LIVE BY CITIZENS UNITED, DIE BY CITIZENS UNITED
I don't even know why I'm quoting this, since everyone in America seems to know about it already. But if you missed it, here goes. After the quote, my thoughts.
This whole contraception debate is just so new-fangled, says billionaire investor and mega-funder to the super PAC supporting former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) for President, Foster Friess.
In a simpler time, there were other ways to deal with female sexual desire. "Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly," he said Thursday on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, setting the host back for moment....
We know that the only reason Santorum is still in the race is that Citizens United allowed a candidate to survive on massive outlays by one individual to a super PAC allied with, though technically separate from, the candidate's campaign. Once upon a time, of course, every viable campaign had to have donations from a full roster of rich people. Now one is enough.
That means if you're, say, Santorum or Newt Gingrich, your patron all but gets naming rights to you. (And someday, I'm sure, naming rights will literally be up for grabs, and will be offered to corporations as well; four years and a few Roberts Court rulings from now, I look forward to the Tostitos® Mitch Daniels 2016 Presidential Campaign.)
But what this means right now is that Foster Friess isn't just one of a bunch of rich guys who gave Santorum money -- Friess owns Santorum. That's why this hurts Santorum, at least if he gets to the general election. Pre-Citizens United, you had to be a felon to hurt the candidate you financed this much. Now, if he's your boy, practically anything you do can hurt him.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
WORST BUDDY COMEDY EVER
If the "Santorum is more popular but Romney wins the nomination" scenario envisioned by Jonathan Bernstein plays out, it has the potential to make McGovern-Eagleton look like a minor stumble -- and to be utterly hilarious if you're not a Republican:
... Santorum's campaign [is] badly lagging in organization. This could mean he doesn't reap all the delegates that might be his due.... In most GOP caucus states, the voting is not strictly connected to delegate selection. If Santorum's voters don’t understand the procedures, it's very possible he could win the vote and yet pick up only a handful of delegates. Indeed, that may have already happened in caucus states he's won, like Iowa, Colorado, and Minnesota.
... Romney will apparently win Arizona's winner-take-all primary even if Santorum does hang on for a Michigan win, where the delegates are apportioned in a complex mix of rules. It's very possible that Romney and Santorum could split the two states, giving Santorum great headlines, while Romney cleans up in delegates.
... the popularity contest could leave Santorum as the clear, unambiguous winner, while Romney becomes the clear, unambiguous nominee. Imagine Santorum finishing with a five point edge or more in votes -- even as Romney gets crowned the GOP candidate for president.
If that happens, it's hard to see rank-and-file Republicans accepting the outcome as legitimate....
Yikes. And it's easy to imagine Mitt the Machine trying to argue that the math requires everyone to just accept his victory -- even as the inflamed right-wing mobs are howling for his head.
At that point, I think the party elders would put the proverbial horse's head in his bed and force him to accept the only solution that could possibly mollify the base: Rick Santorum as the #2 on the ticket. (In fact, Mitt hasn't ruled A Romney/Santorum ticket out.)
Now, the world of politics seems to be divided into three camps: people who think Santorum is an awful candidate, people who think Romney is a worse candidate than Santorum (hey, it's not just me -- BooMan thinks Romney is worse), and people who can't agree on which one is more awful. But if this scenario pans out, I think -- under extreme duress, and after much intra-party brawling -- we're going to get two for the price of one.
Can you contain your excitement?
If the "Santorum is more popular but Romney wins the nomination" scenario envisioned by Jonathan Bernstein plays out, it has the potential to make McGovern-Eagleton look like a minor stumble -- and to be utterly hilarious if you're not a Republican:
... Santorum's campaign [is] badly lagging in organization. This could mean he doesn't reap all the delegates that might be his due.... In most GOP caucus states, the voting is not strictly connected to delegate selection. If Santorum's voters don’t understand the procedures, it's very possible he could win the vote and yet pick up only a handful of delegates. Indeed, that may have already happened in caucus states he's won, like Iowa, Colorado, and Minnesota.
... Romney will apparently win Arizona's winner-take-all primary even if Santorum does hang on for a Michigan win, where the delegates are apportioned in a complex mix of rules. It's very possible that Romney and Santorum could split the two states, giving Santorum great headlines, while Romney cleans up in delegates.
... the popularity contest could leave Santorum as the clear, unambiguous winner, while Romney becomes the clear, unambiguous nominee. Imagine Santorum finishing with a five point edge or more in votes -- even as Romney gets crowned the GOP candidate for president.
If that happens, it's hard to see rank-and-file Republicans accepting the outcome as legitimate....
Yikes. And it's easy to imagine Mitt the Machine trying to argue that the math requires everyone to just accept his victory -- even as the inflamed right-wing mobs are howling for his head.
At that point, I think the party elders would put the proverbial horse's head in his bed and force him to accept the only solution that could possibly mollify the base: Rick Santorum as the #2 on the ticket. (In fact, Mitt hasn't ruled A Romney/Santorum ticket out.)
Now, the world of politics seems to be divided into three camps: people who think Santorum is an awful candidate, people who think Romney is a worse candidate than Santorum (hey, it's not just me -- BooMan thinks Romney is worse), and people who can't agree on which one is more awful. But if this scenario pans out, I think -- under extreme duress, and after much intra-party brawling -- we're going to get two for the price of one.
Can you contain your excitement?
THE MORE WE IGNORE THEM, THE CLOSER THEY GET
Yes, I've been talking about Rick Santorum as someone the general electorate wouldn't immediately laugh off the national stage -- but I've done so in large part because I assumed his obsession with the alleged evils of non-marital and non-procreative sex could be kept in the background as he campaigned. He'd talk mostly about the economy and foreign policy, the rest of America would talk mostly about the economy and foreign policy, and lots of people would go to the polls not really grasping that he's extremely far to the right on social issues. After all, social issues simply haven't been on most people's agendas in the past few years ... right?
Except that the right seems to want to pick a fight on these issues, for reasons I can't begin to understand. Why would you want to do this when you might be about to nominate a presidential candidate whose most profound difference with swing voters is on precisely these issues? Why draw attention to that in this way?
The furor over President Obama's birth control mandate has swiftly entered a new plane, with supporters and opponents alike calling the subject a potent weapon for the November elections and mounting what they say will be prolonged campaigns to shape public perceptions of the issue: Is it about religious liberty or women's health?
Roman Catholic bishops, evangelicals, other conservatives and the Republican presidential candidates have dismissed as meaningless the effort by President Obama last week to soften the rule, which requires that employees of religiously affiliated institutions like schools and hospitals, but not churches, receive free contraception in their health plans.
Sensing an opportunity, Congressional Republicans have leapt into the fray. An amendment to block any health mandate that violates a business owner's beliefs is before the Senate -- and a target of intense lobbying. A House committee is holding a hearing on Thursday to ask, "Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?"
But the political repercussions could be much wider. "This was an unexpected gift," said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a Republican strategist.
And at the hearings this morning, Congressman Darrell Issa insultingly refused to allow a pro-choice woman to testify, defying congressional custom (Democrats on the panel had requested that she be heard):
Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that "As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration's actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness."
And so Cummings, along with the Democratic women on the panel, took their request to the hearing room, demanding that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman insisted that the hearing should focus on the rules' alleged infringement on "religious liberty," not contraception coverage, and denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule.
And this comes at a time when state legislatures, even in battleground states like Virginia, are pursuing personhood bills and mandatory ultrasounds before abortions. Why?
I think the right is mostly making short-sighted calculations about how to pursue this year's campaigns -- "Well, if the economy is getting better, and Obama got bin Laden killed, all we have left is abortion." But that's absurd when "all you have left" is potentially very unpopular. This is stuff you keep at the state level, assuming most voters won't notice -- you don't trumpet it in a presidential election year when your pro-choice opponent is rising in the polls (and your current front-runner's biggest weakness is that voters who pay attention to him -- which could be all voters soon -- know he's a huge prig).
