Tag Archives: moderate

The Ann and Tagg Intervention

From “Inside the campaign:  The Romney rebellion,” Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, Politico:

“For months, Ann Romney and her eldest son, Tagg, were dutifully supportive of the political professionals running Mitt Romney’s campaign. All the while, their private frustration was mounting.

“Shortly before the first debate, it finally boiled over.

“What followed was a family intervention. The candidate’s family prevailed on Mitt Romney, and the campaign operation, to shake things up dramatically, according to campaign insiders. The family pushed for a new message, putting an emphasis on a softer and more moderate image for the GOP nominee — a “let Mitt be Mitt” approach they believed more accurately reflected the looser, generous and more approachable man they knew.

“Chief strategist Stuart Stevens — whom the family held responsible for allowing Romney’s personal side to be obscured by an anti-Obama economic message — has seen his once wide-ranging portfolio “fenced in” to mainly the debates, and the television advertising that is his primary expertise, according to campaign officials. Tagg Romney, channeling his mother’s wishes, is taking a much more active role in how the campaign is run.

“The family rebellion, long building despite Mitt Romney’s initial reluctance to change, reached a climax in September, amid mounting evidence that the status quo was doomed to failure. The course correction came after internal polls showed him losing nearly every swing state and a loud chorus of second-guessing among prominent conservatives.

“When the history of this campaign is written, the family intervention will be among the most important turning points in the Romney saga. Until the weeks before the first presidential debate, the candidate sided with Stevens over his family’s skepticism, accepting the strategist’s view that the best way to win was to point out President Barack Obama’s flaws and articulate generic promises to do better.

“Even now, many Romney officials wonder whether the change can be sustained. In essence, Romney is trying to undergo a political metamorphosis — to shed an image of personal stiffness, and to emerge loose and willing to compromise. Romney, advisers concede, is at his worst when improvising — and this shift is the biggest improvisation of the campaign. Right now, Romney is described as going with the flow, trying to quickly grow into this new public persona, most notably with his decision to tell personal stories on the stump.

“But one big reason for hope inside the Romney campaign is that conservatives were so down on the campaign before the debate — and so rapturous during it — that they will give him a lot of maneuvering room to talk in more moderate ways.”  Emphasis added.

Sure, he has all the maneuvering room he wants to talk like a moderate now.  But maneuvering room to govern like a moderate?  I don’t think so. 

That’s what voters need to understand.  The crazies still control the party, and they would control a President Romney with the hanging-sword of a primary in 2016.

 

The Unbearable Dumbness of Douthat and Brooks

How dumb are Ross Douthat and David Brooks?  So dumb that they think Mitt is breaking free from the Tea Party/right wing crazies in his party, rather than simply pretending to do so with their blessing.  Mitt isn’t just Pinocchio-like because of his lies, he’s also a puppet whose strings are being pulled by the GOP.  Douthat and Brooks incredibly believe that Mitt is now pulling the strings of his party and moving himself back to the center.  These two geniuses have it all backwards as to who’s controlling whom, plus they’re buying that Moderate Mitt is the Real Romney.

Here’s Ross Douthat, “It Could Be His Party,” NYT:

“What Romney executed on Wednesday night was not just a simple pivot to the center, as much of the post-debate analysis suggested.

“But this wasn’t some sort of Sister Souljah moment, where Romney called out his fellow conservatives in order to curry favor with the center.  Rather what he did was clarify, elevate and translate.

I guess clarify, elevate and translate are new euphemisms for lie.  Sounds very Luntzian.

“One debate does not such a leader make.  but at the very least, the fact that Romney’s strategy worked so effectively last Wednesday — that it made him seem mainstream and appealing while also winning him plaudits from almost every sort of conservative — suggests that the Republican Party can actually be led, and that its politicians don’t have be prisoners of talking points and groupthink.”

No, no, no, this first debate wasn’t Mitt leading the GOP, it was the GOP, out of desperation at his poll numbers and the fallout from the 47% remarks, allowing Mitt to seem rational and reasonable.  Mitt is the dressage horse here, not the rider, he “pivots” when that’s what his owners want.

Here’s David Brooks, “Moderate Mitt Returns!,” NYT:

“But, on Wednesday night, Romney finally emerged from the fog.  He broke with the stereotypes of his party and, at long last, began the process of offering a more authentic version of himself.

“Most important, Romney did something no other mainstream Republican has had the guts to do.  Either out of conviction or political desperation, he broke with Tea Party orthodoxy and began to redefine the Republican identity.  And having taken this step, he’s broken the spell.  Conservatives loved it!  They loved that it was effective, and it was effective because Romney could more authentically be the man who (I think) he truly is.”

Mitt didn’t break any spell, and conservatives loved it because they sanctioned it as a way to move the poll numbers before the election.  This has nothing to do with moving policy afterwards.  Mr. Brooks, do the words “The ends justify the means” sound at all familiar to you?  Mitt wasn’t breaking from the Tea Party, just from the truth.

Anybody out there trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge?  You really should call Douthat and Brooks. 

 

 

 

Don’t Be Fooled By “Moderate Mitt”

From “The Sweet Spot,” Bill Keller, NYT:

“My hunch is that Romney will manage to shake off most of his extremist accouterments, because they never seemed to fit him.  It is true that if elected…Romney would be obliged to tithe generously to the right, by choosing Supreme Court nominees of the Scalia/Thomas persuasion, for example, and by populating regulatory agencies with polluters and plunderers.  But those concerns tend not to alter election outcomes.  Even with pro-Obama super PACs painting him as a mean-spirited zealot, Romney should be able to recapture the old campaign aura of a moderate Mr. Fixit.”

I agree with Keller that “those concerns” don’t affect elections, but they should!

So Mitt is re-setting the Etch a Sketch for the general to run from the base and then will re-set it again if elected to embrace them.  They’ll keep him on a short leash under the threat of getting primaried for 2016.  They already don’t like or trust him, so he’d better behave.

The 15% Who Will Decide the Election

Forget the 1%, forget the 99%, focus on the 15%.  Your future is in their hands.

Of those who say they are Independents, about 60% lean toward one of the parties.  The remaining 40% are true “swing voters,” and they are only about 15% of voters.  They will decide who wins in November.

President Obama won 57% of these swing voters last time.  A new poll from Global Strategy Group shows that he currently leads Mitt among them, 44 to 38%.*

What’s especially interesting is that these voters see themselves as closer to Mitt ideologically, but they like Obama better.

Asked to place themselves on a scale of one to nine, with one as liberal, nine as conservative, and five as moderate, the swing voters’ average was 5.2, while they put Mitt at 6.1 and Obama at 3.9.  This would seem to bode well for Mitt.

But 57% of them gave Obama a favorable rating, compared to only 41% for Mitt.

Voting is ultimately an emotional decision.  If Mitt can’t get his favorables up, he will lose.

* “Obama leads among ‘swing’ indies,” James Hohmann, Politico