one of the defining issues of the election he’ll be running in — and it also happened to be the intellectual predicate for his opponent’s crowning legislative achievement.

Virtually all the energy that has animated the conservative movement over the last three years — energy best exemplified by the Tea Party — has come in reaction to Obamacare and the government overreach it represents. Now the Republican Party will march into electoral battle behind the progenitor of that intrusion. We live in strange times.

March 26th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Etch-a-Sketch vs. More Flexibility

In just a few days two presidential campaigns may have coined the slogans we’ll all be hearing ad nauseum this fall.

Last week, a top Mitt Romney advisor likened his boss to an Etch-a-Sketch, able to be shaken and reset while moving from the primaries to the general election.  Over the weekend, President Barack Obama told his Russian counterpart that “This is my last election.  After my election I have more flexibility.”

Each statement betrays a fundamental suspicion about each candidate.  Romney has no core principles.  Obama’s will emerge only after he’s insulated from facing voters again.  The comments feed the narrative that both men will say anything to get elected.

If Romney is the GOP nominee, Jennifer Rubin already has proposed talking points attacking the ‘more flexibility’ president. (E.g. “He says he’ll only raise taxes on the rich, but after the election he’ll have ‘more flexibility.'”)

We can also assume more comments like Vice President Joe Biden’s that Romney won’t be allowed to be all things to all people.

Unless Rick Santorum can turn his 22 point win in last Saturday’s Louisiana caucuses into a Wisconsin win tomorrow, we may be in for an Etch-a-Sketch vs. More Flexibility campaign.

March 2nd, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Obama Reelection Far From Certain

Newsweek’s Robert Samuelson on what the MSM’s conventional wisdom may be missing with all its Obama-the-invincible chatter:

All in all, the conventional wisdom seems compelling. As a card-carrying member of the mainstream media — a group that creates and sustains the conventional wisdom — I’m inclined to accept it. And yet there’s one conspicuous gap in the-election-is-already-over story: the polls. While the Republicans have been destroying each other and embarrassing themselves, the polls for a general election should have shown a collapse in Republican support. They haven’t — at least so far.

Go to Real Clear Politics (www.realclearpolitics.com) for the latest figures. The average of the polls it follows shows (for the period from Feb. 10 to Feb. 29) Obama beating Romney by 4.6 percentage points (49 percent to 44.4 percent). Obama’s margin of victory over Santorum is slightly larger (49.3 percent to 44.2 percent).

So it’s a puzzle. Logic and most evidence suggest the election is over. But the polls seem to dissent. Could it be that the real story is that Obama’s not a shoo-in even when he should be?

February 28th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Michigan’s Tricky Delegate Math

Politico notes that “The rules pit the real race for Michigan at the district, not statewide level.”  Here’s what that means:

Michigan awards its 30 delegates based on the new congressional district lines drawn in 2012 redistricting, with two delegates given to the candidate who wins each of 14 districts. Two additional delegates are allocated based on the statewide popular vote.

Thus, the winner of the state’s popular vote may not be the same candidate who wins a majority of the state’s delegates.

The takeaway is to be wary of statewide exit polls that declare a “winner” since what really matters in terms of GOP convention delegates is who won a majority of new congressional districts.

February 25th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Santorum’s Senatorial Habits Die Hard

Just days before the pivotal Michigan and Arizona GOP primaries, Rick Santorum lapsed back into long-winded Senator mode when delivering a major speech on his first 100 days as President.  Although the speech contained plenty of red meat for conservatives – e.g. repealing Obamacare, cutting spending and regulations, and allowing states to means-test welfare programs – Fox News reports a big mistake:

Santorum’s speech went past 9 p.m., limiting local news organizations’ ability to highlight his 100-day agenda.

This isn’t the kind of mishap one wants when running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney.

February 21st, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Mitt Romney, Crypto-Keynesian
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Mitt Romney has at least one thing in common with every other member of the Republican presidential field: his worst enemy is Mitt Romney.

At a speech in Shelby Township, Michigan earlier today Romney’s answer to a question about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commision ended up in this intellectual cul-de-sac:

If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy. So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies.

Romney, of course, is correct about the broader question of tax policy, but his understanding of public spending makes him sound like a logical candidate to succeed Timothy Geithner as President Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury.

Federal spending doesn’t generate economic growth — all it does is repurpose money from the private sector. In some cases where government is performing essential functions, such as law enforcement or national defense, that’s a necessary sacrifice. In virtually all others — from green energy boondoggles to stimulus giveaways — it’s a net drain on the economy. And, as Milton Friedman would remind Romney, the rate of spending is the effective rate of taxation.

Over the past few weeks, a wide variety of conservative pundits have counseled Romney to more aggressively address his “authenticity” problem, showing the public a little more of his true personality. But as today’s little slip-up reveals, the only candidate less palatable to conservatives than the phony Romney is his authentic counterpart.

February 17th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Gingrich Donor’s 10 Million Dollar Gift to Romney?

