by Damozel | Romney is proving an expert at reinventing himself and reframing his positions as his campaign rolls along. I imagine if he gets the nomination he’ll be an expert in reinventing himself again.
Judging by the number of voters who seem drawn to John McCain, it seems as if he’ll have to moderate his message, however much this might distress the party hardliners who are currently clinging to him as their last hope again “liberal” John McCain. I don’t fault him for that; I’ve never bought into the notion that so-called “flip-flopping” is a cardinal sin.
After seven years of Bush and his unshakable confidence in his convictions, I have come to the conclusion that an elected official needs to be sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing circumstances. But the media does view it as a cardinal sin. If it were not a cardinal sin, it’s just possible Hillary would unbend and confess, “Yes, oh God yes, my Iraq vote was the worst mistake of my political career!” But she can’t, because it’s a cardinal sin.
You could even say that it takes a special kind of courage to flip flop on issues as much as Romney has had to do to become the favorite son of Republican hardliners. This is the most charitable way to look at the criticisms of Romney, and I am all about being charitable.
Some might argue that Romney has taken flip flopping too far. Not me, though. Instead, I’m just hoping that the best man will win. We can’t afford anything else.
In his present incarnation, Michael Luo says, Romney is leading a “citizen revolution” as the “anti-establishment insurgent.” Hey, it worked for Jimmy “I have never set foot in Washington” Carter, another state governor. (Not with me: I voted for Gerald Ford.) Even so: it worked for Governor Carter. Will it work for Governor Romney?
He can but try. So at least for now, we have Romney the populist rallying the people against McCain as they shout along.
It may seem an unlikely role for a PowerPoint-loving, buttoned-down multimillionaire, but there Mr. Romney was, on stage Monday here in his starched white shirt and tie, raising his voice to be heard above the crowd…It’s time for the politicians to go and the citizens to come into Washington!” he said, drawing a roar from the several hundred gathered at his feet.
And there he was on Saturday at a news conference in Minneapolis, labeling his victory in Maine’s caucuses a victory for the people. (New York Times)
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to get the job done, even if it means appearing in his shirtsleeves. At least his hair is always in place.
“Do you want a nominee who voted against the Bush tax cuts?” Mr. Romney shouted on Monday morning in Nashville, standing on a chair at the Pancake Pantry restaurant, his voice hoarse.
Nooo! (New York Times)
You know, I can see why Mitt Romney favored the Bush tax cuts; after all: multimillionaire. But what about the denizens of the Pancake Pantry restaurant? My jaw always drops when I hear people in my own income bracket worrying more about losing tax cuts. While it’s true that my taxes were cut along with, say, Mitt Romney’s, my health care costs (co-payments alone) more than ate up any difference. Do Republicans not get sick or worry about their children or their parents getting sick?
But anyway, that’s how they see it and it’s their privilege to do so.
In the meantime, Mitt Romney is fighting for “the heart and soul of the Republican party.”
Mr. Romney, the one-time leveraged-buyout artist who has spent more than $35 million of his personal fortune on his campaign, is now running as a populist insurgent may come as a surprise to some. But he has been through a variety of iterations of his message over the last year, donning at various points the image of a pragmatic problem-solving businessman, conservative ideologue and change agent.
It was in New Hampshire that he settled on a theme about Washington’s being broken and his ability to bring change.
But with Mr. McCain now threatening to run away with the nomination, Mr. Romney has melded the old with the new, lobbing conservative grenades once again while talking about change. His latest script is calculated to sound the alarm over the prospect of Mr. McCain as the Republican nominee. (New York Times)
This is a bit unfair. All the candidates are, by the standards of most voters, so exceedingly wealthy that the differences in degree shade off into imperceptibility from where I’m sitting.
And anyway, I don’t care. Until the day when campaign finance reform becomes a reality, we are—and will remain—at our highest level, a nation of oligarchs. The differences between the other candidates (exceedingly well off to very wealthy indeed) and Romney (super rich) tend not to matter to us from where we sit. And we know that they had to get their money from somewhere; we know all too well that it doesn’t grow on trees. So either they made it on their own through strategies that we, The Average Voter, don’t really understand (”leveraged buy-out artist”) or they got it from someone else. In either case, they’re not on the same plane with the rest of us. As Donald Trump would have you know, the rich really are different from you and me.
The question for voters is, or should be, “will the exceedingly well off person asking for my vote actually look at for my economic interests or continue to funnel the money in the current directions (upward and outward)?” Some of these rich politicians (John Edwards) have committed to seeing to it that some of it actually does trickle down to the middle class through a more direct path than is usually contemplated by Republicans.
For the GOP, the trade-off is letting you keep more of your money, in return for which giant corporations and their CEOs get to keep more of theirs. For example, in return for a few bucks in tax savings, you agree to do without any of the supports or safety nets for yourself or your family that other countries routinely provide for their citizens and to allow any money that the government gets its hands on to be spent on Iraq. And yes, I realize that there’s an argument that this isn’t the federal government’s job. I used to believe this too. But at present it’s nobody’s job; and I’ve seen the results for people I’ve dealt with as a volunteer, and I don’t like them. In the wealthiest country in the world, it’s a disgrace.
I’ll be honest: I admire John McCain—I’ve applauded his stance on campaign finance reform and torture—and I certainly don’t hate Mitt Romney. I’ve had a soft spot for his dad since childhood.
I just don’t think the current Republican platform is well adapted to the problems of the Twenty-first Century. Furthermore, I don’t think either Romney or McCain is prepared to clear up Bush’s mess. To do that, they’d have to acknowledge that he’s made a mess and they are both understandably reluctant to do so. Neither has acknowledged the real needs of stressed-out middle class voters, with their aging parents, poorly educated children living at home till the age of 30, disappearing jobs, and so on.
Sadly, the Democrats haven’t done a great job of presenting this issue to voters in my economic bracket (and Limbaugh and his ilk have done a bang-up job of getting the Main Streeters to believe that their interests are concomitant with those of Wall Streeters).
But anyway: Romney the populist is doing his best to fire up the Republicans against McCain. It does seem that he needs to work a bit on his rallying technique:
But Mr. Romney’s calls and responses are often a half-beat off and do not quite work as sound bites: “They told us they’d find health care that was affordable and portable for our citizens!”
And they haven’t!
And the darts he hurls at Mr. McCain can feel a bit esoteric, like when he talks of oil drilling in Alaska: “Do you want to have as our nominee a person who voted to say no to drilling for oil in ANWR?”Nooo!
Heh. Practice makes perfect and I’m sure Romney will get the hang of being a populist. It’s so hard to go from Powerpoint to rallying the populace.
And anyway, if he gets the nomination, he won’t want to go on being Mitt the populist, fighting the Republican establishment to preserve those hardline conservative values. Whether the hardliners like it or don’t (and they won’t!), he’ll have to shift more to the center to attract those Republicans who voted for MCain and any moderates who might be tempted by Hillary or Obama. So he’ll have to reinvent himself yet again….
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