Much like the necessity of defending Sarah Palin destroyed every minimum standard of truth and decency that remained in the Republican Party, Mitt Romney’s utterly vacuous campaign is turning the nation’s Republican governors into blathering idiots. I don’t know what I’d say in their place, but that’s sort of the point, What can you say? If you offer some advice like maybe Romney could release his tax returns and put this controversy to bed, you’re forced to walk it back the next day. If you say that Romney should spell out his economic plans, you ignore that his economic plans poll so badly that the Democrats have decided that no one will believe them if they talk about them. If you suggest that Romney humanize himself by talking more about his personal life, you ignore that Romney is basically a straight-laced Clark Griswold who does weird things like strap a dog crate to the roof of his station wagon before he sets off on a lengthy vacation. If you tell him to defend his work at Bain Capital, you aren’t taking account of the fact that he’s had twenty years to try to do that as a candidate and has never succeeded. And you know in your heart that releasing his tax returns won’t make the issue go away, but will destroy his candidacy in its crib.
One after another, the Republican governors assembled for their annual meeting in Virginia, told reporters that Romney needs to do this or that differently. But all of their advice was bad. Romney doesn’t talk about his personal life because he isn’t likable. He doesn’t talk about Bain Capital because no one likes a vulture capitalist and it only invites his opposition to pile on. He doesn’t talk about his economic plans because they’re less popular than a case of herpes.
Romney’s current strategy is the only strategy that makes any sense. Don’t discuss anything except the president and the economy. Go 100% negative. Do everything you can to make the election about the incumbent and not about you. Never talk about yourself. Never talk about your plans, except in the most generalized platitudes. And hope a perfect storm hits at just the right time in November and you win because you’re the only plausible alternative on the ballot.
Even if it’s not working well enough to win, doing anything else will immediately backfire. So, stick to the strategy.
This is what happens when a party becomes insane and then nominates someone with an indefensible history, personality, and platform.
This all seems pretty much exactly right. Elegantly stated.
You can probably afford to just take the next three months off.
The current storm he’s facing could lead to a nomination fight. But if it doesn’t, I can see it setting up the media for a new narrative coming out of the GOP convention, one of a Romney that has been humbled and is a comeback kid. The media has a short attention span, and we can’t expect they’ll still be interested in Bain and his tax returns more than a month from now…
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Part of my recent diary – Mitt Romney Campaigns In Compounding Lies About Bain Tenure
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Republican governors gathered here this weekend gently nudged Mitt Romney to wage a more aggressive campaign, urging the GOP standard bearer to share more about his background and draw a sharper contrast between his vision and that of President Barack Obama.
Can I just say that I heartily endorse this notion?
Er, um, what I mean is, as a liberal, it would make me very angry – very angry, and fearful – if Mitt Romney were to devote more of his money and media time towards discussing his biography, particularly his time at Bain Capital, and contrasting his economic vision with that of President Obama.
Also, I do not wish to be thrown into a briar patch.
HE has never, not through the primaries, nor now, given an answer as to why HE should be President.
That’s what makes him the perfect standard-bearer for the GOP: they never make a case supporting themselves, they just tear down the Dems, and for that matter, the entire notion of effective government.
I have this analogy that keeps recurring to me: America is a stabbing victim in the ER, slowly bleeding to death, and the voters are given the choice to pass the scalpel either to a well-meaning but somewhat bumbling doctor, or to the mugger who stabbed the victim in the first place. Even when the doctor wins the scalpel, for some reason, the mugger gets just enough votes to hang around in the ER and harass the doc to the point that he can’t effectively operate.
Or something like that.
That is the one question he has always answered:
“I know how the economy works and Obama doesn’t. The evidence for that is that I made a lot of money and created a lot of jobs. And btw, I believe in America and Obama doesn’t.”
It’s just that some are now asking exactly how and when did Mitt make all that money. Based on his own assertions, he was only active at Bain Capital, Inc. from 1984 to 1999 and during those fifteen years took two leaves of absence. The first to “rescue” Bain and Company and the second to run for Senator. For a guy that is proud of his career in business, he’s spent more time trying to get out of it than he has in working at it.
God help me, I did something that I swore I’d never do again, and that was to watch a Sunday morning political talk show. I had to see for myself what’s being said about Romney and Bain, but I wish I hadn’t.
As has been said, these shows are rigged right from the start. Their idea of a “roundtable” is a joke. The voices for the Democrats are two of the wimpiest people in the field: Donna Brazille and James Carville. Since his wife Mary Maitilin was ther, too, James could only mumble in that disjointed, impossible to decipher language of his.
And then there was George Stephanopolis, with a complete disregard for being a host and remaining neutral. And some Republican advisor and George Will, who turns everything into a baseball analogy. WTF. It’s actually painful to watch, so I only tortured myself for a short time.
They did discuss the Romney/Bain issue, but the Righties continue to decry Obama as being a liar and Romney rising above the fray, in spite of being under attack. They also declared this is Obama’s last charge, since he won’t be able to raise money late in the campaign, while Romney will continue to pull in millions in support.