Is this an attempt to give cover to Mitt Romney if he's the nominee, because it's feared that he won't turn out the base otherwise? Is it Catholic and Protestant organizations just opportunistically trolling for wingnut support and cash? Is it a woeful misreading of the electorate, the result of epistemic closure?
I don't know. But I think making this the focus of GOP efforts in 2012 is a disastrous idea. Even Santorum could make it a race if he were seen as a guy with right-wing economic ideas and a coal-miner grandfather who happened to be sexually square. But put that last bit first and he's really, really doomed -- as is the entire GOP no matter who tops the ticket, if the right keeps this up.
Yes, I've been talking about Rick Santorum as someone the general electorate wouldn't immediately laugh off the national stage -- but I've done so in large part because I assumed his obsession with the alleged evils of non-marital and non-procreative sex could be kept in the background as he campaigned. He'd talk mostly about the economy and foreign policy, the rest of America would talk mostly about the economy and foreign policy, and lots of people would go to the polls not really grasping that he's extremely far to the right on social issues. After all, social issues simply haven't been on most people's agendas in the past few years ... right?
Except that the right seems to want to pick a fight on these issues, for reasons I can't begin to understand. Why would you want to do this when you might be about to nominate a presidential candidate whose most profound difference with swing voters is on precisely these issues? Why draw attention to that in this way?
The furor over President Obama's birth control mandate has swiftly entered a new plane, with supporters and opponents alike calling the subject a potent weapon for the November elections and mounting what they say will be prolonged campaigns to shape public perceptions of the issue: Is it about religious liberty or women's health?
Roman Catholic bishops, evangelicals, other conservatives and the Republican presidential candidates have dismissed as meaningless the effort by President Obama last week to soften the rule, which requires that employees of religiously affiliated institutions like schools and hospitals, but not churches, receive free contraception in their health plans.
Sensing an opportunity, Congressional Republicans have leapt into the fray. An amendment to block any health mandate that violates a business owner's beliefs is before the Senate -- and a target of intense lobbying. A House committee is holding a hearing on Thursday to ask, "Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?"
But the political repercussions could be much wider. "This was an unexpected gift," said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a Republican strategist.
And at the hearings this morning, Congressman Darrell Issa insultingly refused to allow a pro-choice woman to testify, defying congressional custom (Democrats on the panel had requested that she be heard):
Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that "As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration's actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness."
And so Cummings, along with the Democratic women on the panel, took their request to the hearing room, demanding that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman insisted that the hearing should focus on the rules' alleged infringement on "religious liberty," not contraception coverage, and denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule.
And this comes at a time when state legislatures, even in battleground states like Virginia, are pursuing personhood bills and mandatory ultrasounds before abortions. Why?
I think the right is mostly making short-sighted calculations about how to pursue this year's campaigns -- "Well, if the economy is getting better, and Obama got bin Laden killed, all we have left is abortion." But that's absurd when "all you have left" is potentially very unpopular. This is stuff you keep at the state level, assuming most voters won't notice -- you don't trumpet it in a presidential election year when your pro-choice opponent is rising in the polls (and your current front-runner's biggest weakness is that voters who pay attention to him -- which could be all voters soon -- know he's a huge prig).
Is this an attempt to give cover to Mitt Romney if he's the nominee, because it's feared that he won't turn out the base otherwise? Is it Catholic and Protestant organizations just opportunistically trolling for wingnut support and cash? Is it a woeful misreading of the electorate, the result of epistemic closure?
I don't know. But I think making this the focus of GOP efforts in 2012 is a disastrous idea. Even Santorum could make it a race if he were seen as a guy with right-wing economic ideas and a coal-miner grandfather who happened to be sexually square. But put that last bit first and he's really, really doomed -- as is the entire GOP no matter who tops the ticket, if the right keeps this up.
IT'S STARTING TO LOOK LIKE MORNING IN AMERICA, BUT IF IT WEREN'T...
DougJ and I usually see eye to eye, but he really doesn't understand why anyone would regard Rick Santorum as even a mild threat:
Look, Santorum lost as an incumbent by 18 points, wrote a book saying that women shouldn't work, the guy is a shit general election candidate and no amount of double-reverse contrarianism will convince me otherwise, so laissez le Santorum roulez.
Well, on that second point, Bob McDonnell of Virginia wrote a master's thesis saying women shouldn't work and then won a gubernatorial race by 18 points, a year after Barack Obama won his state. He has sky-high approval ratings in his state (even as Obama's doing well there again in the polls). He's near the top of Mitt Romney's VP short list. (America is full of people who agree with virtually everything feminism stands for but will tell you they don't like feminism.)
Look, obviously, judging from the latest polls, Obama is looking better and better to voters and all the Republicans are looking worse and worse. But if Obama now looks effectively unbeatable running against Santorum, it's because consumer confidence is climbing -- and, yes, because Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot, in Congress, in state houses and legislatures, and in the presidential race. But the latter will cease to be true sooner or later, and as for the rest -- well, yeah, Obama beats Newt Gingrich by 18 points right now, but why isn't he beating all of these clowns by double digits?
The American electorate is still conditioned by decades of propaganda to regard government spending as a monstrous evil (despite the fact that people cling to the programs they use) and to regard Republicans as careful fiscal stewards. People like sex, but I'm not sure they like thinking of themselves as people who like sex, which is why they support abortion rights and (increasingly) gay rights and stick up for single mothers and nevertheless vote for Reagan and both Bushes and, last year, a whole lot of teabaggers.
So, sure, Obama will probably crush Santorum in November 2012 if he's the Republican nominee -- but I'm not sure he would have crushed him if he'd had to run against him in mid-2011, or (especially) in 2010. I think it would have been a tough fight. America still doesn't regard people like Santorum as utterly beyond the pale.
****
And now Kos is trying to get Democrats to vote for Santorum in upcoming primary states? Yeah, sure, do it -- though I think it's hard to get enough people to join in these efforts to make a difference (Rush Limbaugh's pro-Hillary Operation Chaos didn't have much impact in '08). Right now Santorum doesn't seem as if he needs the help, but we all see the Romney Death Star on the horizon, so I guess Rick's the guy you want to help if you want to keep the Republicans bashing one another. (Then again, if the Romney campaign is really running out of money, as is being reported, and if Santorum is rising in every GOP poll, should Democrats vote for Mitt to keep him in the race?)
DougJ and I usually see eye to eye, but he really doesn't understand why anyone would regard Rick Santorum as even a mild threat:
Look, Santorum lost as an incumbent by 18 points, wrote a book saying that women shouldn't work, the guy is a shit general election candidate and no amount of double-reverse contrarianism will convince me otherwise, so laissez le Santorum roulez.
Well, on that second point, Bob McDonnell of Virginia wrote a master's thesis saying women shouldn't work and then won a gubernatorial race by 18 points, a year after Barack Obama won his state. He has sky-high approval ratings in his state (even as Obama's doing well there again in the polls). He's near the top of Mitt Romney's VP short list. (America is full of people who agree with virtually everything feminism stands for but will tell you they don't like feminism.)
Look, obviously, judging from the latest polls, Obama is looking better and better to voters and all the Republicans are looking worse and worse. But if Obama now looks effectively unbeatable running against Santorum, it's because consumer confidence is climbing -- and, yes, because Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot, in Congress, in state houses and legislatures, and in the presidential race. But the latter will cease to be true sooner or later, and as for the rest -- well, yeah, Obama beats Newt Gingrich by 18 points right now, but why isn't he beating all of these clowns by double digits?
The American electorate is still conditioned by decades of propaganda to regard government spending as a monstrous evil (despite the fact that people cling to the programs they use) and to regard Republicans as careful fiscal stewards. People like sex, but I'm not sure they like thinking of themselves as people who like sex, which is why they support abortion rights and (increasingly) gay rights and stick up for single mothers and nevertheless vote for Reagan and both Bushes and, last year, a whole lot of teabaggers.
So, sure, Obama will probably crush Santorum in November 2012 if he's the Republican nominee -- but I'm not sure he would have crushed him if he'd had to run against him in mid-2011, or (especially) in 2010. I think it would have been a tough fight. America still doesn't regard people like Santorum as utterly beyond the pale.
