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Go Home The Republican Bully Pulpit

THE PLANK JANUARY 24, 2008

The Republican Bully Pulpit

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

In my last column, which defends Mitt Romney, I wrote that the vicious way Romney's fellow GOP contenders gang up on him makes him more sympathetic in my eyes:

Romney has acquired the aura of an overbearing, upper-class phony. But I see him as more of an earnest dweeb, desperately, and unsuccessfully, trying to fit in with his new crowd. I can almost picture him coming home from the Republican debates, crying his eyes out that he wants to move back to Massachusetts because all the other candidates keep laughing at him.

Now the New York Times has a story on how all the other candidates hate Romney. Dan Schnur, a former stratgeist for John McCain is quoted in the story thinking along the same lines as me, but Schnur turns it into a taunt:

Mr. Schnur used a schoolyard analogy to compare Mr. Romney, the ever-proper Harvard Law School and Business School graduate, to Mr. McCain, the gregarious rebel who racked up demerits and friends at the Naval Academy.

“John McCain and his friends used to beat up Mitt Romney at recess,” Mr. Schnur said.

The peculiar ethos of Washington holds that this sort of analogy is supposed to make you like McCain, the cool kid, and dislike Romney, the awkward, nerdy outsider. But it sums up why I sympathize with Romney.

--Jonathan Chait

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16 comments

This is a joke, right?

Obviously none of these characters has the slightest inkling of what it takes to succeed in the most cutthroat business realm of all, the private equity world. (Hint: it makes Washington look like a, err, schoolyard).

- teplukhin2you

January 24, 2008 at 1:59pm

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America will choose the bully over the nerd every time.  Look at the way Bush treats his underlings.

- ejbenjamin

January 24, 2008 at 2:00pm

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I think you are making the classic mistake when judging a member of the uberclass. They are the elite. Romney has run the nastiest negative ads. His campaign staff and supporters are vicious truly vicious in their attacks on his opponents. But Mitt of course is above all of that.  No dirt under his fingernails.  Its like a wealthy man who buys stocks in companies that support torture to get their oil or subprime mortgages--he likes the profit and takes no responsibility for the bad actions of the companies he invests in. Probably donates to worthy charities. Very frustrating to the other candidates, not to mention all his self-financing.

- sabatia

January 24, 2008 at 2:25pm

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No one who's ever been on the other side of the table from a private equity kingpin would dismiss him as a creampuff. That's a rookie's mistake.

- teplukhin2you

January 24, 2008 at 2:53pm

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“John McCain and his friends used to beat up Mitt Romney at recess."

I can't quite visualize this. I'm sure McCain was one of the cool kids, but I have a feeling that Romney wasn't exactly a social outcast. He grew up rich, he's smart and good looking, and he's a relentless self-promoter. Obviously he wasn't a funny frat boy type who got drunk and fell through screen doors, but Romney still strikes me as a classic popular kid. Maybe resented for being too perfect, but not the sort of geek who sits alone during lunch and gets pushed around by the football team. Revenge of the nerds this ain't.

- Androscoggin

January 24, 2008 at 2:55pm

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Plus, I don't even think Romney is a plausible stand-in for the awkward nerd. If McCain is the arrogant jock who puts the nerds in their place through physical intimidation, then Romney is the spoiled rich kid who's always at the center of the popular crowd. You know, the kid who has the nicest car and gets away with drinking and hosting unsupervised parties at his parents' cabin.

- rhubarbs

January 24, 2008 at 3:10pm

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I'm sorry but this whole discussion is ridiculous. NO ONE builds a $300m fortune without developing some very sharp elbows, a knack for power, for figuring out (Warren Buffett's phrase) "who's the patsy at the table" and then ruthlessly crushing him. Romney is most assuredly not the patsy at this table, or any table. he's a dexterous politician who can be nasty when he needs to be, and he's easily the best positioned to put forth an intelligent and compelling economic program as our economic continues to melt down.

Could we cease with the schoolyard BS and treat this man like the serious threat he is.

- teplukhin2you

January 24, 2008 at 3:15pm

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For all I know, Mitt Romeny is brilliant.  He's rich, isn't he?  

But, he's got a canned, plastic rehtorical and presentation style that harks back to encyclopedia salesmen.  And probably to Mormon teenage evangelists going door-to-door and country to country.

It's unfortunate, because he might otherwise have what it takes to be a good president.  But, I don't know how good a president you can be if people think "plastic" whenever you give a speech.

- ChanRobt

January 24, 2008 at 3:47pm

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By the way, don't mistake my remarks for thinking Romeny can't win in November.  I believe he can beat Hillary or Obama.

- ChanRobt

January 24, 2008 at 3:49pm

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This analogy which suggests that McCain (bully) is to Romney (nerd) as Bush 2000 was to Gore 2000 does not really work because the "everyone hates Romney" meme is a bit of a fiction hyped up by political writers looking for a storyline.  

