THE STUMP JANUARY 27, 2012
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
This wasn’t the most exciting debate of the campaign. But it was the debate that best illustrated the underlying dynamic: Romney’s going to win, but he’ll be one of the most flawed candidates either party has nominated in recent memory.
To see this, look no further than last night’s installment of the recurring Freddie Mac dustup. Gingrich opened by lazily accusing Romney of investing in Freddie; Romney effortlessly parried the charge, explaining that he’d only invested in a mutual fund that bought shares in the company. Romney then demonstrated the vast superiority of his opposition-research, pointing out that Gingrich himself had invested in Fannie and Freddie. He concluded by emptying a few rounds of Freddie-related fodder into Gingrich’s rear end while the former Speaker scoped out the nearest hole to crawl into. There’s no way a candidate this well-armed and on-message is going to lose someone so sloppy and erratic.
And yet the same exchange exposed huge chinks in Romney’s armor. By my count, he referred to either his “blind trust” or his “trustee” at least six times during that single back-and-forth. He went on at length about the pride he takes in his own success. He explained away his Swiss bank account as a commonsense act of diversification (undertaken by his trustee, no less). It’s like he was trying to come off as a Trump-like parody of a rich guy. If Romney can’t come up with a less grating way of talking about his wealth—or, better yet,not talking about it—he’s going to get murdered in the general.
The same story played itself out when the conversation turned to space exploration. Gingrich looked positively daffy when asked to explain how he’d grant statehood to a future lunar colony. Romney cut him to pieces by highlighting the outrageous cost of settling the moon, and Gingrich’s habit of pandering to each state by seizing on the local budget-busting project du jour. With impressive detail, Romney ticked off the variety of boondoggles Gingrich had blessed in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
But, here too, Romney couldn’t resist self-parody. “I spent 25 years in business,” he said. “If I had a business executive come to me and say they needed to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say you’re fired.” Romney seems to be firing people on the campaign trail faster than Obama’s economy can hire them—which, come to think of it, may be part of the plan.
And then there’s health care, the issue Romney has clearly spent the most time rehearsing. The challenge for Romney is to somehow defend his health care deeds in Massachusetts while decrying the Obama health care bill, for which they plainly served as a model. For the life of me, I still can’t identify the substantive difference between the two laws—and I’d wager that most Americans won’t be able to either. Certainly it wasn’t apparent to Rick Santorum, who dwelled on how both were instances of “top-down government run health care.” I’m normally not impressed by the argument that a candidate who blurs too many distinctions with his opponent is destined to lose. But, aside from unemployment, health care should be one of the most promising issues for the Republican nominee in the general. The fact that it will be off-limits to Romney is an enormous disadvantage.
The irony is the the GOP establishment will surely be reassured by tonight’s performance. Romney was generally crisp and in command. He looked like someone consolidating his lead in Florida and taking control of the nomination contest. (At least until rank and file Republicans revolt against his inevitability all over again). But if I were one of the guys in control of the secret Risk board at RNC headquarters, I wouldn’t exactly be celebrating tonight.
follow me on twitter @noamscheiber
23 comments
"But, here too, Romney couldn’t stop himself from crossing into self-parody. “I spent 25 years in business,” he said. “If I had a business executive come to me and say they needed to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say you’re fired.” Romney seems to be firing people on the campaign trail faster than Obama’s economy can hire them—which, come to think of it, may be part of the plan." Hilarious, Mr. Scheiber. Romney's on the uptick. He's stiff and out-of-touch with the non-rich, but Gingrich is often out of touch with earth. "Gingrich looked positively daffy when asked to explain how he’d grant statehood to a future lunar colony." Maybe some Newtie quote from the debates will make it to one of those "Priceless" TV ads in the future.
- magboy47.
January 27, 2012 at 12:49am
I will have discuss this moon business with my trustees.
- Sophia
January 27, 2012 at 1:24am
What a country!
- paskunac
January 27, 2012 at 6:23am
I'm still waiting for someone to ask Romney about his plan to repeal the current 35% estate tax on married estates over $10 million so his kids will receive something like $250 million instead of just maybe $166 million.
- Nusholtz
January 27, 2012 at 7:49am
But in this very issue of TNR Alec MacGillis is telling us the folks aren't bothered by Romney's wealth. Which is it? Personally I'm starting to think Alec has it right. The USA is fucked in the head. The whole country is like a bunch of ghetto kids with no money and not much more hope looking up to pimps and dope slingers, never realizing that the only that distinguishes such rich crooks is their ruthless lack of concern for anyone other than themselves and the fact that they have won the vicious lottery that lands the other 99% of would-be Scarfaces either in prison or an early grave.