****
And now Kos is trying to get Democrats to vote for Santorum in upcoming primary states? Yeah, sure, do it -- though I think it's hard to get enough people to join in these efforts to make a difference (Rush Limbaugh's pro-Hillary Operation Chaos didn't have much impact in '08). Right now Santorum doesn't seem as if he needs the help, but we all see the Romney Death Star on the horizon, so I guess Rick's the guy you want to help if you want to keep the Republicans bashing one another. (Then again, if the Romney campaign is really running out of money, as is being reported, and if Santorum is rising in every GOP poll, should Democrats vote for Mitt to keep him in the race?)
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
HOW DO YOU SAY "FLOP" IN SPANISH?
Seriously? The Republicans are looking at intraparty chaos and bad poll numbers and are so desperate to change the subject that they're going to pretend to be offended by an unambiguously non-racist tweet from Jim Messina, a top Obama campaign official -- and we're going to take their utterly fake outrage seriously?
Here's the story, if you don't know it: Dana Milbank published a column in The Washington Post titled "Does the GOP Care About Latino Voters?" The column is about the decision by Republican senators to delay for months the approval of a Cuban-American judge's appointment to the federal bench, which Milbank sees (correctly) as emblematic of the GOP's self-sabotaging hostility to Latin-Americans. Milbank concludes with an observation about the GOP's dawdling and fumfering while debating the appointment:
Some [senators] spoke about transportation. Others spoke about the budget. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke about the wonders of his state. "The lettuce in your salad this month almost certainly came from Arizona," McCain said. "It's also believed that the chimichanga has its origin in Arizona."
The chimichanga? It may be the only thing Republicans have left to offer Latinos.
And then, after the column appeared:
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina dubbed the last sentence the "line of the day" on Twitter.
That caused Republicans and conservatives to slam Messina on Twitter. Some even called the comment racist.
Do I have to explain this? How the hell is it racist to quote a line pointing out racist contempt?
No Republican actually thinks this was a racist tweet. The Republicans merely believe they can pretend to be offended and we'll take their fauxtrage seriously.
In the past, I've called this "truth creep": You talk about something in a way that seems accurate, and that's close to accurate, but that differs just enough that you've completely and uttered distorted the meaning -- and then you hope that everyone runs with your phony version of the truth.
In basketball, what the Republicans are doing is a common tactic: if an opposing player lightly touches you, or even brushes close by you, you fall to the ground in n Oscar-worthy show of having been brutalized, and hope you manage to get a foul called on your opponent. This is known as a "flop."
That's exactly what the GOP's phony outrage should be called.
Seriously? The Republicans are looking at intraparty chaos and bad poll numbers and are so desperate to change the subject that they're going to pretend to be offended by an unambiguously non-racist tweet from Jim Messina, a top Obama campaign official -- and we're going to take their utterly fake outrage seriously?
Here's the story, if you don't know it: Dana Milbank published a column in The Washington Post titled "Does the GOP Care About Latino Voters?" The column is about the decision by Republican senators to delay for months the approval of a Cuban-American judge's appointment to the federal bench, which Milbank sees (correctly) as emblematic of the GOP's self-sabotaging hostility to Latin-Americans. Milbank concludes with an observation about the GOP's dawdling and fumfering while debating the appointment:
Some [senators] spoke about transportation. Others spoke about the budget. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke about the wonders of his state. "The lettuce in your salad this month almost certainly came from Arizona," McCain said. "It's also believed that the chimichanga has its origin in Arizona."
The chimichanga? It may be the only thing Republicans have left to offer Latinos.
And then, after the column appeared:
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina dubbed the last sentence the "line of the day" on Twitter.
That caused Republicans and conservatives to slam Messina on Twitter. Some even called the comment racist.
Do I have to explain this? How the hell is it racist to quote a line pointing out racist contempt?
No Republican actually thinks this was a racist tweet. The Republicans merely believe they can pretend to be offended and we'll take their fauxtrage seriously.
In the past, I've called this "truth creep": You talk about something in a way that seems accurate, and that's close to accurate, but that differs just enough that you've completely and uttered distorted the meaning -- and then you hope that everyone runs with your phony version of the truth.
In basketball, what the Republicans are doing is a common tactic: if an opposing player lightly touches you, or even brushes close by you, you fall to the ground in n Oscar-worthy show of having been brutalized, and hope you manage to get a foul called on your opponent. This is known as a "flop."
That's exactly what the GOP's phony outrage should be called.
I THINK CALLING IT A "STRATEGY" IS GIVING REPUBLICANS TOO MUCH CREDIT
David Frum looks at President Obama's increasingly impressive poll numbers and concludes that the Republican Party has made an error in planning:
Republican strategy over the past 2 years has been premised on the assumption that President Obama is so hopelessly weakened that the GOP needn't bother addressing centrist voters at all.
That was never a very plausible assumption....
Whether it is the Ryan plan or the debt ceiling showdown or -- now -- contraception, Republicans have spent three years talking to themselves. It has been a narcissistic self-indulgence -- and may soon prove a very costly one as well.
I think it's a stretch to call what Republicans have come up with a "strategy." The people who are taking on these fights in the GOP aren't shrewdly and carefully assessing the percentages of liberals, moderates, and conservatives in America, and planning accordingly -- they're drinking their own Kool-Aid and concluding, at least on a subconscious level, that they don't have to worry about non-conservative voters because non-conservatives aren't really Americans.
Ann Coulter says Democrats would never win if we took away women's right to vote. Rush Limbaugh says Obama is pursuing an electoral strategy of trying win the votes of "the takers," not "the makers." These are rhetorical flights of fancy, but I think a large percentage of Republicans actually believe them, and have started to think that voters who don't pull the (R) lever aren't actually voters at all, because they shouldn't be. The ultimate example of this is the tea party's claim that its members are "taking our country back" -- as if it exclusively belongs to them. And hey, look: there's Rick Santorum, in the upbeat ad he just released this week, being described as "a trusted conservative who gives us the best chance to take back America."
"Republicans have spent three years talking to themselves," Frum writes, which is accurate -- although I'd say that's been true for a lot longer than three years. But what's more important is that Republicans have spent three-plus years assuming that all the people in America who aren't Republican are so depraved that we don't deserve to be called American. They've made political moves based on the notion that we don't really exist -- or at least that we couldn't possibly continue to maintain our beliefs when confronted with the self-evident wonderfulness of what they have to say.
And now they're paying the price.
(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)
David Frum looks at President Obama's increasingly impressive poll numbers and concludes that the Republican Party has made an error in planning:
Republican strategy over the past 2 years has been premised on the assumption that President Obama is so hopelessly weakened that the GOP needn't bother addressing centrist voters at all.
That was never a very plausible assumption....
Whether it is the Ryan plan or the debt ceiling showdown or -- now -- contraception, Republicans have spent three years talking to themselves. It has been a narcissistic self-indulgence -- and may soon prove a very costly one as well.
I think it's a stretch to call what Republicans have come up with a "strategy." The people who are taking on these fights in the GOP aren't shrewdly and carefully assessing the percentages of liberals, moderates, and conservatives in America, and planning accordingly -- they're drinking their own Kool-Aid and concluding, at least on a subconscious level, that they don't have to worry about non-conservative voters because non-conservatives aren't really Americans.
Ann Coulter says Democrats would never win if we took away women's right to vote. Rush Limbaugh says Obama is pursuing an electoral strategy of trying win the votes of "the takers," not "the makers." These are rhetorical flights of fancy, but I think a large percentage of Republicans actually believe them, and have started to think that voters who don't pull the (R) lever aren't actually voters at all, because they shouldn't be. The ultimate example of this is the tea party's claim that its members are "taking our country back" -- as if it exclusively belongs to them. And hey, look: there's Rick Santorum, in the upbeat ad he just released this week, being described as "a trusted conservative who gives us the best chance to take back America."
