My son woke me up very early this morning with a high fever — I had to stay up and keep cold compresses on his head until he was sufficiently cooled — so I doubt I’ll be posting much today.
While I’m awake here, though, let me address a particular commenter who has, time and again, expressed his very obvious displeasure with my posts taking both Mitt Romney the candidate and Team Romney the political machine to task, either for the positions being espoused or for the primary campaign being run.
Writes Matt, in response to my post yesterday highlighting how, in 2006, Mitt Romney essentially anticipated both the President’s and Energy Secretary Chu’s arguments for the usefulness of higher gas prices (which came on the heels of his having cited TARP as the saving grace of our economic system) :
Welp, Santorum started on the “Romney is Obama” thing that you’ve been promoting for months- its not playing well. Shock. The thing is, most people not reading this blog don’t think Romney is the same thing as Obama. Because he’s not.
I’m just wondering, if Romney gets the nomination, are you going to spend every moment up until the election bashing him? As opposed to every moment up until the primary? Because of the staunchness? I’m tired of the in fighting. It would be nice to feel like we’re all on the same team again.
First, let me begin by noting that, implicit in the charge, is that I suffer from a bad case of ideological purity (this, in pw grammar, is what is meant by “because of the staunchness”). Which from my perspective is curious, because it seems to me the charge that’s being leveled is that I believe in what I believe in — whereas the proper course of action instead is to bracket all that in order to believe in the importance of getting one of “my team” elected, regardless of what he shows himself to believe in. And I’m not sure how that benefits me — unless of course what I’m interested in is backing a candidate who claim to represent me rests with Party affiliation, not policy preference or the underlying political ideology used to form them.
Here’s what i find amusing, and Matt is free to correct me, of course, if I misstate the case: every time Matt, or someone like Matt, responds to one of the posts in which I point out just how — note, please, the just how, because that’s important — Romney shares the same policy inclinations as Obama, the rejoinder is that Romney is not Obama, and that everyone knows that.
Now, as a statement of fact, this is true, of course — especially in the sense that I am not Matt, nor is Matt some other commenter here, etc. Still, at a certain point it becomes problematic when your insistence that you are very different politically from someone else rests almost entirely on your claim to a different party affiliation.
My points, which Matt has in his latest comment dismissed because, well, they aren’t “playing well” (as if perception is the same as reality, and we should therefore orientate our ideological impulses around what “plays well”), have always been spelled out: I provide links to Romney’s own words, his own legislative history, his own publicly stated positions, ever-shifting though they seem to be, depending on the audience and context. I point out that those positions match positions held by a President we keep insisting must be defeated — largely because of his belief in the positions he holds.
I point these things out so as to make the case that Romney, as nominee, does not make the most sense for Republicans (he provides the least contrast to Obama, policy wise), nor is he the most electable candidate; I point out that his campaign strategy thus far has been based on attacking his nearest competitors using a money advantage he won’t enjoy in a general election; and I point out that, as he attacks his opponents from the right, his senior adviser goes on CNN and talks about how, in the general election, the idea will be to push a reset button, so no, his candidate doesn’t have to worry about being tarnished with the “far right extremist” brush he might otherwise be tarnished with as a result of tacking right in the primaries. That is, his advisor — who’s been with Romney since his days as MA governor, and who presumably knows him better than most — went on CNN and, rather than disputing the assertions implicit in the question, namely, that Gingrich and Santorum are extreme right wingers who could damage the Romney “moderate” brand, instead noted, in so many words, that Romney was playing a cynical political game in order to win the primary, after which he’d run a new and entirely different campaign, based on more moderate ideas, in the general election.
That is, once he gulled the bitterclingers into supporting his candidacy.
In short, Romney’s senior adviser just told us that of course Romney will trade ideological convictions for “what plays well” — and to some of us, pulling the lever for a cynical political animal who will pretend to adopt whatever ideology is necessary to convince people to vote for him is just as distasteful as pulling the lever for a far left ideologue.
Pointing these things out about Romney during the primary campaign — and arguing against the manufactured narrative of his inevitability — is not “bashing.” It is vetting. It is me doing my part to make sure people putatively on my ideological side think through the consequences of their decisions. And it is ironic that the people supporting Romney, a candidate whose entire campaign has been based on running down his more conservative opponents, would chide me for daring to make public just exactly what it is Romney has, at one time or another, “stood for.”
Sorry to say it, Matt, but when I line up what I’ve done here alongside the Romney supporters’ constant attempts to tell me I’m wrong — without ever showing me just how that’s so (other than the claim that he’s not nearly so bad as Obama; or else to claim he very cagily fooled the electorate in MA so that he could steathily fix the state)– well, those people just sound to me silly and desperate. And wrong.
*****
update: here’s another commenter who’s disturbed by my posts and criticisms. And here is my response.
So faithful are they, JG.
Yet the onus is on the Romneyites to show how their support for this Republican progressive is not antithetical to — and ultimately directly harmful to — classical liberalism.
To structural, original, constitutional conservatism, if you prefer.
They cannot. In fact, when he’s not changing masks Romney mostly delivers evidence of actively jogging down the same road the left is accused by his supporters of running down.
Which is not reversing course. And this is done out of fealty to the 20% of this, as we call it around here sometimes, failshit little country that self-identifies as progressive. What squandered it’s liberal birthright.