Consider Andrew Malcolm’s take on what casino magnate and Gingrich Super PAC funder Sheldon Adelson is really up to with his new $10 million bet on Newt:

…Gingrich and Santorum are splitting the same crowd. And this benefits Romney, who has his own money and national operation carefully-constructed over years.

So, in this case, the adage about following the money would steer you in the wrong direction. The potential $21 million is really a bank shot for Adelson, going to help Gingrich prevent Santorum from beating Romney.

We’ll see if it works. But pretty clever.

Recall that Adelson was previously reported to have told Romney’s camp that if Mitt won the GOP nomination, Adelson would be even more generous than he was to Newt.  Maybe the $10 million is a down payment on that promise.

February 8th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Santorum Out-Spins Romney After Trifecta Win

Here’s Byron York’s recounting of what Rick Santorum’s camp thinks about a Romney advisor’s spin that more money and boots on the ground means that the former Massachusetts Governor will still win the GOP nomination:

After the returns came in, I asked Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley what he thought about Rich Beeson’s message.  Sure, Santorum did well on Tuesday, but doesn’t Romney have the money and infrastructure to outdistance Santorum, and everyone else, in the long run?

“What an inspiring message,” Gidley said sarcastically.  “That is really inspiring.  I can’t wait to put a bumper sticker on my truck that says MONEY-INFRASTRUCTURE 2012.”

“No one had more money and infrastructure than Hillary Clinton, and hope and change wiped her off the map,” Gidley continued.  “We’ll have money, and we’ll have infrastructure, but our nominee has to have a message that people can get behind and inspires people.”

February 6th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
One Speech Coach Away from the Presidency
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Over the weekend, Alexandra Petri had a fun little opinion piece over at the Washington Post about “Mitt Romney’s First-World Problems.” It’s an entertaining meditation on why Romney’s life — which is something approaching the American ideal — doesn’t make for a great campaign season narrative. The most effective passage, however has nothing to do with Romney:

Some professions make peculiar demands. The ideal life for a president is full of bootstrap-pulling and high drama. It runs something like this: You were born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free, raised in the woods so’s you knew every tree, and were offered the choice to kill a bear but did not take it when you were only 3. You spent the next 15 years studying and working in your all-American town and somehow wound up at an institution of higher learning that was prestigious — but not offputtingly prestigious. Then you became a war veteran. Next you governed a state whose priorities aligned exactly with those of your party, and during this time you created tens of thousands of jobs. Also, you are capable of stringing together a sentence without looking excruciatingly pained.

That described Rick Perry until the last clause.

That is brutal — and totally correct. It’s a reminder of how different this election season could have been if Rick Perry had come loaded for bear. And it’s also a helpful lesson for voters: even the most enticing biography won’t save a candidate whose performance on the stump leaves voters unable to picture him in the Oval Office. Thus does Rick Perry take his seat alongside Fred Thompson and Wesley Clark in the “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” club.

February 1st, 2012 at 7:14 pm
List of Mitt’s Verbal Gaffes

On the heels of telling CNN this morning that he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” Politico provides a handy list of Mitt Romney’s growing number of devastating pronouncements this primary season:

1. “Corporations are people, my friend.” — Aug. 11, 2011, to a heckler at the Iowa State Fair.

2. “I like being able to fire people.” – Jan. 9, 2012, while speaking about holding insurance service providers accountable.

3. “I should tell my story. I’m also unemployed.” — June 16, 2011, after listening to a group of unemployed Floridians talk about their difficulties find a job.

4. “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired. There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.” – Jan. 8, 2012, speaking at a rally about sharing the anxiety of workers worried about losing their jobs.

5. “Rick, I’ll tell you what — ten thousand bucks? Ten thousand dollar bet?” — Dec. 10, 2011, to Rick Perry during a presidential debate trying to settle a dispute about health insurance.

If Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination, expect to see these statements (and probably others!) run ad nauseum by Barack Obama’s campaign team.

January 24th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
The Nub of Romney’s Problem
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Writing today in Politico, Reagan biographer (and now Newt Gingrich chronicler) Craig Shirley gets to the very heart of the difficulty Mitt Romney faces in trying to persuade a Republican electorate desperate for an epochal shift in a party that they (rightly) perceive to have been insufficiently inattentive to limited government:

The former Bain Capital chief is the elitist heir to Rockefeller and the malapropistic heir to Ford and George H. W. Bush. Watching Ford speak extemporaneously was like watching a drunk cross an icy parking lot — and the same can be said for the exuberantly monosyllabic man from Massachusetts…

No one goes around calling themselves a Nixon Republican or a Ford Republican or a Bush Republican. But plenty now proudly call themselves Goldwater Republicans and Reagan Republicans.

One need not share Shirley’s enthusiasm for Gingrich to recognize the sagacity of his diagnosis of Romney. It’s not that conservatives don’t want a manager. It’s just that they want so much more. At this moment in our history — when all sense of principled restrictions on the power of the federal government seem to be eroding — they want someone to draw a line in the sand. Convincing conservative voters that he’s the man for that job is probably beyond Mitt Romney’s ability. To remain a serious candidate, however, he’ll at least have to convince them that he’s not a closet sympathist for their ideological adversaries within the party.