JONATHAN COHN NOVEMBER 9, 2011
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The headlines from Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate will be about Rick Perry and his “oops” moment. In case you missed it, Perry was describing his economic agenda when he mentioned that he wanted to eliminate three federal agencies – and couldn’t remember the third. He got Commerce and Education, but flailed about for a painful few seconds, trying to think of the other. Ron Paul jumped in, suggesting maybe it should be five agencies. Another candidate said maybe Perry was thinking of the EPA. No, Perry said, it was another department – until, finally, he admitted he just didn’t know. “Sorry,” he said. “Oops.”
Expectations for Perry were pretty low going into this debate. With that moment, he managed to perform beneath them. It’s hard to believe that Perry's candidacy could survive a moment that so perfectly illustrates his lack of qualifications to serve as president. Then again, it's hard to believe his candidacy has survived this long, given his poor performance in previous debates. So maybe Perry will just keep on going.
Either way, Perry’s flub obscured more interesting exchanges – including two moments that revealed a great deal about Mitt Romney, the one candidate who both has a chance of winning and seems intellectually up to the job of being president.
One moment came in a question about the Obama Administration’s rescue of the auto industry. The question was altogether appropriate for the setting: This debate was in Rochester, Michigan, just outside Detroit – and the focus was on jobs. It also raised a critical issue that hasn't been settled: What Romney actually thought about the bailout and when.
As noted previously in this space, at various points in 2008 and 2009 Romney seemed to be calling for a plan more or less like the one Obama eventually pursued: A structured bankruptcy in which Chrysler and General Motors would shrink and reorganize their operations, but maintain a serious manufacturing presence in the Midwest.
Lately, though, Romney has said he had in mind a very different strategy from the one Obama eventually pursued. When companies reorganize through bankruptcy, they require loans so they can maintain operations until they are ready to make profits again. As Romney tells it, Obama made a huge mistake by having the government make those loans, with taxpayer dollars, rather than using private money. He made that point again on Wednesday night.
The substantive problem with this position is that such a plan almost surely would not have worked. Remember, Chrysler and GM were going down smack in the middle of the financial crisis. Private financing was unavailable. Without government loans, liquidation was the most likely possibility: The companies would have effectively ceased to exist, selling off assets and ending jobs for hundreds of thousands if not millions -- and quite possibly plunging the entire Midwest into a crisis that looked like the Great Depression.
Of course, that’s assuming Romney actually believes it was wrong for the government to make the loans – or, more precisely, that he believed it at the time the federal government acted. The available evidence suggests he did not. In a November 2008 interview with Neil Cavuto of Fox News, Romney talked about the first round of government loans (which the Bush Administration made) without any suggestion the loans were a problem:
I want to protect and grow jobs in the auto industry. And so, as the government prepares to put in billions of dollars to that industry, let's make sure that, as part of this effort, that we invest in companies that are newly streamlined, more economic, more efficient, and that we've really created a bright future for the American automobile sector.
And later, when Obama announced the second round of loans and plans for a structured bankruptcy, Romney actually praised the president during an inteview with CNN
I think a lot of people expected the president just to cave and to write a big check and hope for the better. I'm glad that he's expressing some backbone on this and saying to those guys, 'you have to get your house in order or you guys are gone, you'll have to go to bankruptcy.'
Undoubtedly Romney would have managed the bankruptcy a little differently than Obama did, particularly when it came to the treatment of the union workforce. But unless the Romney campaign has transcripts I haven't seen -- always a possibility, although I'm skeptical -- Romney wasn't complaining about government loans per se when Obama announced his plan.
The other revealing moment for Romney came in response to a question from co-moderator John Harwood. In a previous exchange about health care, Romney had talked about the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship – which, Republicans always say, the Affordable Care Act disrupts by introducing government meddling. But Romney’s position isn’t that government shouldn’t get involved in health care. It’s that the federal government shouldn’t get involved with health care. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney authorized a significant government intrusion into the health insurance system – and Romney has said he’d let other states do the same.
Harwood wanted to know why those two positions weren’t in contradiction – and Romney, who’s a superb debater, was actually flustered. Eventually, Romney changed the subject to Medicaid and a statement that “Obamacare is wrong.” He never answered the question because, I suspect, he doesn’t have an answer. He simply doesn’t believe what the true conservatives do -- i.e., that government should stay out of health care.
Will he pay a political price for that apostasy? What about his shifting positions on the auto bailout? So far he hasn’t suffered too much. And I suspect he won’t – at least as long as Perry keeps stealing the spotlight with his goofs.