"Republicans have spent three years talking to themselves," Frum writes, which is accurate -- although I'd say that's been true for a lot longer than three years. But what's more important is that Republicans have spent three-plus years assuming that all the people in America who aren't Republican are so depraved that we don't deserve to be called American. They've made political moves based on the notion that we don't really exist -- or at least that we couldn't possibly continue to maintain our beliefs when confronted with the self-evident wonderfulness of what they have to say.
And now they're paying the price.
(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)
HOW OBSESSED IS FOX WITH MEDIA MATTERS?
Front page at Fox Nation right now (click to enlarge):
Twenty-one stories on the front page under the lead story and six of them are about Media Matters? Seriously? This is what you think America -- or even your audience -- cares about?
Front page at Fox Nation right now (click to enlarge):
Twenty-one stories on the front page under the lead story and six of them are about Media Matters? Seriously? This is what you think America -- or even your audience -- cares about?
NOT EVEN TRYING TO CONCEAL THE HYPOCRISY
This is pure Romney:
Romney Surrogate Attacks Santorum for Voting the Same Way He Did
... On a conference call Tuesday afternoon, former Missouri senator and Romney surrogate Jim Talent criticized Santorum's support for expanding government spending, including his vote for the Medicare Part D in 2003 -- a program for which Talent himself voted....
Talent's attack comes a day after we had this from another Romney backer:
Virginia's Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday warned Rick Santorum against demeaning women in the military, following controversial remarks made by the Republican presidential candidate last week.
"I like Rick Santorum a lot, I just disagree with any inference that he might have made that somehow women aren't capable of serving on the front lines and serving in combat positions," McDonnell told CNN....
McDonnell has a daughter who's served in Iraq, and he's praised her service -- though in the master's thesis McDonnell wrote at Regent University, McDonnell said women should avoid working outside the home (just as Santorum did in his 2005 book, It Takes a Family):
At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family....
During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women....
What's next from Team Romney? Chris Christie saying that Santorum is starting to look a little portly in his sweater vests?
This is pure Romney:
Romney Surrogate Attacks Santorum for Voting the Same Way He Did
... On a conference call Tuesday afternoon, former Missouri senator and Romney surrogate Jim Talent criticized Santorum's support for expanding government spending, including his vote for the Medicare Part D in 2003 -- a program for which Talent himself voted....
Talent's attack comes a day after we had this from another Romney backer:
Virginia's Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday warned Rick Santorum against demeaning women in the military, following controversial remarks made by the Republican presidential candidate last week.
"I like Rick Santorum a lot, I just disagree with any inference that he might have made that somehow women aren't capable of serving on the front lines and serving in combat positions," McDonnell told CNN....
McDonnell has a daughter who's served in Iraq, and he's praised her service -- though in the master's thesis McDonnell wrote at Regent University, McDonnell said women should avoid working outside the home (just as Santorum did in his 2005 book, It Takes a Family):
At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family....
During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women....
What's next from Team Romney? Chris Christie saying that Santorum is starting to look a little portly in his sweater vests?
MITT ROMNEY: THE RIGHT'S ANTI-PROPAGANDA MACHINE
Well, here it comes, as expected:
...In an interview with BuzzFeed, a Romney advisor offered details of the campaign's coming two-front attack, which the campaign expects will be echoed by the Super PAC....
The Pennsylvania Republican will "be defined by two things," the advisor said.
The first is a comparison to Barack Obama: "He's never run anything," said the advisor. The Pennyslvanian's experience is limited to roles as a legislator and legislative staffer. "The biggest thing he ever ran is his Senate office," he siad.
The second is a challenge to Santorum's Washington experience.
"They’re going to hit him very hard on earmarks, lobbying, voting to raise the federal debt limit five times," said the advisor. "The story of Santorum is going to be told over the next few weeks in a big way." ...
Is this going to work? To me it seems like thin gruel, but millions of dollars' worth of thin gruel will fill you up, I guess. When Gingrich was the top anti-Romney, I didn't think Newt's fans were going to care much about ancient ethics charges in Congress (there are Democrats in Congress!), but then I started reading stories about formerly pro-Newt or Newt-curious voters having a Pavlovian response of "Ethics!" when Gingrich's name was mentioned. So I guess it's a pretty effective technique.
This really might clear away the last obstacle standing between Romney and the nomination -- but what's it doing to the Republican Party? And I don't mean merely "Can Republicans stand a bruising primary battle?" I mean what is it doing to the myths right-wingers live by?
After decades of propaganda from talk radio, Regnery, Fox, and Koch, right-wingers believe conservatism is perfect and the emergence of a right-wing savior who kills all the bad guys (us) and gets rid of all the bad laws (everything we support) is actually possible. This is a religious faith, one that's carefully cultivated every day, every hour, via right-wing media.
And now Mitt Romney is laying waste to the belief system.
The faithful can see that he's not their perfect hero. Then, whenever he's challenged by someone they think might be their perfect hero, he floods the airwaves with the message that the apparent knight in shining armor is a fraud -- just like all the earlier knights.
That's why it must suck to be a right-winger these days: your likely standard-bearer's message is that everyone is flawed, everything is compromised and corrupted, and this is the best you're going to do -- a message that debunks every bit of right-wing propaganda you've absorbed over the past twenty years, which posits the existence of Pure Evil and (at least in theory, and certainly in the person of the now departed Saint Reagan) Pure Good.
In this way, Mitt Romney's campaign may be having more of a positive impact than all of the left's media outlets combined. It's repudiating the propaganda. It's destroying the wingnut dream.
Well, here it comes, as expected:
...In an interview with BuzzFeed, a Romney advisor offered details of the campaign's coming two-front attack, which the campaign expects will be echoed by the Super PAC....
The Pennsylvania Republican will "be defined by two things," the advisor said.
The first is a comparison to Barack Obama: "He's never run anything," said the advisor. The Pennyslvanian's experience is limited to roles as a legislator and legislative staffer. "The biggest thing he ever ran is his Senate office," he siad.
The second is a challenge to Santorum's Washington experience.
"They’re going to hit him very hard on earmarks, lobbying, voting to raise the federal debt limit five times," said the advisor. "The story of Santorum is going to be told over the next few weeks in a big way." ...
Is this going to work? To me it seems like thin gruel, but millions of dollars' worth of thin gruel will fill you up, I guess. When Gingrich was the top anti-Romney, I didn't think Newt's fans were going to care much about ancient ethics charges in Congress (there are Democrats in Congress!), but then I started reading stories about formerly pro-Newt or Newt-curious voters having a Pavlovian response of "Ethics!" when Gingrich's name was mentioned. So I guess it's a pretty effective technique.
This really might clear away the last obstacle standing between Romney and the nomination -- but what's it doing to the Republican Party? And I don't mean merely "Can Republicans stand a bruising primary battle?" I mean what is it doing to the myths right-wingers live by?
After decades of propaganda from talk radio, Regnery, Fox, and Koch, right-wingers believe conservatism is perfect and the emergence of a right-wing savior who kills all the bad guys (us) and gets rid of all the bad laws (everything we support) is actually possible. This is a religious faith, one that's carefully cultivated every day, every hour, via right-wing media.
And now Mitt Romney is laying waste to the belief system.
The faithful can see that he's not their perfect hero. Then, whenever he's challenged by someone they think might be their perfect hero, he floods the airwaves with the message that the apparent knight in shining armor is a fraud -- just like all the earlier knights.
That's why it must suck to be a right-winger these days: your likely standard-bearer's message is that everyone is flawed, everything is compromised and corrupted, and this is the best you're going to do -- a message that debunks every bit of right-wing propaganda you've absorbed over the past twenty years, which posits the existence of Pure Evil and (at least in theory, and certainly in the person of the now departed Saint Reagan) Pure Good.
In this way, Mitt Romney's campaign may be having more of a positive impact than all of the left's media outlets combined. It's repudiating the propaganda. It's destroying the wingnut dream.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
SO MANY ANTEDILUVIAN IDEAS, SO LITTLE TIME
Tim Graham of NewsBusters is being mocked for his disgust at the fleeting same-sex image near the end of this charming Valentine's Day "Google doodle" ("Valentine's Day is a big day that gay-left advocates expect their love to be honored as just the same," Graham harrumphs, ungrammatically):
I'm surprised, though, that Graham (or some other right-winger) hasn't criticized the video in another way -- as part of "the war against boys, or "war on masculinity."