I used to think that Romney would be seen by voters as the Republican John Kerry (minus the war record).  But now he strikes me as more of an George HW Bush -- patrician, accomplished resume, successful carpetbagger, but a fake pro-lifer eager willing to sell out to the evangelical wing of the GOP for political gain, and of course, ultimately a wimp.  I feel bad for him just as there were moments when I felt bad for BUsh Sr., but not really that bad.  Those guys have had a pretty good life.

- stgla

January 24, 2008 at 4:47pm

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It must also be said that "Dan Schnur" is a pretty hilarious name.

- austinexpat

January 24, 2008 at 5:59pm

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I am old enough and have been involved in enough political campaigning to know that the media picks favorites (duh!) and on both sides.  Romney has become the easy target of derision for some reason that I cannot quite put my finger on.  American consumers--of all goods including political ones--want the hot commodity and the latest political sweetmeat seems to be the "fighting maverick."  This obviously doesn't play to Romney's strength.  He has button-down collars on his button-down collars.

But a couple of points.  I've always thought McCain's maverick stuff is more style than substance.  He's a standard conservative who was trying to channel Reagan last week in South Carolina on the size of the federal budget.  His divergence from modern conservative doctrine has taken the form of measures on campaign finance and global warming.  I don't want to sound the cynic here, but do you think that maybe, just maybe, he picked two of the issues with the greatest amount of support (or were at least creating some of the most noise) among the electorate.  Just because he doesn't spout passages from the latest missive from the Cato Institute doesn't make McCain a moderate maverick.

The biggest hoot I have gotten this campaign season is the little show McCain performed during the "How do we beat the bitch?" moment back in November of 2007.  The withered crone speaks, McCain does his best Art Linkletter "Crones say the darndest things" impression.  And all is abuzz.  Folks, I don't want to burst a bubble here, but that was just about the most staged piece of crap I've ever seen and yet, it's Hillary that gets the heat for planting questions.  You guys do know that probably about 75% of the questions in any type of format are staged.

On top of this, McCain is probably more aggressive on Iraq than Bushie.  I didn't agree with Rumsfeld much, but I did agree with some aspects of his effort to modernize the military and make it a more mobile outfit that can engage surgically rather than as a hammer that beats things lifeless.  It seems McCain's beef is that "Shock and Awe" wasn't shocking enough or awesome enough.  Of course, there is no excuse for the horrifying intelligence and the twisting of that intelligence to put us in the unfortunate situation we now inhabit in the Mideast, but I don't think McCain has even the foggiest notion of how to extract us.

tep, I agree with you on the world of high finance.  You can't fake it in that world and it's not for the faint of heart.

We're in the Alpha Centuri phase of the campaign season--light years from November.  I'm not even trying to figure out the election calculus for any of these guys.  McCain probably puts the most fear into Democrats, but he's over 70, which is no big deal in and of itself, but my guess is it will be difficult for him to present himself as an agent of change to younger voters.  Now, if Hillary is the candidate and not Obama for the Dems, does the young voter surge materialize for the Dems?  Big question.  

Romney could very well be a formidable candidate.  He's bright, articulate, conservative, and less earthy than W.  Now some might think the last of those is a weakness, but Bush's coarseness, lack of gentility, and cocksure attitude in the face of insurmountable evidence contrary to his position are things that have probably driven independent voters away from him.  His business acumen and success in a world that is much more about the business of business and less about class warfare could serve him well, especially with the 30-45 crowd that put Bush in office but is seeing cracks in him right now.

- Lundell

January 24, 2008 at 6:17pm

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hey Tep, I hate to say it but ain't you the guy who warned us last year to be very wary of Rudy Guiliani, the whole UHAYP thing. You are a real bright guy and I don't dispute what you say, but your powers of prognostication have not been the best.

I am not underestimating Romney, I am just disappointed in the ugliness of his campaign. I think if he had run a positive campaign, focusing on his business acumen, he might have wrapped it up by now. He opened the door to first Huckabee and then McCain, and if he had better political instincts should have finished them off when he had the chance.

I still like McCain's chances, and still envision a McCain-Huckabee ticket (or might I be so bold to suggest a McCain Condi Rice Ticket)

- blackton

January 24, 2008 at 6:19pm

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? _shnur_ (Russian) = shoelace

- teplukhin2you

January 24, 2008 at 6:21pm

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Yeah, I was way off on Rudy. What a washout he's been. I guess what bothers me is the tendency we have to treat this as a sporting event or tribal match instead of looking clearly at the "correlation of forces" as the soviets used to say.

The change in the economic situation has to help Romney, and significantly. It's an open question as to whether he can figure out how to stop speaking PowerPoint and start speaking 'merican, but if he could, he'd be formidable.

- teplukhin2you

January 24, 2008 at 7:25pm

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It's not just his fellow Republican presidential candidates who hate Mitt Romney. Politico 's

- Anonymous

February 2, 2008 at 12:40pm

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