Mary insisted that Romney’s involvement in Bain was ended when he said it was, and then tried to spin off in another direction, talking about Romney’s strong economic plans. She knows he’s in deep shit and she can’t even muster a decent argument.
I’m not going back to that crap. I watched those shows every week in the years before Obama won the election, trying to stay on top of the polls and pundits. Not any more. It became crystal clear that those folks all have their own agendas, and none of them are pro-Democrat, pro-left, pro-human. They’re going to continue to defend their candidate no matter how terrible he is.
They also declared this is Obama’s last charge, since he won’t be able to raise money late in the campaign
Umwut?
If I were to make a list of things Barack Obama has to worry about in this campaign, I could probably come up with a few hundred entries that would come before “trouble raising money.”
There is an exception to the Sunday morning talking heads and that is “UP with Chris Hayes”. It’s what you’ve always hoped for and never seen on the Sunday roudtables.
I hate cable news — and I don’t enjoy Maddow that much — but Hayes is indeed something I’d watch if I watched cable news. I hope he doesn’t get cancelled.
I doubt he’s going to get cancelled, the show is really catching on, as well it should.
The other great show, which is an outlier to be sure, is CURRENT tv’s late Friday night Gavin Newsom show where he talks with the great innovators of our time and nimbly picks their brains.
Isn’t Newsome still Lt. Governor of CA?
Not sure if he is currently, but he’s utilizing alot of the Bay Area braintrust. It’s a class act show.
Here’s the CURRENT page for Newsome with one of interviews.
I am so looking forward to the debates.
I would be too, but I remember what the MSM did to rewrite debate history with Gore v Bush. They won’t allow a knock-out punch to exist in the official record, come what may.
Not always. Remember when McCain forced Obama into the briar patch of a “town hall format” debate on foreign and military policy, McCain’s big strength after a 40+ year career in the military and national politics?
In case you want a refresher: http://youtu.be/qZDSJN7mVPo
Not to mention, the MSM couldn’t salvage George Bush when he debated John Kerry.
By the end, even Bush’s own spinmeisters were reduced to using phrases like “covered the spread.”
“He who wields the sword never inherits the crown”
Obama can’t make all these attacks personally – he has to rely on surrogates and the media to do that for him – or he will lose independent and low information voters.
True, and that’s another area where the Obama campaign has an advantage. Obama has more and better surrogates (e.g., Stephanie Cutter, David Axelrod) that Romney has.
It’s Cutter who made the (carefully crafted) statement that either Romney committed a felony or he’s been lying to the American people about his role at Bain Capital in 1999-2002.
All Obama had to say (a few days later) was that Romney would have to explain how the “CEO, president and sole stockholder” had no role in running Bain Capital for three years.
No, but by the time the debates happen, Obama won’t have to make these attacks. They’ll already be well-planted in the public’s consciousness.
He’ll be able to play off them, to say high-minded-sounding things that just happen to remind the viewing public of the attacks.
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In the debates, I hope the candidates answer policy questions, not circumvent them.
In debate asked about an Iran strike, an astounding reply from Romney: “I’ll sit down with my attorneys” … at 3am in the morning?
Ron Paul: “Why don’t you read the Constitution first!” Dumba$$ Too bad foreign policy ranks 16th as unimportant to US voters.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."He’s in a real fix for a VP candidate too, isn’t he? He’s going to need someone he can keep on a leash, but he also needs to appease the teahadis, and he needs to pick someone who isn’t going to remind voters of how truly wretched the last Republican president was. Does such a person exist?
Does such a person exist?
No!!!!!!
Ideally, Karl Rove’s PAC could pay a huge sum of money to have some kind of robotic candidate fabricated in a secret right-wing laboratory. But there’s one huge problem with that……………….
Republicans don’t believe in science. And there’s not enough right wing prayer in the world to conjure something out of thin air.
….while also bringing in some foreign policy gravitas to the ticket.
Good luck with that, Mitt.
I’m thinking it’s time we created some new titles in honor of Mitt…
“MittCongress” you know, the do nothing one
“Mitthole” well I was going to refer to potholes open and unfixed, but there’s just so many places to go with that one
“MittBridge” – the ones degraded and itching to collapse except MittCongress won’t fund repairs
“MittCancer” the cancer that won’t be treated
“MittAccounts” the 1%ers kind that never see the shores of their USA homeland
BooMan, You’re a bit obsessed with that Clark Griswold thing.
you act like there is something wrong with that ;0)
The one success he’s had that ever did any good for anyone but him was RomneyCare. I’m alive today because of it. But someone else was playing eleven-dimensional chess a while back and now it’s just more scalding water for Romney.
Graduate students of the 24th century will write dissertations on what the original game of 11 dimensional chess was, since all 11 dimensional chess boards will very much post date the first references to it. Here’s a note to help those graduate students: 11 dimensional chess, intricate game invented in the early 21st century by USA president Barack Obama played against republicans trying to sabotage his agenda.
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