Think about it: The young man in the video does everything he can to get the young woman to notice him, and it all fails -- until (SPOILER ALERT) he joins her in the gender-stratified act of jumping rope! Yikes! The only way he can get the girl is to become the girl! It's feminism run amok!!! That's what she wants him to do before he can be her guy! That's what she forces him to do!
Argh -- I've been reading this crap way too long. I seriously believe that, if I decided to devote the time and trouble to it, I could now write a fake right-wing blog, posting boilerplate winger ideas multiple times a day, and never get caught.
Tim Graham of NewsBusters is being mocked for his disgust at the fleeting same-sex image near the end of this charming Valentine's Day "Google doodle" ("Valentine's Day is a big day that gay-left advocates expect their love to be honored as just the same," Graham harrumphs, ungrammatically):
I'm surprised, though, that Graham (or some other right-winger) hasn't criticized the video in another way -- as part of "the war against boys, or "war on masculinity."
Think about it: The young man in the video does everything he can to get the young woman to notice him, and it all fails -- until (SPOILER ALERT) he joins her in the gender-stratified act of jumping rope! Yikes! The only way he can get the girl is to become the girl! It's feminism run amok!!! That's what she wants him to do before he can be her guy! That's what she forces him to do!
Argh -- I've been reading this crap way too long. I seriously believe that, if I decided to devote the time and trouble to it, I could now write a fake right-wing blog, posting boilerplate winger ideas multiple times a day, and never get caught.
I TOLD YOU NOT TO BE TOO SMUG ABOUT SANTORUM'S RISE
Public Policy Polling goes through the history of the not-Romneys and finds that Santorum is the first one to do better than Romney against Obama:
PPP's newest national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7 points at 49-42, while Santorum trails by only 5 points at 49-44.
... Over the previous 6 months when Romney first trailed Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, then Newt Gingrich in our national polling he still did on average 6 points better than them in our general election tests. Santorum's the first insurgent to challenge Romney on that front as well....
Santorum's net favorability is 21 points better than Romney's. Santorum's at -7 (39/46), while Romney is at -28 (29/57). That's mostly because Republicans like Santorum a lot better (+40 at 62/22 to Romney's +2 at 43/41). But Santorum also does a good deal better with independents, coming in at -6 (40/46) to Romney's -23 (32/55). In the head to heads Obama leads Romney by 9 with independents, but has only a 4 point advantage on Santorum with that group.
(Emphasis added.)
How is this possible? Well, I hate the scolding tone of this Jonathan Chait post, but I essentially agree with what he's saying:
Santorum has attracted a terrible reputation among the overclass. He is defined by his crude, bigoted social conservatism, which colors the broader perception of him as an extremist. This in turn leeches out into a sense, often reflected in news coverage, which likewise reflects the social biases of the overclass, that Santorum is a fringe candidate who would repel swing voters.
To put that in a somewhat more charitable way, I think a lot of committed liberals and urban sophisticates (I place myself in both categories) really do care more than the rest of the public about zealously protecting the right to have gay sex, non-marital sex, non-procreative sex, and only wanted children after any sex. Since these issues matter a lot to us, and Rick Santorum is not only on the wrong side on all of them but is so proudly and defiantly, he seems ickier to us than he does, perhaps, than he does to the rest of the public.
Now, I think plenty of swing voters and heartlanders will stand with us on some or all of these things when push comes to shove; even at the Applebee's salad bar they hated Dan Quayle's attempt to slut-shame single mothers a generation ago, and more and more heartlanders are cool with the fact that Ellen DeGeneres is gay. But if these aren't make-or-break issues for moderate Middle Americans, which I think is the case, then they're unlikely to have paid as much attention to Santorum over the years as we have, so right now he doesn't look so bad to them. I don't know if that will continue to be true if he's the nominee and they learn more about him, but for now we shouldn't assume that our view of him is shared by everyone who's not a rightist.
(X-posted at Balloon Juice as part of this post.)
Public Policy Polling goes through the history of the not-Romneys and finds that Santorum is the first one to do better than Romney against Obama:
PPP's newest national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7 points at 49-42, while Santorum trails by only 5 points at 49-44.
... Over the previous 6 months when Romney first trailed Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, then Newt Gingrich in our national polling he still did on average 6 points better than them in our general election tests. Santorum's the first insurgent to challenge Romney on that front as well....
Santorum's net favorability is 21 points better than Romney's. Santorum's at -7 (39/46), while Romney is at -28 (29/57). That's mostly because Republicans like Santorum a lot better (+40 at 62/22 to Romney's +2 at 43/41). But Santorum also does a good deal better with independents, coming in at -6 (40/46) to Romney's -23 (32/55). In the head to heads Obama leads Romney by 9 with independents, but has only a 4 point advantage on Santorum with that group.
(Emphasis added.)
How is this possible? Well, I hate the scolding tone of this Jonathan Chait post, but I essentially agree with what he's saying:
Santorum has attracted a terrible reputation among the overclass. He is defined by his crude, bigoted social conservatism, which colors the broader perception of him as an extremist. This in turn leeches out into a sense, often reflected in news coverage, which likewise reflects the social biases of the overclass, that Santorum is a fringe candidate who would repel swing voters.
To put that in a somewhat more charitable way, I think a lot of committed liberals and urban sophisticates (I place myself in both categories) really do care more than the rest of the public about zealously protecting the right to have gay sex, non-marital sex, non-procreative sex, and only wanted children after any sex. Since these issues matter a lot to us, and Rick Santorum is not only on the wrong side on all of them but is so proudly and defiantly, he seems ickier to us than he does, perhaps, than he does to the rest of the public.
Now, I think plenty of swing voters and heartlanders will stand with us on some or all of these things when push comes to shove; even at the Applebee's salad bar they hated Dan Quayle's attempt to slut-shame single mothers a generation ago, and more and more heartlanders are cool with the fact that Ellen DeGeneres is gay. But if these aren't make-or-break issues for moderate Middle Americans, which I think is the case, then they're unlikely to have paid as much attention to Santorum over the years as we have, so right now he doesn't look so bad to them. I don't know if that will continue to be true if he's the nominee and they learn more about him, but for now we shouldn't assume that our view of him is shared by everyone who's not a rightist.
(X-posted at Balloon Juice as part of this post.)
HARD TO PUT THE POLIGRIP BACK IN THE TUBE
I'm not sure whether to feel schadenfreude or suspicion in response to Politico's lengthy article "Fox News 'Course Correction' Rankles Some." Is this a legitimate story about how Fox is failing to serve its core audience? Or is Fox using Politico to send a message -- to potential non-right-wing viewers, and to advertisers who might be shunning Fox because of the absence of those viewers -- that hey, kids, Fox isn't so bad these days, really? (The latter would certainly be in keeping with the recent effort at Politico that's been described by FishbowlDC as "Operation 'Butter Up FNC,'" which has included such hard-hitting journalism as "How Fox News Has Stayed on Top" and a gushing profile of Fox's Brett Baier.)
From the story we learn that "Fox’s debates have won widespread plaudits" (journalism!); that a Virginia talk-radio host you've never heard of has "gone from all Fox to no Fox" because "they've lost that independent conservative mantra that had drove people like me to them"; that a Red State diarist "hear[s] the language of the Left entering" Fox's programming; that Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media frets about the loss of Glenn Beck on Fox and about the fact that Fox "recently hired 'two far-left radical feminists,' Jehmu Greene and [Sally] Kohn, who were 'graduates of Jane Fonda's Women’s Media Center'” (question: has anyone actually seen either of these two on Fox, except fleetingly?); and that Bill O'Reilly last week "invited onto his show a gay-rights activist to weigh in on Roland Martin's controversial tweets during the Super Bowl." We're told:
O'Reilly and Martin may be old foes, but the spectacle of watching O'Reilly, who once compared gay marriage to interspecies marriage, attacking a CNN anchor for being insufficiently sensitive to the feelings of gay people was quite a switch from the tone of two years ago.
