Reading the good Professor Reynolds today I’m noticing the theme that Romney is a better candidate than McCain ever was. Here. Here. Here.
You know what? I agree. It wasn’t expected but here it is. It needs to be acknowledged. That very low bar has been passed. Yet, here I am, still wondering if that’s going to result in any policy we desire being implemented after Obama’s very bad November.
I think there is a way forward here. Better-candidate-than-McCain-ever-was Romney should now endeavor to paint himself into a classically liberal corner. This involves saying things like, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” It involves saying things they say scare the moderates but we’ve lately discovered do not scare the moderates.
Earn some votes here. People don’t trust you. I don’t trust you.
Get that mandate. Say some things you can’t take back. If you don’t, some of us are going to take that as a sign. Like your record.
Yes, I do recognize that I might be asking him to lie to us.
Thing is, outside acknowledging Romney and his people are willing to punch hard, I can’t see a comparable willingness on his part to think through the problem thinkingly. Not one sign. Which makes me suspect he doesn’t know how, since otherwise he’d have made sure to indicate a sign already (and more, really).
I’m in the same boat as you, sdferr.
I might even be in the boat that says he has thought it through a bit and he’s got some serious Bloomberg to him.
Wait. I might have misunderstood your comment, sdferr.
A willingness on whose part?
What I get from Romney is that he has figured out how to win. But from where I’m looking at the problem we all face, that’s not the problem by a long shot — him winning, that is. That’s fifty steps short of the problem. I despair.
Mitt has been very good at responding. I’m waiting to see how good he is at directing the conversation.
On Romney’s part I mean, bh (not on Reynolds’ – I could care less about Reynolds).
Okay, I have to go have a cigarette.
Yes, that was my unknown, sdferr. Towards Romney, I’m not sure that we can take the lack of evidence of him not addressing the problem as his not seeing the problem. I’m sorta guessing that the evidence of his not addressing the problem might be evidence of his part in it. (This is the sort of thing he should disabuse me of at his soonest convenience.)
I wonder if he wants to, Ernst. Does he want to do more than beat Obama? I just don’t know. (This is the sort of thing he should disabuse me of at his soonest convenience.)
Now, to my sweet, sweet, nicotine.
My guess is he’s doing the usual establishment do what you have to do in order to win so that you then get to govern the way you want to, just like the last two Republicans to occupy the White House.* And the last two Democrats, for that matter. The problem with that, of course, is that if you don’t make the case for what you want to do ahead of time, I won doesn’t get you to a second term. Maybe. We’ll see.
*I’ll concede that may not be entirely fair to G. W. Bush.
In a loose sense, I suppose Romney could see something — let’s call it a problem on the order “my oh my but the USA is one messed up thingamajig” — thinking it’s a problem and miss the deeper conditions and causes (himself and his own actions possibly included in the latter).
And I don’t mean to imply that thinking the thing thoroughly through is an easy matter, a simple thing. Not at all. And perhaps especially not for someone with Romney’s idiosyncratic background. Since were that the case it’d have been better done by others already (and to date, of the handful of contenders willing to get into the ring and make an effort for the executive job, Herman Cain seems to me to have come the closest to a synoptic view thus far, though not so very close in the altogether), and we see it hasn’t been. I discount for these purposes those who toil in other venues, such as Ryan, Walker and others.
Would that Romney could bring himself to begin at the beginning, even if only for a moment. Just a sign of a hint of an inkling of the rudiments would go a long way to make a beginning on the trail. But, as we’ve said, there is no sign. No hint. No evident inkling. Therefore: Despair.
I’d like to think that Romney gets it, and his advisors are the ones telling him don’t offer any solutions that can be demogogued agin’ ya.
I’d like to think that.
The hard part of that hurdle, it seems to me Ernst, is simply that anyone grasping the least part of the crisis before us couldn’t possibly remain silent in the face of the crisis. The conditions wouldn’t seem to permit it.
To take the two comments above as one, we do come to a place where we wonder if maybe the man isn’t unwilling to think it through or ill-advised. There’s this chance that he’s just another technocrat who hasn’t read enough Hayek.
(I know you’re both fully cognizant of this. But, this is a thing I do, state the obvious.)
No, my use of double negatives might not be self-indulgent.
I think it’s about right, that what you say bh. I think it fits with something I heard P. Ryan telling Mark Levin in — as Ryan thought it — in defense of Romney. Namely, that Romney has not, as Ryan said he and Levin had done, made a study of political matters as theoretical entities, but merely approached politics as a functionary, intent on “getting things done”, or some such nonsensical view or other. Ryan wants to claim Romney has the capacity to catch on or catch up, whichever it’s to be. I don’t know about that, but remain skeptical. Old dogs and new tricks being my polestar there. Well, that and the evident fact that Romney never took an interest in the more interesting aspects of politics on his own.