18 comments
JC, You put your finger on the central absurdity of these debates. The candidates are in pretend-combat against the president and while playing patty-cake with each other. Pretend combat in the sense that there's no one at the debate to call them on the sort of incongruity that you discuss above. In the few instances -- very few -- when a journalist presses one of the candidates, as one expects the Democratic nominee will do next fall, these kinds of inconsistencies become more apparent. But by and large the journalists are reduced to asking anodyne questions, "how will you cut the budget?" that carry the implicit command, "please bloviate." Maria Bartiromo did her best to break that mold -- witness her valiant attempt to force Gingrich to answer a health care question -- but those moments during the debates are few and far between. Dan
- dbuck1
November 10, 2011 at 7:07am
That Perry couldn't name the third department doesn't matter because the base doesn't really care which ones are eliminated only that as many as possible, or preferably all, are eliminated; thought it definitely helped that he identified Education, the painful reminder to the base that the mere existence of that department can undermine even one of their own. As for Romney, once again his evasiveness about past support for blasphemy doesn't matter; Romney's support already knows, and nothing he says or does can redeem him in the eyes of the tea partiers.
- rayward
November 10, 2011 at 9:22am
Nov 12 GOP debate is on National Security on CBS network primetime, with three days to kill this out-of-proportion reaction to Wednesday's CNBC debate where Governor Perry was strong overall, and good-humoured on his one mistake, which is that he has not yet learned that Romney covers his brain blanks by talking even faster without making any sense, which Romney did tonight at least twice, well reported by Cohn above. Perry admitted his fumble, and always seem to move forward with grace after a mistake, which is a really fine quality. Mr. Cain had his brain blank on "defined benefits" last Saturday (featured on Jon Stewart Wed night), and, as of the CNBC debate tonight, everyone is finally tired of his one-trick 9-9-9 solution. The punditheads seem to love fast talkers with zero substance, or worse, e.g., Romney declaring economic war on China, in these 'debates'. It is unfortunate that the media seized on Perry's one deadly blank, ignoring ten days of good interviews (from his 71 minutes on Oct 28 with the editorial board of the NH Union-Leader to a ten minute one on one with Christiane Amanpour), and the National Association of Manufacturing Forum in Pella, Iowa where the five candidates had to answer mostly the same very good questions for fifteen minutes each. Romney and Cain refused to appear. The other YouTube I saw appearing late last night was 90 seconds of Obama at a Town Hall meeting having serial brain freezes on cost of emergency room treatment of asthma. Breathalyzer, oops, inhalator, um, um, um, um, um....it was truly embarrassing.
- K2K
November 10, 2011 at 9:40am
K2K, who at times seems capable of rational thought, seems to lose it when it comes to anything to do with Rick Perry. The Texas governor (just that qualification is scary enough) has shown no trace of intelligence or competence for any job with responsibilities beyond scout master.
- appleton
November 10, 2011 at 10:27am
When I was in college, I voted in a very rich precinct (though I was sharing a room in a duplex). When the newspaper reported the precinct by precinct vote totals, my precinct reported only one Democratic vote - mine. If Perry hangs around long enough, K2K may have the same experience - "That .0001% is me!"
- GeoffG
November 10, 2011 at 11:05am
Good post, appleton. Perry should have at least written the three agencies he had in mind (but not for very long) on his hand, a la Palin. The difference between Obama's brain-lock on emergency room costs and Perry's stumbling and bumbling is that Obama was not in a debate and Perry was. You should, like, come prepared for a debate, like, you know? Would Perry, who is just another intellectually challenged Texas governor, come prepared for a serious discussion in the Oval Office, if he became president? Like Bush, probably not.
- magboy47.
November 10, 2011 at 11:20am
Cohn says that Romney hasn't paid a political price for his apostacy, but of course he has. That's why he can't break 25% support despite the fact that his competitors are a bunch of charlatans and fools.
- NateG
November 10, 2011 at 11:46am
Rick Perry is the most gifted politician to come out of Texas since George W. Bush. And, like Bush, Perry has sent a clear message to the American electorate: "Dont mes with Texis."
- NateG
November 10, 2011 at 12:16pm
"the base doesn't really care which ones are eliminated only that as many as possible, or preferably all, are eliminated" That's so true, ray. But this kind of thinking works in reverse too, remember Romney's 2008 gambit "I'm going to double the size of Guantanamo" that draw a roar of approval from the crowd. There seems to be a specific kind of hyperbole that runs like a vein through the GOP, cutting X while doubling the size of Y where X is a government agency carrying out a useful civilian task and Y a problematic national security entity of dubious value to the United States. There is probably a Democratic equivalent: perhaps tax breaks for outsourcing corporations vs. more police and teachers. The Dem variety doesn't seem to be as mindlessly aggressive, however.
- ironyroad
November 10, 2011 at 12:23pm
K2K: Another difference between Perry's three departments and Obama's gaffe is that Perry was unable to recall a central feature of his *very own* plan to drastically change the organization of the branch of government he wants to be in charge of. The equivalent would have to be Obama making that asthma flub while interviewing for a job as a respiratory specialist.
- frippo
November 10, 2011 at 1:32pm
frippo: You hit the nail on the head.
