Bruce Bartlett worked on the Congressional staffs of Ron Paul and Jack Kemp and served in senior positions in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In addition, he is a friend of Grover Norquist, the contemporary Darth Vader of increasing taxes. He has written a book, The Benefit and The Burden, and discusses his views on both tax policy and the current political environment in this clip from John Stewart.
Wednesday night’s debate on CNN was Number 20 (although I don’t know how one could keep track) and no more are scheduled. It had been almost a month since the last one, and the race had entered another significant moment with Rick Santorum taking the lead in national polls. Despite the stakes and the time since the last one, this event could only be described as desultory. It may be that there are only so many ways of asking the same questions, or perhaps it is because the candidates’ responses are so wearingly predictable, but I cannot say I will miss them if this indeed was the end.
What stands out from this event? I think the comment that may have the longest shelf life is Mitt Romney’s assertion that he opposes all earmarks. Romney has the unsettling habit of both not caring about the truth, including on matters that can come back to haunt him, and being quite inept at the ad-lib remarks. He was once the governor of a state that, unlike the federal government, not only permits line item vetoes, but also permits a veto of an earmark within a line item. Does he not think that no one will go back and look at all the budgets he signed while Governor and count all the earmarks he approved?
A two-hour debate with only one easily disproved statement by Romney would be a milestone for him. But we also had misstatng his position on requiring contraception in Massachusetts and his whopper that President Obama realized Romney was right on the bailout of the auto industry that Romney opposed and Obama implemented effectively.
Rick Santorum did not help his candidacy by sounding like John Kerry in explaining his votes on various issues during the George W. Bush presidency, at one time even saying he was being a “team player.” That’s not necessarily such a bad thing – at least among rational people – but when your candidacy is based on adhering strictly to bedrock principles it is hard to see how this is not a self-inflicted wound with the current GOP base.
Newt Gingrich was praised in many circles by avoiding his trademark inflammatory rhetoric. Let’s see. He said Obama paid off the UAW in the auto bail-out bill, voted to “legalize infanticide” when he was a state senator, and said that when government is the central provider of services, “you move to tyranny.” Oh, and if Obama is reelected he will begin a war against Catholics on the first day of his new administration.
As always – and I mean “always” when discussing these debates — Ron Paul was the sole voice of reason. He is the only one not rushing to enter a war with Iran, pointing out there is no evidence they have a nuclear weapon. (Gingrich, by contrast, actually said that if Israel believes they have such weapons “you have to act.”)
If these debates are over, I think they have served a very useful purpose in illuminating the character and policies of all the candidates who have participated. They are perhaps one of the significant reasons that the Republican “brand” is suffering, and that Mitt Romney has seen a precipitous decline in his favorability numbers. And those would be the reasons why the Romney campaign has not committed to any more of these events.
Mitt Romney has been running for President for six years by most accounts (or for nine years, at least, by my count), and has been widely assumed to be the inevitable nominee. He has the benefit of a political pedigree, nice hair, and one of the weakest bunches of opponents a candidate could hope for. Nonetheless, he has faced, practically on a monthly basis, a new “non-Mitt” who races to the top of the polls and then collapses as a result of his or her ineptitude or baggage. Rick Santorum, the most recent of these upstarts, not only leads in polls nationally (admittedly, an almost useless standard), and in key states such as Michigan and Ohio, but actually has as many wins as Romney among the states to vote thus far. What gives? Let’s break it down:
Political beliefs and values: Before last weekend’s gathering of true believers at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a wide range of conservative commentators were calling on Romney to state forcefully his essential political beliefs and values. This was necessary because of the widespread discomfort many had expressed over Romney’s commitment to the conservative orthodoxy. What came out of CPAC of note, however, was the candidate’s jarring statement that as Governor of Massachusetts, he was “severely” conservative. Setting aside whether this was an accurate description, it was odd phrasing for someone who is quickly cornering the market on unusual ad-lib comments.
There is, however, a much bigger issue facing Romney. He doesn’t appear to have core beliefs or values on any issue, whether they are conservative or not. We know Newt Gingrich wants to colonize the moon, Rick Santorum opposes contraception, Rick Perry wants to make Congress half-time, Herman Cain had “9-9-9,” but what is Romney’s signature issue? Yes, we know he was a businessman who made a boatload of money for investors and himself, and “therefore” can fix the economy. What is his prescription? Doing “exactly the opposite of what Barack Obama has done.” Now that’s helpful. What will he do to tackle the deficit? He criticizes Obama for doing nothing on entitlements and criticizes him because the Affordable Care Act cut Medicare spending. His views on Medicare? He likes Paul Ryan’s plan which effectively eviscerates the program for those who are under age 55.
He also has a litany of refrains that push the red meat issues for conservative voters while simultaneously having no basis in reality. Obama has a “war on religion.” What? Obama went on an “apology tour” of foreign countries after being elected. Again, no basis in reality. Obama has made the economy worse. That one is starting to come part at the seams. On and on and on. He even devoted his first television ad to “quoting” Obama on the economy during the 2008 campaign when Obama was actually quoting the McCain campaign. Now he is reprising the Rick Perry theme and saying he is the only person running for President who has never worked a day in Washington. We know how much that helped Perry and, as Newt Gingrich would hasten to point out, it’s only true because he was crushed in his run for the U.S. Senate in 1994.