- AaronW
January 27, 2012 at 8:58am
See, the whole business about statehood for a moon colony shows the difference between Gingrich's strategic thinking in building Republican Congressional majorities and Romney's blithe indifference to the political environment. Clearly, an American moon colony would be populated by hard-working, can-do macho intergalactic pipe fitters, crane operators and such. These red-blooded Americans would be overwhelmingly Republican, and thus help consolidate Republican dominance in Congress, not to mention the two solidly Republican Senators they would elect! Think of a US moon colony as an extra-global Wyoming or Alaska and you see Newt's genius in action quite clearly. And of course, if the US eventually colonizes Mars, that would create at least a dozen new Republican states. Now that's thinking strategically!
- wildboy
January 27, 2012 at 10:46am
my favorite part was when they asked Romney about Newt and the legacy of Reagan and Romney went into a full length autobiography of himself...I have a feeling if someone said to him "nice day isn't it?" he would talk about his lifetime of business experience often times under weather conditions similar to this. If he wins in the fall will someone please shoot me so I don't have to live with his vapidity for 4 years?
- blackton
January 27, 2012 at 12:12pm
Yes, blackton, at least Gingrich would be a 5-ring circus in the Oval Office. There'd always be something erupting in the media about him. Even Fox News would have fun with him. Romney, on the other hand, would be telling us about what happened on his summer vacation--how he did his own laundry in between stops at presidential suites, etc.
- magboy47.
January 27, 2012 at 1:03pm
Very good piece about Romney's potential weakness in the general election campaign, though at the same time I think there's something to AaronW's acerbic comment that in part critiques it. I square the circle by suggesting that Romney's fundamental weakness isn't how he talks about his wealth - he'll find a better way to do so if and when he wins the nomination and starts engaging with Obama. Rather, it's a Kerry-like aura of being a stiff, patrician politician removed from everyday realities and with no common touch. And that's so wired into him that he can't re-position himself away from it. Like most elections, the 2012 presidential contest will come down to whom the voters like better. And even though Obama is not the best candidate at displaying the common touch, I would bet that his personal popularity ratings do and will beat Romney's.
- Thunderroad
January 27, 2012 at 1:12pm
When I was a child, I read science fiction stories about people landing on the moon. Who thought it would happen? Just as when Columbus said to Ferdinande and Isabella, "Hey, dudes, I will go to a new land where I can murder, rape, and enslave aboriginal peoples, and dig up a lot of gold (very nutritious food substance) and grab a lot of spice (either an excellent currency or a kind of sexy British chick) if you just bankroll me," I propose that we send Gingrich to the moon, where he can exploit and enslave the lunarians, plant spice plants in the rich lunar soil, and mine platinum. I also propose we send Romney with Gingrich just to keep an eye on him, to make sure he doesn't involve himself in hanky panky with lunarian chicks, and to make sure he keeps his feet on the ground. We should not forget to send Santorum along, so he can preach to the lunarians and make sure they don't abort their baby moon rocks. Also, someone practical -- Sarah Palin? -- should go along, to make sure these boys keep their feet on the ground. (After all, as a person who can see the moon from her backyard, she is an expert on interstellar travel.] Probably some of my fellow comment posters at TNR (not mentioning any screen names -- especially not the name of a person who likes to toss flames my way) should also travel to the moon, just so they can be the interstellar correspondents for TNR, and send us "one the spot reports." Who knows, perhaps there is (or will soon be) a Jerusalem, a Tehran, a Baghdad, and who knows what else, on Mars?
- skahn
January 27, 2012 at 2:58pm
You're right, Thunderroad, Despite tens of millions of people hating Obama, a good majority of Americans like his personality, and that's one factor in deciding an election. Even a few Republicans have admitted in the media that they like him as a person. Have they done a personality poll on Romney yet? I don't think he'd fare too well in one. They might as well not do one on Gingrich. Even those who want him to punt Obama out of office would find him grating, if they met him in person, and some of his obnoxious personality traits shine through in the media.
- magboy47.
January 27, 2012 at 4:35pm
magboy47 Your post reminds me of a story Al Franken told about a seeking Tipper Gore's advice on a joke he planned to tell at the 1994 WH Correspondent's Dinner: "Vice President Gore continued to show his commitment to the environment by announcing today that he is going to change the policy on the stick up his butt. Instead of replacing the stick every day with a new stick, the Vice President will keep the same stick up his butt for the rest of the administration. Evidently, this will save an entire rain forest.” Tipper Gore looked at him sternly and said, "Use your best judgment."