At the risk of trite trivialization sdferr, I thik the professional electioneers will tell you that we have a tough row to hoe in front of us isn’t a winning campaign theme, even if (especially if?) it happens to be true. Reagan’s genius in ’80 was that he was able to frame it as we’re better than this and we’re up to the challenge, so to speak.
The problem is that the Democrats have here yet again debased the currency. As in, for example, shared sacrifice, which has nothing to do with all of us sacrificing, and everything to do with sharing the sacrifice of others.
If elected Romney will fix the problems his investors want him to fix. Hopefully that includes the problems you want him to fix.
Reagan thought very deeply about what America is, I think. And indeed, upon that depth of knowledge and understanding built — properly — an appeal to Americans which resonated in harmony with their unarticulated aspirations, both for themselves and for their polity. But alas, right there is the lack of which we speak. Romney has not committed himself to such searching thought.
If Romney thinks just getting elected is the hard part, he’s not McCain, he’s Obama.
Okay, he might still be McCain too…
A cynic would write “owners” in the place of “investors.”
Can the common stock owners get any return on their investment when their interests aren’t necessarily the same as those of the holders of preferred stock?
So who owns Obama?
Who would own Mitt?
Who owns Madonna?
Besides that Betty Davis vibe she’s succumbing to, that is?
Never was a Madonna fan, so i have no idea. I do admire her marketing skills.
– This election is a mandate on Obama’s performance in office. Even the press has quietly recognized that, and is simply no longer all-in for the left.
– Mitt wins as long as his campaign plays it that way and keeps the focus on the economic realities.
– An early indication that Obama’s camp is well aware of this situation comes from the recent Bain attacks, which are not boding well when at least two black political leaders, Obama supporters, are forced to defend Romney.
– Hair plugs Bleat of “The car industry is still alive, but Bin Laden isn’t”, won’t be enough to resonate with a hard pressed and anxious electorate.
Actually, there will be new taxes anyway, and Mitt can’t do a thing about it.
This year, unless a bill is passed to kick the can a little further down the road, capital gains rate goes up to 20%, and the upper bracket rate returns to 39.6%.
I’m not so concerned about taxes right now as I am about spending. Screw the tax increases. Don’t extend the Bush tax cuts again, because sunsetted tax laws make no sense. Cut spending, then work on taxation.
If elected Romney will fix the problems his investors want him to fix. Hopefully that includes the problems you want him to fix.
Truer words were never spoken. I think you’ve managed to consolidate the entirety of our long primary campaign arguments with such brevity that it borders on poetry. To paraphrase: Romney’s investors are far better than Obama’s owners, but that’s hardly good enough.
Even the press has quietly recognized that, and is simply no longer all-in for the left.
Not all-in right now, perhaps. I tend to think of them as check-raising us now before they push in their stacks come summer.
– Both spending cuts and tax reform are needed if we have any hope of getting a handle on the economy.
– The Dems would rather jump out widows than cede a tax increase, and which one of their bought and paid for voting blocks are they willing to jetison.
– The jobs data this week is so bad even yahoo has given up trying to put a smiley face on things.
– Economists across the political spectrum are warning that almost anything could push us back into a double dip, if one is even willing to believe we were ever out of this recession.
– How about those Mets.
A smart guy I talk to is a very tepid Romney supporter (not a ‘Bot), and he notes that Romney’s background as a turn-around specialist, along with governmental executive experience, is a perfect fit for what ails us.
When I point out that Romney’s turn-around specialist skills were nowhere in evidence during his stint as a governmental executive, he ruefully concedes the point.
If you hash it out with honest Romney supporters, it really boils down to getting Obama out, and hoping that Mitt governs much differently as President than as Governor.
Me, I’m getting a little tired of the triumph of hope over experience, at least in American politics.
Ernst,
I think you mean language or linguistic meaning as JG might put it. The Democrats have debased the currency also which is why the dollar is trading at ? 0.77 today.
The kind of statement you’re looking for, the ‘lie” that can’t be taken back, won’t happen till the convention. There will be three places that it needs to show up to stick. The VP pick and both acceptance speeches. Those are where things said and implied can’t be unsaid without major bad effects.
In 2008 Obama used his “shimmering” gift to be all things to everyone. When he turned out to polish floors like Mop & Glo flavored Coolwhip his response is that we didn’t read page 1247 paragraph 13 of the instruction manual and besides that there was that sabotage by his evil corporate rivals. Not selling well so far.
Ok so it doesn’t understand Hiragana. That ? = Yen
I think Kana and Katakana are no good also.
In other news, “Wisconsin the Model” now.
I don’t know that there is a perfect candidate or that it is even worthwhile to posit such a thing of a mere mortal. Look where we are now with president Jesus having driven us into the ditch and buried us up to the axels. I’ll settle for competence and a little cheerleading about how we’re the awesome and not a sack of shit that won’t share with the special ed kids.