That.
I’m just wondering, if Romney gets the nomination, are you going to spend every moment up until the election bashing him?
Bashing Romney? Perhaps not. Bashing Romney’s policy prescriptions and forcing Romney and his supporters to explain why his many, many statist ‘solutions’ are conservative? You bet your ass.
I can’t vote for Obama. I won’t vote for Romney.
One quibble with Jeff’s post. Romney makes no sense for conservatives and classical liberals. For Republicans the fact that he provides the least contrast makes rather more sense.
If, that is, you’re a Republican who believes that Obama’s policies themselves are generally popular, but that it’s the details (and Obama himself) voters don’t like.
Or, in other words, that losing more slowly is in fact winning.
Squid, there won’t be any reason to bash Romney because
A: President Obama is quite capable of doing that on his own and
B: We can amuse ourselves by bashing policies both Obama and Romney share. That way, the Romneybots won’t be able to tell which one is being bashed and it will just kill them.
Nuance!!
Vote Romney: Hope and Change 2.0!
Vote Romney: Because sometimes the sequel is better than the original!
Vote Romney: Because he’s not Obama!
(I dare any Romney supporter to show me which of the above doesn’t pretty much sum up the Romney campaign.)
I’m just wondering, if Romney gets the nomination, are you going to spend every moment up until the election bashing him?
I certainly won’t … and voting for Obama is a non-starter. Just, Romney’s on his own.
The RNC has been sending us “please donate” letters. Those are promptly round-filed.
We’ll be concentrating down-line, as it were — getting more limited-government types in Congress and pushing back against the huge cultural push trying to stampede us into Euro-social democracy.
Romney 2012: Because a man who believes in nothing is a man you can believe in!
As Glenn Beck’s team (still staunchly pro-Santorum) stated this morning, Romney is not now nor has ever been a member of the communist party.
That’s how he’s different from Obama. It’s significant.
But it’s not the best we can or should be able to do.
Romney 2012: Because the Supreme Court needs more Anthony Kennedys!
And to answer one of the questions that the Romney crowd has for us that did support him in 08 over McCain …
Romney actually is a good man. His business smarts and practical wonkishness makes for someone who can focus on whatever objectives needs to be done (rescuing the Salt Lake City games is obvious proof). In 2008, someone that could get into the White House and cleanup the domestic stuff that hadn’t been the #1 job was more much important than a sad “work across the aisle maverick”.
However, POTUS isn’t just a wonk position. Obama’s cult of personality has made that painfully clear. And where Mittens has been lacking is the “big picture” — the foundational principles that the skills that he has can/will serve. From his own mouth, he just doesn’t seem that interested in the why … just the how.
And the problem is that without the why, the how can dissolve into serving the principles that drive Obama — the suppression of the individual in order to serve the group.
Romney would make a better POTUS than Obama, but unless his feet is held to the ideological fire by principled classical liberals/conservatives/libertarians, he’ll just follow the road to serfdom the Obama and our cultural betters have been pushing us down.
Mittens sees trees, not forests.
“Romney actually is a good man.”
If true, a good man really isn’t all that hard to find.
Bashing Romney? Perhaps not. Bashing Romney’s policy prescriptions and forcing Romney and his supporters to explain why his many, many statist ‘solutions’ are conservative? You bet your ass.
If we bash Romney from the right that just makes him more palatable to the masses, right?
Heh.
It’s like you expect them to agree with their own arguments.
Silly. Positions are just taken for show in order to fool people into giving you power. Where you can then do good. Staunch!
fear the sweater vest
link
“Some of our best friends are — well, no, wait, that’s not true. Scone?”
I’m not a single issue voter, but an American gun banner will not get my vote. Only a tyrant at heart fears armed honest men.
Also, the problem Romney has, is his etch a sketch pragmatism. If he comes out as a 2nd amendment defender, I can’t trust him on that. All I’ll know is that’s the position that polls best…for now.
There are some days when all you can say is, “Ahh, fuckit.”
I’ve watched Romney over the years from next door to Massachusetts and all I ever saw was a nice “Stepford Wife” kind of a politician.
StrangernFiction says March 23, 2012 at 9:56 am
Actually, men of good character are out there. Romney is as close as you get to the nice guy stereotype mold, especially in politics.
The biggest [non]scandal that has ever been aimed at him is the thing with his dog.
But nice guys who eschew “That vision thing” don’t usually make great presidents.
I have to quibble a bit Darleen. I think Romney has used tactics in this primary that fall decidedly out of the “nice guy” mold.
Also, I think you miss a few scandals. Like the video of him laughing about taking every nickle he could pump out of the fed. To me, that was as big of scandal as Newt sitting on the couch with Pelosi.
He has a pretty polished shell for sure, but I don’t know about his core…or even if he even has one.
Actually, that’s his mean out-of-control SuperPac supporters whom he has nothing to do with and couldn’t dissuade even if he wanted to.
Which puts him in the coward killing the thing he loves with a kiss camp, I would say.
Funny stuff there, Squid.
Too true to be funny — and too evocative of Obama’s 2008 slogan “Change you can believe in” to stave off the nightmares.
I find your lack of
faithpragmatism disturbing….