- Nusholtz
January 27, 2012 at 9:26pm
Well, my trustees have spoken and they refuse to spend one red cent on the moon unless and until they are assured no unions will be allowed up there. As to whether there should be a Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tehran on Mars one is tempted to say, "G*d forbid, don't we have enough already?" Just sayin':)
- Sophia
January 27, 2012 at 10:20pm
Gee, I don't agree with any of the bases Scheiber propounds for thinking that Romeny's performance last night opens him up for filleting by Obama. The first basis is that Romney's "grating" way of speaking about his wealth, idiot continues, will lead to his debating homicide. Why? The connection between the two isn't spelled out; it's only assumed and asserted. Come those debates Romney will have honed better how to speak of his wealth, lst night being the first time he took the tack about it that he did. And I can see the ju jitsu here being that ever dollar of his munificence is a dollar of evidence that he's the man to turn America around. Scheiber doesn't lay out the line of attack relating to Romney's wealth, Obama will take in killing him, but likelihood of this rhetorical homicide seems very much less than self evident to me. The second basis is Romney's perhaps unwise reference to the verb "fire," after his nicely-here described own filleting of Gingrich. If I'm an Obama supporting Democrat, which I'd be if I were an American, which I'm not, I'd be more concerned about Romney's strong performance, albeit shooting fish in a barrel, than feeling confident about this kind of guff. A problem with featuring this rhetorical slip, if that it be, and I'm unimpressed that it is that, is that it's exactly the kind of superficial nonsense that has no place in any serious analyses of these matters. I can see what Obama will be able to do with Romney's repeating the verb-- pretty well nothing, because that is what it amounts to--nothing. The final basis is health care, resting on the fact that Santorum did a string job showing the similarity between Romney care, if you will, and Obama care, if you will. This was substantively Romney's weakest point in the debate. But, that said, this conclusion is, I'd argue, unwarranted, "The fact that it will be off-limits to Romney is an enormous disadvantage." It's a species of nonsense to think it's off limits. Romney will say, as he has been saying, that his was a state based plan, Obama's a federally imposed plan. I contend that is a fair basis in itself for distinguishing between the two. And don't forget that if SCOTUS rules against it before the debates on the ground that the mandates exceed federal constitutional authority that argument will be clinched by Romney without him having to say a word. Further, Romney will say, leaving SCOTUS, out of it, and as he has been saying, that if Obama had come to him, he would have told him don't do it because what may be workable for one state shouldn't be imposed on the country, which argument fits tightly into Romney's way of distinguishing between the two plans. Further Romney will say as proof of his anti Obama care bona rides that job one for him will be to inoperationalize and then got rid of Obama care, which will then give him the footing on which in fact to exploit, as Scheiber concedes it is, "one of the most promising issues for the Republican nominee in the general. " "Off limits to Romney"-- I'd hardly think so.
- basman
January 28, 2012 at 12:13am
The phrase "idiot continues" was unintended and I don't know how it wrongfully got into what I was saying. And that certainly wasn't a reference to Scheiber, who is anything but.
- basman
January 28, 2012 at 12:38am
"But, aside from unemployment, health care should be one of the most promising issues for the Republican nominee in the general. The fact that it will be off-limits to Romney is an enormous disadvantage." This is something I've been wondering about lately. I agree that the distinction between state and federal mandates is one that will be lost (rightfully so, IMO) on most Americans. The question is, how does Obama actually use Romneycare in the general? I mean, it's clear that Obama's strategy is to paint Romney as a money-hungry, callous financier whose only loyalty is to Wall Street. But how can Obama then turn around and say, "My health care reform package, which is going to help millions of uninsured people, is basically identical to yours?" Does that not undercut the larger narrative? If the ACA was based on Romneycare, and the ACA is good, does that not also make Romneycare (and by extension, Romney) good? Conversely, if Romney is an evil agent of the 1%, and he instituted Romneycare, what does that say about Obamacare?