This is a switch for O'Reilly? That would be news to the homophobes who were attacking O'Reilly as far back as ten years ago for his qualified support of gay adoptions. O'Reilly has always been the guy on Fox who deviates a tiny bit from conservatively correct thinking -- on the death penalty, for instance, although he's rather inconsistent on that.
I think this article is selling us on the notion of a new, kindler, gentler Fox -- and, well, you can see why:
... Fox may have some demographic reasons for wanting to broaden its reach. Although it has been completely dominant in the cable sphere for years, last year, its ratings in primetime slipped 9 percent in total viewers and 15 percent in the target 24-54 demographic, while CNN and MSNBC gained viewers in primetime.
Pitching your channel exclusively to old white people who fear cultural change isn't really a good business plan if you want the channel's business to grow.
But once you've done that, where can you go? If you moderate the programming even a tiny bit, your core viewers will rebel, but the rest of us long ago learned never to trust you. It's lose-lose.
And if anything's going on at Fox, it's an attempt to Romneyize the channel in anticipation of a general election in which appealing to swing voters, rather than turning out base voters, will be the key to Republican victory. But now Fox is apparently being attacked just the way Romney is: wingnuts level accusations of lack of faithfulness to conservative principles, and the rest of us just see wingnuttery. Me, I'd be happy to have both Romney and Fox stuck in this position for the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure whether to feel schadenfreude or suspicion in response to Politico's lengthy article "Fox News 'Course Correction' Rankles Some." Is this a legitimate story about how Fox is failing to serve its core audience? Or is Fox using Politico to send a message -- to potential non-right-wing viewers, and to advertisers who might be shunning Fox because of the absence of those viewers -- that hey, kids, Fox isn't so bad these days, really? (The latter would certainly be in keeping with the recent effort at Politico that's been described by FishbowlDC as "Operation 'Butter Up FNC,'" which has included such hard-hitting journalism as "How Fox News Has Stayed on Top" and a gushing profile of Fox's Brett Baier.)
From the story we learn that "Fox’s debates have won widespread plaudits" (journalism!); that a Virginia talk-radio host you've never heard of has "gone from all Fox to no Fox" because "they've lost that independent conservative mantra that had drove people like me to them"; that a Red State diarist "hear[s] the language of the Left entering" Fox's programming; that Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media frets about the loss of Glenn Beck on Fox and about the fact that Fox "recently hired 'two far-left radical feminists,' Jehmu Greene and [Sally] Kohn, who were 'graduates of Jane Fonda's Women’s Media Center'” (question: has anyone actually seen either of these two on Fox, except fleetingly?); and that Bill O'Reilly last week "invited onto his show a gay-rights activist to weigh in on Roland Martin's controversial tweets during the Super Bowl." We're told:
O'Reilly and Martin may be old foes, but the spectacle of watching O'Reilly, who once compared gay marriage to interspecies marriage, attacking a CNN anchor for being insufficiently sensitive to the feelings of gay people was quite a switch from the tone of two years ago.
This is a switch for O'Reilly? That would be news to the homophobes who were attacking O'Reilly as far back as ten years ago for his qualified support of gay adoptions. O'Reilly has always been the guy on Fox who deviates a tiny bit from conservatively correct thinking -- on the death penalty, for instance, although he's rather inconsistent on that.
I think this article is selling us on the notion of a new, kindler, gentler Fox -- and, well, you can see why:
... Fox may have some demographic reasons for wanting to broaden its reach. Although it has been completely dominant in the cable sphere for years, last year, its ratings in primetime slipped 9 percent in total viewers and 15 percent in the target 24-54 demographic, while CNN and MSNBC gained viewers in primetime.
Pitching your channel exclusively to old white people who fear cultural change isn't really a good business plan if you want the channel's business to grow.
But once you've done that, where can you go? If you moderate the programming even a tiny bit, your core viewers will rebel, but the rest of us long ago learned never to trust you. It's lose-lose.
And if anything's going on at Fox, it's an attempt to Romneyize the channel in anticipation of a general election in which appealing to swing voters, rather than turning out base voters, will be the key to Republican victory. But now Fox is apparently being attacked just the way Romney is: wingnuts level accusations of lack of faithfulness to conservative principles, and the rest of us just see wingnuttery. Me, I'd be happy to have both Romney and Fox stuck in this position for the foreseeable future.
Monday, February 13, 2012
THE SMART MOVE IS TO VOTE AS IF NORQUIST IS RIGHT AND SOROS IS WRONG
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria that aired over the weekend, George Soros predicted that if Mitt Romney becomes president, he'll pursue an economic stimulus plan:
George Soros: ... the Republicans don't want to face elections where Obama can claim to have sort of seen the economy recover. So they will continue to push for austerity, no new taxes, and therefore cutting of services, which will depress economic activity and employment.
After the elections, if the Republicans win, actually they'll undergo a miraculous transformation where they discover that actually it wouldn't be so bad if maybe we can afford to have some stimulus.
Fareed Zakaria: So you think Mitt Romney, if elected would pursue a stimulus bill?
George Soros: I'm pretty sure that would happen....
I really, really don't think so. My gut tells me that Soros is wrong and David Frum's gloss on the speech Grover Norquist gave at CPAC last week is correct:
Norquist: Romney Will Do As Told
... In his charmingly blunt way, Norquist articulated out loud a case for Mitt Romney that you hear only whispered by other major conservative leaders.
They have reconciled themselves to a Romney candidacy because they see Romney as essentially a weak and passive president who will concede leadership to congressional conservatives....
The requirement for president?
The principal piece of "legislation that has already been prepared," and that Romney would rubber-stamp, is, according to Norquist, the Paul Ryan budget.
I find that entirely plausible. It exactly matches the M.O. of all the GOP governors who got elected in 2010: Get in and start enacting the agenda before the voters know what hit them. (And, yes, I know that doing this got most of the Teabag Year Zero governors into trouble with the voters, but I'm not sure their demise is guaranteed, and I'm not sure they care in any case. I'm sure the Kochs and their allies will take care of all of them if they get big chunks of the wingnut agenda enacted and then lose office via electoral defeat or recall.)
Many of us assume, like Soros, that the Republicans know they're destroying the economy through legislative intransigence. I'm not so sure. I think a lot of them by now have actually drunk the Rand/Laffer Kool-Aid and think tax cuts will unleash economic nirvana. I think some sincerely believe that if budget cuts hurt ordinary people, screw 'em -- they should sink or swim in a Randian world. And then there's Romney, who is just, well, pliable.
If he's the nominee, I worry that voters in the middle (and, for that matter, some on the left) will come to the same general conclusion as Soros. But we can't run that risk. Just to be on the safe side, we have to assume that Norquist is right.
(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)
****
UPDATE: See also "Mitt Romney Tells CPAC He'll Cut Social Security Benefits, Begin Privatizing Medicare," at Crooks and Liars.
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria that aired over the weekend, George Soros predicted that if Mitt Romney becomes president, he'll pursue an economic stimulus plan:
George Soros: ... the Republicans don't want to face elections where Obama can claim to have sort of seen the economy recover. So they will continue to push for austerity, no new taxes, and therefore cutting of services, which will depress economic activity and employment.
After the elections, if the Republicans win, actually they'll undergo a miraculous transformation where they discover that actually it wouldn't be so bad if maybe we can afford to have some stimulus.
Fareed Zakaria: So you think Mitt Romney, if elected would pursue a stimulus bill?
George Soros: I'm pretty sure that would happen....
I really, really don't think so. My gut tells me that Soros is wrong and David Frum's gloss on the speech Grover Norquist gave at CPAC last week is correct:
Norquist: Romney Will Do As Told
... In his charmingly blunt way, Norquist articulated out loud a case for Mitt Romney that you hear only whispered by other major conservative leaders.
They have reconciled themselves to a Romney candidacy because they see Romney as essentially a weak and passive president who will concede leadership to congressional conservatives....
The requirement for president?
Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.