Negative campaigning: While going negative in a campaign is not actually an innovative concept – and is remarkably effective – Romney has spent a considerable amount of money in going after his opponents. (Excuse me, it’s not Romney but the super-PAC with which he “does not have connections” and often says he lacks knowledge of their activities.) He did not have to go negative early on, for when your opponents are Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, you can afford to smile in a patronizing manner and wait for their balloons to lose air and crash. Newt Gingrich presented a different problem when he soared to the top of national polls before Iowa. Romney hammered him in ads before the caucuses, causing Newt to lose steam but also allowing Santorum to sneak through to a victory. While many left Gingrich for road kill, he resurrected in South Carolina with his own negative ads, winning impressively. While Newt clearly had the potential to implode at any minute, Romney could not afford to lose the next primary state, Florida, and maintain his inevitability. So he went nuclear on Gingrich, vastly outspending him, coming away with the victory, and perhaps delivering a fatal blow to Newt’s campaign.
Now that Santorum is in the ascendency and Romney needing a win in Michigan, he will again go negative. Can it be effective against Santorum? Gingrich, to understate it, was a target-rich environment. While Santorum would present the Democrats with a mother lode of possibilities in the general election, many of his views that would be harmful in the fall help him in the GOP spring. Criticizing him for some of his outlandish right-wing views would make Romney uncomfortable since he would come across as more moderate, the “now” derogatory in the 2012 Republican Party. Going negative further emphasizes Romney’s lack of positive reasons for his own candidacy. And, polls are now showing that Romney’s net favorability ratings have plummeted, putting him in a very dangerous area when it becomes time to appeal to the general electorate.
Personal awkwardness: Early in the primary season, much was made of how Romney was a much better candidate than he was in 2008. You don’t hear much of that lately. He is actually a horrible candidate, although in this bunch that does not mean he will not prevail. Almost all of his efforts at humor either fall flat (such as pretending to be goosed by waitresses in a coffee shop) or rebound negatively on him, as when he joked about being unemployed. When he strays from his scripted narrative, he tends to get in trouble. There was the offer of a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry and, most recently, declaring himself to be “severely” conservative. One wonders how adept he would be at diplomacy if he can’t handle debates or meetings with voters.
More importantly, however, is that he displays nothing of himself even though he has been running all these years. We know he loves his family and has been married longer to one woman than all three of Newt Gingrich’s marriages combined. When he puts on the regular guy persona, he ends up looking foolish. In ’08 he was a hunter of “”small varmints, if you will.” This year he hunted moose until realizing he meant to say elk. At the end of one debate, candidates were asked what they would be doing that Saturday night if not debating. He will often pretend to be a sports fan, but gave himself away by saying he would be watching the college football championship game – but that was not being played until Monday.
The simple reality about Romney is that he is the great unknown. While much has been made in Republican circles about the “otherness” of Barack Obama, the President remains a remarkably likeable figure in polls. This isn’t a reflection of his views or competence, but a comment about his personality and authenticity. In the case of Romney, the more people learn about him, the lower his favorability ratings go. As the late, great Daniel Schorr said, “Sincerity: if you can fake it, you’ve got it made.” Romney’s been trying all these years, and it simply is not working for him. Reciting phrases from “America the Beautiful” (or heaven help us, singing it) is not going to help. His is a campaign of vacuous ideas led by a vacuous personality.
Tim Mak of Politico.com is reporting that Sarah Palin has said she would do “whatever I could do to help” should the Republican convention become deadlocked on a nominee. From the context it is clear that she means that she could be the nominee.
This came about in an interview with Eric Bolling of Fox Business Network who responded with “That’s, that’s fantastic.” Since this did occur on Fox, we do not know if Bolling was expressing unbridled enthusiasm, or had in mind the following definitions of “fantastic” from Merriam-Webster’s on-line dictionary:
a: based on fantasy : not real b: conceived or seemingly conceived by unrestrained fancy c: so extreme as to challenge belief : unbelievable; ….
Republican conservatives in the electoral system are not noted for their sense of humor – in other words, Mitt Romney is not atypical – but these two recent statements, reported by Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo are what one would expect from The Onion.
Rick Santorum who, as of today, is the national leader in some polls is clearly in line with the Catholic bishops. We have noted that he had expressed his opposition to contraception before the current contretemps, but his stated reason is that it is a “license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” We can only hope that he will be more specific as the campaign goes on.
Then, one of the biggest nitwits in Congress, Representative Steve King of Iowa, has opined that he isn’t convinced that contraception helps prevent pregnancies. The obvious question to him, of course, would be “Why are you opposed to it?”
I was astonished when Rick Santorum highlighted his opposition to contraception in one of the Republican debates. It turns out, however, that he was just ahead of his time, even if that time is not this century. The somewhat predictable outcry over the Obama Administration’s original policy to require that contraceptive services be part of an employer’s health insurance package was motivated by efforts to secure political advantage, not concerns over religious freedom. The Republican presidential candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, have locked on to the ridiculous theme that Obama is embarked on a war against religion. Then there is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops – noticeably silent during years of spreading evidence of child sexual abuse by priests — who latched on to the issue even though the overwhelming majority of Catholics practice birth control. As Gail Collins noted in yesterday’s Times, the bishops are hoping to get the federal government to enforce a religious doctrine, the morality of which they have not been able to convince their parishioners.
It did not take long for the smokescreen of “religious freedom” to disappear for the true reason behind the Catholic and Republican positions to come to the front. After the Administration announced a compromise position on Friday – supported by Sister Carol Keehan, the head of a consortium of Catholic hospitals – the bishops revealed their true objections. It is not just religious institutions that should be exempt from the requirement, but also “secular for-profit employers,” “secular non-profit employers” and “individuals.” In other words, it is not about religion, it’s about sex.
As one would expect, the Republican Party would not be far behind. According to Talking Points Memo, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports a Republican effort to allow all health plans to deny coverage for contraceptive services, whether based on religious views or not. Just as I did not understand Santorum’s position, I do not see how Republican leaders think it is to their political advantage to stake out a position not in concert with the majority of Americans. Perhaps it’s just a warm-up for Paul Ryan’s repeat effort to eviscerate the Medicare program.