- Dausuul
January 28, 2012 at 9:44am
01/28/2012 - 9:44am EDT | Dausuul is a perceptive post which indicates nicely how warily both Romney and Obama have to tread in taking each other on. Obama's painting of Romney as "... as a money-hungry, callous financier whose only loyalty is to Wall Street.." is hyperbolic but it's clear in pointing to the framing of Romney as a 1%er out of touch with the needs of the American people. Romney's themes will include that % dividing is divisive, that Obama is a divider not a uniter, that he trumpets class warfare, American unexceptionalism and decline, that his, Romney's, turn around expertise in business and in the Olympics stand toweringly over the "community organizer" who is on so over his head that in the last four years he's made matters worse. These are good talking points for Romney. And within their frame the states rights aspect of his distinguishing between his health care plan and Obama's stands to find traction with that portion of the American electorate frustrated with Obama care in the context of their general frustration with Obama. I think all of this is why health care is a potent issue for Republicans, why the electorate, and especially the rational and flexible independents, can readily understand the difference between an experiment in one state and a federally imposed plan. And one more thing: that slim swathe of voters that both candidates will need to appeal to in order to win, the reasonably moderate and pragmatic independents, will not be offended by the similarities between Obama care and Romney care. Romney can win to that: his incipient moderateness--he is after all a Massachusetts moderate will be evident in his state health care plan; but his arguing against Obama care as a top down federally imposed plan on all the states, as opposed to letting them experimentally crafting their own plans, will be a good outlet for the perception of Obama's overweening statism, which will be much made of.
- basman
January 28, 2012 at 12:24pm
"And one more thing: that slim swathe of voters that both candidates will need to appeal to in order to win, the reasonably moderate and pragmatic independents..." That swathe of voters is very thin indeed, almost microscopic one might say. The idea that swing voters deside elections in America is mostly a fallacy. What decides elections is turnout, can I get my halfhearted "independents" to turn out for me more effectively than you can get yours to turn out for you. Romneycare isn't going to change anyone's vote, but it might suppress the Republican vote.
- AaronW
January 28, 2012 at 3:47pm
By nature, I am a pessimist, and expect the worst to happen. As my father died at 43 and my aunts and uncles made it to 80s and 90s, I thought I would croak by 50; so here I am in reasonably good shape just a few days after 68th birthday. So when I have an optimistic thought...????????? Some Presidential candidates seemed so hapless and hopeless that I was sure they would lose. Usually (in my lifetime, Democrats). Stevenson, Humphrey, Dukakis, for example. For Republicans Dole pops to mind. I don't want to be optimistic, but I do sense that I AM GONNA LOSE DAMN IT! stench of failure emanating from the current GOP crop. You didn't hear it here, especially if you placed a bet on the matter.
- skahn
January 28, 2012 at 11:22pm
...That swathe of voters is very thin indeed, almost microscopic one might say. The idea that swing voters deside elections in America is mostly a fallacy. What decides elections is turnout, can I get my halfhearted "independents" to turn out for me more effectively than you can get yours to turn out for you. Romneycare isn't going to change anyone's vote, but it might suppress the Republican vote.... Happy to be corrected if I'm incorrect and will be the first to admit that in positing the importance of the politically neutral middle, the independents who swing both ways, I'm reiterating received wisdom. That said, what is the basis for saying it's mostly a fallacy? And while of course electoral turn out is decisively important, why does that negate the importance of the which way the swing vote swings? I don't ask to argue but to understand the basis for the "mostly" fallacy. In the same vein, how do we know how Romney care will play until we see how it plays out as the main political contest gets going?
- basman
January 29, 2012 at 3:02am
I don't myself see/smell the stench of failure emanating from the Republican field. I sense the obvious panic of a Gingrich nomination. But with that out of the way, my sense is that there will be a great relief once and if Romney gets the nod. There will be a general and vigorous amassing of Republican force behind him. There will be a mighty contesthehich, I'm thinking, will be pretty close and if the economic trends point downwards come the fall, there will be a good chance that Obama could lose to Romney. Obama will of course be buoyed by upwards economic trends. I'm thinking once and if Romney gets the nod, only a fool will confidently predict the result.
- basman
January 29, 2012 at 3:11am
If a Republican wins, I owe my friend Goldberg a steak at one of Toronot's finest steak houses, Harbour 60, whereat Obama's victory got me two different steak dinners at the losers' expense in 2008. If Obama wins, I'm eating steak on my good friend's dime. Some nice red wine gets included.
- basman
January 29, 2012 at 3:19am
I'm thinking once and if Romney gets the nod, only a fool will confidently predict the result. Basman, I am going to check your literary political satire credentials. What famous literary character said, "Beg to report, sir, I'm an idiot." Hint: the Czechs in the mail, and it's not a Havel.
- skahn
January 29, 2012 at 7:04pm