The principal piece of "legislation that has already been prepared," and that Romney would rubber-stamp, is, according to Norquist, the Paul Ryan budget.
I find that entirely plausible. It exactly matches the M.O. of all the GOP governors who got elected in 2010: Get in and start enacting the agenda before the voters know what hit them. (And, yes, I know that doing this got most of the Teabag Year Zero governors into trouble with the voters, but I'm not sure their demise is guaranteed, and I'm not sure they care in any case. I'm sure the Kochs and their allies will take care of all of them if they get big chunks of the wingnut agenda enacted and then lose office via electoral defeat or recall.)
Many of us assume, like Soros, that the Republicans know they're destroying the economy through legislative intransigence. I'm not so sure. I think a lot of them by now have actually drunk the Rand/Laffer Kool-Aid and think tax cuts will unleash economic nirvana. I think some sincerely believe that if budget cuts hurt ordinary people, screw 'em -- they should sink or swim in a Randian world. And then there's Romney, who is just, well, pliable.
If he's the nominee, I worry that voters in the middle (and, for that matter, some on the left) will come to the same general conclusion as Soros. But we can't run that risk. Just to be on the safe side, we have to assume that Norquist is right.
(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)
****
UPDATE: See also "Mitt Romney Tells CPAC He'll Cut Social Security Benefits, Begin Privatizing Medicare," at Crooks and Liars.
SANTORUM: WHY I WORRY THAT THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT
Dave Weigel spots something odd in the new Public Policy Polling survey that shows Rick Santorum with a 15-point lead over Mitt Romney in Michigan:
He's only up by 12 points with actual Republican voters, but he has a 40-21 advantage with the Democrats and independents planning to vote that pushes his overall lead up to 15 points.
Weigel writes:
This is weirder than you think, trust me. In 2006, when Bob Casey, Jr. exiled Santorum from the Senate, the guy won 41 percent of the overall vote. He held 28 percent of independents and 7 percent of Democrats. He was more or less despised by anyone who wasn't a Republican or conservative.
What's got me a little bit worried about Santorum is that we're assuming he's eminently beatable because he got shellacked in 2006. But he seemed like part of the Republican power structure in 2006, and we -- moderates as well as liberals -- were thoroughly sick of that power structure by then, on everything from the Iraq War to the attempt to keep Terri Schiavo alive.
Now I worry that Santorum seems to some voters like the plucky underdog, even within his own party. Back when he was in office, his culture-war meanness seemed to have real clout, because he was part of a right-wing gang that didn't like to take prisoners; at this moment, even to me, he comes off as almost harmless, although I'm fully aware of the fact that he'd be an awful, dangerous president.
Could he possibly do well against Obama if he wins the nomination (which I'm starting to think will happen)? Could he surprise us because voters might see him not as the nasty culture warrior he was when he had power, but as a gee-whiz aw-shucks Boy Scout, and figure he won't really turn the clock back on abortion and contraception and gay rights (except for the old white cultural conservatives, who may think he really can turn the clock back, and who may be Democrats and independents like the ones supporting him in Michigan)?
And before you shout "Man on dog!" and point to poll results showing increasing support for gay marriage and persistent support for legal abortion, let me remind you that right-wing culture warriors are a hell of a lot more likely to vote their social-issue convictions than the rest of us are. Otherwise, how did Republicans win so many recent election cycles?
(Portions of this post appear at Balloon Juice.)
Dave Weigel spots something odd in the new Public Policy Polling survey that shows Rick Santorum with a 15-point lead over Mitt Romney in Michigan:
He's only up by 12 points with actual Republican voters, but he has a 40-21 advantage with the Democrats and independents planning to vote that pushes his overall lead up to 15 points.
Weigel writes:
This is weirder than you think, trust me. In 2006, when Bob Casey, Jr. exiled Santorum from the Senate, the guy won 41 percent of the overall vote. He held 28 percent of independents and 7 percent of Democrats. He was more or less despised by anyone who wasn't a Republican or conservative.
What's got me a little bit worried about Santorum is that we're assuming he's eminently beatable because he got shellacked in 2006. But he seemed like part of the Republican power structure in 2006, and we -- moderates as well as liberals -- were thoroughly sick of that power structure by then, on everything from the Iraq War to the attempt to keep Terri Schiavo alive.
Now I worry that Santorum seems to some voters like the plucky underdog, even within his own party. Back when he was in office, his culture-war meanness seemed to have real clout, because he was part of a right-wing gang that didn't like to take prisoners; at this moment, even to me, he comes off as almost harmless, although I'm fully aware of the fact that he'd be an awful, dangerous president.
Could he possibly do well against Obama if he wins the nomination (which I'm starting to think will happen)? Could he surprise us because voters might see him not as the nasty culture warrior he was when he had power, but as a gee-whiz aw-shucks Boy Scout, and figure he won't really turn the clock back on abortion and contraception and gay rights (except for the old white cultural conservatives, who may think he really can turn the clock back, and who may be Democrats and independents like the ones supporting him in Michigan)?
And before you shout "Man on dog!" and point to poll results showing increasing support for gay marriage and persistent support for legal abortion, let me remind you that right-wing culture warriors are a hell of a lot more likely to vote their social-issue convictions than the rest of us are. Otherwise, how did Republicans win so many recent election cycles?
(Portions of this post appear at Balloon Juice.)
YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO THE CAFETERIA AT ALL
Atrios, Big Tent Democrat, and Jesse Taylor have addressed this E.J. Dionne column in other ways, but I want to talk about the following passage:
Those of us who are liberal Catholics have remained in the church for reasons beyond tribal loyalties or a desire to honor the traditions of our parents and grandparents. At the heart of the love many of us have for the church -- despite our frustrations over its abysmal handling of the pedophilia scandal and its reluctance to grant women the rights they are due -- is a profound respect for the fact on so many questions that count, Catholicism walks its talk and harnesses its faith to the good works the Gospel demands.
When it comes to lifting up the poor, healing the sick, assisting immigrants and refugees, educating the young (especially in inner cities), comforting orphaned and abandoned children, and organizing the needy to act in their own interest, the church has been there with resources and an astoundingly committed band of sisters, priests, brothers and lay people. Organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Catholic Health Association, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Relief Services make the words of Jesus come alive every day.
What's bizarre to me about this is that Dionne gives three reasons for staying in the church -- good works, family heritage, tribalism -- and never mentions the Church's belief system. Is that really a secondary or tertiary concern for him?
Does Dionne share the Church's beliefs on the subjects of abortion, birth control, in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research, homosexuality, premarital sex, and masturbation? Does he agree with its habit of being awfully quiet when it expresses its objections to the death penalty, immoral wars, and the excesses of capitalism, while shouting about so-called sexual immorality from the housetops? Is he at all disturbed by the Church's habit of always managing to find an enforcer -- some local bishop or other -- to threaten any prominent pro-choice Catholic Democrat with denial of Communion during election years, or otherwise attempting to sway swing voters against non-conservative politicians? Is the second-class status of women in the Church really OK with him?
Or does none of this matter to him? Is it all about the grandparents and the tribe and the good works, with no real concern about the actual moral code? I realize that practically every Catholic in America is a cafeteria Catholic, but once you've left the old neighborhood, as Dionne has, why do you want to remain a cafeteria Catholic? You live in a big world. If you're liberal and your church is dogmatically conservative, if you're appalled by sexual abuse and you're church isn't, if your church regards condom use by a lower-middle-class couple with too many children as immoral and you don't, why not just leave? Because you like the charities? Write a freaking check!
But it's obvious why Dionne would cleave to the Church: As a Beltway insider pundit, he knows too many people who say that being a secular humanist would deprive him of all moral authority, and he's internalized that argument. And Catholicism is a marketing bullet for him as well: Yeah, I'm a liberal, but Sister Mary Discipline whacked my hand with a steel ruler back in third grade at Saint Ignatius! Also, like too many Catholics, perhaps he dreams of a changed Church, even though the actual Church has shown no interest in his kind of change. Perhaps he's clinging to the Church he imagines, not the Church that really exists.