- NateG
November 10, 2011 at 1:49pm
Well said, K2K, Perry is a brilliant debater, the Pericles of our young millenium, just as Obama is a blathering fool who can barely string two sentences together.....
- jbrennan
November 10, 2011 at 2:09pm
Take a second look at the clip above and focus on Ron Paul (35-48 second mark), which is what Perry did. His brain freeze probably WAS seeing Ron Paul turn into the evil witch with a five-fingered hand -an expression that would turn mortals into stone. Having to stand between Cain and Paul is cruel and unusual punishment for anyone... But Cohn still hit the nail - Romney really did descend into fast-talking incoherence. I disagree with some of Perry's positions, but I would rather see his smile and hear his voice for four years than anyone else. And, I know he WILL stand with our allies. Tom Coburn was an industrial engineer before he decided to become a doctor. His streamlining 'Back in Black' plan of the Federal government is very common-sense, and Perry has embraced it, but is forced to tout his flat tax in order to navigate the minefields of this primary process. GeoffG: where I vote as a registered Democrat, Perry would do very well - so many ultra-religious Catholics and Evangelicals who are social conservatives, and retired crusty Irish WW@ and Korea veterans. Our always Democratic State Senator used to be a virulently anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage Hispanic Evangelical, currently serving a seven-year sentence for corruption. They go with the Democratic Party because that is the only way to get money for the "poor" from Albany. almost one third of my CD is ultra-orthodox Jewish. I might be changing my legal residence to a rural western Mass village where only 20% vote with their guns and pick-up trucks, but I would not be alone. The county would prefer to secede and join New Hampshire. snark gets no response :)
- K2K
November 10, 2011 at 3:33pm
Barry is a bright phoney wussy personable Dem and Mittens is a bright phoney wimpey not-so-personable Repub. The economy will be bad in 2012 and for some time to come. Best bet for progressives: Let others elect the phoney Repub and search for and support new Progressive Dem leadership for 2016.
- drofnats1
November 10, 2011 at 3:39pm
In Perry's defense, he'd have a hard time sexually harassing anyone. "I think he was trying to say something offensive, but, really, I couldn't make head or tail of it. He may have been inviting me to his suite at the Omni hotel, or he could have been trying to say something about how he couldn't tell if Romney was for the thing he was for that he's against now, or against the thing he used to be for until he turned against it. And mandates - I'm pretty sure he said 'mandates,' but it could have been 'man dates' or 'men who eat dates.' Nice hair, though."
- GeoffG
November 10, 2011 at 3:41pm
K2K. Even though you dont, Repubs really should should favor Mittens as a bright phoney wimpey not-so-personable Repub to Governor GoodHair as a really-dense phoney not-wimpey personable Repub. As long-time Texans, we've both seen Shrub (aka GWB) and Good Hair-- and we both know that GoodHair wins the Really-Dense prize.
- drofnats1
November 10, 2011 at 3:56pm
K2K. Even though you dont, Repubs really should should favor Mittens as a bright phoney wimpey not-so-personable Repub to Governor GoodHair as a really-dense phoney not-wimpey personable Repub. As long-time Texans, we've both seen Shrub (aka GWB) and Good Hair-- and we both know that GoodHair wins the Really-Dense prize.
- drofnats1
November 10, 2011 at 3:57pm
Ha! I was correct about Perry's "choke" being Perry seeing Ron Paul turn into a gargoyle. From Newsweek today: "...But in the case of the CNBC debate, it wasn’t just anxiety that led to Perry’s “oops” moment, says Dr. Nicole Detling Miller, a visiting professor of sports psychology at University of Utah. When an athlete chokes during a big game, there’s usually a single moment of distraction that flips a mental switch, reducing even the most talented All Star to the skill level of a Little League benchwarmer. After analyzing the now-viral debate clip, Miller says that switch was apparently flipped for Perry the moment he looked at Ron Paul, who was standing next to him on stage. “His focus was disrupted and some emotion was conjured up, and that emotion took the place of whatever he was trying to process in his brain,” Miller said. “Maybe it was a look on Ron Paul’s face, or maybe it was just the sight of Ron Paul in general. I don’t know.” Whatever the root of Perry’s visceral response to Paul—heaven knows the latter has been less than kind to the former—once emotion took over, it was downhill from there. Perry could have recovered from his momentary break in focus but instead, says Miller, he probably became consumed by counterproductive “self-talk”: I need to give the right answer here, I need to look cool, calm, and composed, and I need to make a joke at the end. ... There is some good news for Perry in all this. For one thing, says Frank, gaps in word retrieval like the one the candidate experienced on Wednesday have nothing to do with intelligence. “It’s really a false positive for dumbness,” says Frank. ..." http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/12/rick-perry-s-debate-performance-anxiety-why-he-chokes.html
- K2K
November 12, 2011 at 12:04pm