This isn't like sticking with the Democratic Party if you're a real progressive; in that case, you know one of the two major parties is always going to control the White House and each house of Congress, and you have to name your poison. Religion is different. It's not binary. You can choose from a thousand religious affiliations or choose none at all. And you will if you have core convictions -- unless you see some other advantage in not bothering.
Atrios, Big Tent Democrat, and Jesse Taylor have addressed this E.J. Dionne column in other ways, but I want to talk about the following passage:
Those of us who are liberal Catholics have remained in the church for reasons beyond tribal loyalties or a desire to honor the traditions of our parents and grandparents. At the heart of the love many of us have for the church -- despite our frustrations over its abysmal handling of the pedophilia scandal and its reluctance to grant women the rights they are due -- is a profound respect for the fact on so many questions that count, Catholicism walks its talk and harnesses its faith to the good works the Gospel demands.
When it comes to lifting up the poor, healing the sick, assisting immigrants and refugees, educating the young (especially in inner cities), comforting orphaned and abandoned children, and organizing the needy to act in their own interest, the church has been there with resources and an astoundingly committed band of sisters, priests, brothers and lay people. Organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Catholic Health Association, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Relief Services make the words of Jesus come alive every day.
What's bizarre to me about this is that Dionne gives three reasons for staying in the church -- good works, family heritage, tribalism -- and never mentions the Church's belief system. Is that really a secondary or tertiary concern for him?
Does Dionne share the Church's beliefs on the subjects of abortion, birth control, in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research, homosexuality, premarital sex, and masturbation? Does he agree with its habit of being awfully quiet when it expresses its objections to the death penalty, immoral wars, and the excesses of capitalism, while shouting about so-called sexual immorality from the housetops? Is he at all disturbed by the Church's habit of always managing to find an enforcer -- some local bishop or other -- to threaten any prominent pro-choice Catholic Democrat with denial of Communion during election years, or otherwise attempting to sway swing voters against non-conservative politicians? Is the second-class status of women in the Church really OK with him?
Or does none of this matter to him? Is it all about the grandparents and the tribe and the good works, with no real concern about the actual moral code? I realize that practically every Catholic in America is a cafeteria Catholic, but once you've left the old neighborhood, as Dionne has, why do you want to remain a cafeteria Catholic? You live in a big world. If you're liberal and your church is dogmatically conservative, if you're appalled by sexual abuse and you're church isn't, if your church regards condom use by a lower-middle-class couple with too many children as immoral and you don't, why not just leave? Because you like the charities? Write a freaking check!
But it's obvious why Dionne would cleave to the Church: As a Beltway insider pundit, he knows too many people who say that being a secular humanist would deprive him of all moral authority, and he's internalized that argument. And Catholicism is a marketing bullet for him as well: Yeah, I'm a liberal, but Sister Mary Discipline whacked my hand with a steel ruler back in third grade at Saint Ignatius! Also, like too many Catholics, perhaps he dreams of a changed Church, even though the actual Church has shown no interest in his kind of change. Perhaps he's clinging to the Church he imagines, not the Church that really exists.
This isn't like sticking with the Democratic Party if you're a real progressive; in that case, you know one of the two major parties is always going to control the White House and each house of Congress, and you have to name your poison. Religion is different. It's not binary. You can choose from a thousand religious affiliations or choose none at all. And you will if you have core convictions -- unless you see some other advantage in not bothering.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
"GOVERNMENT SUCKS" IS THE CONSTANT; THEIR OWN SENSE OF SELF-WORTH IS THE VARIABLE
Before this big New York Times article came along, it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that tea party supporters and other right-wing heartlanders hate government, yet avail themselves of government programs just the way the rest of us do. What we see from the article is how they feel when the contradiction is pointed out to them.
Hardly any of the good people of Chisago County, Minnesota, will acknowledge that maybe we ought to come up with a tax structure that will pay for the services they and the rest of us readily use. Agreeing to that would contradict the one constant in all right-leaning heartlanders' belief systems: that "less government and lower taxes" is the answer to every political question that doesn't involve killing brown people overseas.
Forced to acknowledge the contradiction, some express a willingness to throw themselves and their families under the bus rather than have another dime go to the hated government:
The government helps Matt Falk and his wife care for their disabled 14-year-old daughter. It pays for extra assistance at school and for trained attendants to stay with her at home while they work. It pays much of the cost of her regular visits to the hospital.
Mr. Falk, 42, would like the government to do less.
"She doesn't need some of the stuff that we're doing for her," said Mr. Falk, who owns a heating and air-conditioning business in North Branch....
Mr. Falk ... said he did not want to pay higher taxes and did not want the government to impose higher taxes on anyone else. He said that his family appreciated the government's help and that living with less would be painful for them and many other families. But he said the government could not continue to operate on borrowed money.
"They're going to have to reduce benefits," he said. "We're going to have to accept it, and we’re going to have to suffer."
Some literally burst into tears:
Barbara Sullivan, 71, moved last year to the apartments above the Chisago County Senior Center in North Branch. Waiting on a recent Friday for the hot lunch, which costs $3.50, she watched roughly 20 people play bingo for prizes including canned soup and Chef Boyardee pasta.
"Most of the seniors around here are struggling to make it," she said.
She counts herself among them. She lives on $1,220 a month in Social Security benefits and relied on Medicare to pay for an operation in November.
She believes that she is taking more from the government than she paid in taxes....
But she cannot imagine asking people to pay higher taxes. And as she considered making do with less, she started to cry.
"Without it, I'm not sure how I would live," she said. "With the check I'm getting from Social Security, it's a constant struggle on making sure that I pay my rent and have enough left for groceries.
"I haven't bought a Christmas present, I haven't bought clothing in the last five years, simply because I can’t afford it."
You have to read more than ninety paragraphs into the article to find someone -- a woman described as "a centrist Democrat" -- who thinks someone, perhaps, ought to pay more in taxes because the services are needed:
Barbara Nelson has little patience for people who say they will not need government help. She considers herself lucky she has not, and obligated to provide for those who do.
"Catastrophes happen in life," she said, sitting in a coffee shop in Taylors Falls....
Ms. Nelson, 61, who describes herself as a centrist Democrat, also dismisses the claim that people cannot afford to pay more taxes.
"Anyone who can come into a coffee shop and buy coffee is capable of paying more," she said. "If someone's life can be granted, in terms of adequate health care, if that means I give up five cups of coffee a month, that is a small price to pay."
Even economic right-centrists (David Frum, for instance) acknowledge that government social programs are ingrained in American life. Government programs actually make it easier for capitalism to function in many ways, by softening the shock of layoffs and reducing the burden workers feel when there's illness or infirmity in their families, to name only two examples. But that notion has disappeared from Main Street conservatism. Heartland rightists would rather see themselves punished than admit that maybe government isn't evil.
Before this big New York Times article came along, it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that tea party supporters and other right-wing heartlanders hate government, yet avail themselves of government programs just the way the rest of us do. What we see from the article is how they feel when the contradiction is pointed out to them.
Hardly any of the good people of Chisago County, Minnesota, will acknowledge that maybe we ought to come up with a tax structure that will pay for the services they and the rest of us readily use. Agreeing to that would contradict the one constant in all right-leaning heartlanders' belief systems: that "less government and lower taxes" is the answer to every political question that doesn't involve killing brown people overseas.
Forced to acknowledge the contradiction, some express a willingness to throw themselves and their families under the bus rather than have another dime go to the hated government:
The government helps Matt Falk and his wife care for their disabled 14-year-old daughter. It pays for extra assistance at school and for trained attendants to stay with her at home while they work. It pays much of the cost of her regular visits to the hospital.
Mr. Falk, 42, would like the government to do less.
"She doesn't need some of the stuff that we're doing for her," said Mr. Falk, who owns a heating and air-conditioning business in North Branch....
Mr. Falk ... said he did not want to pay higher taxes and did not want the government to impose higher taxes on anyone else. He said that his family appreciated the government's help and that living with less would be painful for them and many other families. But he said the government could not continue to operate on borrowed money.
"They're going to have to reduce benefits," he said. "We're going to have to accept it, and we’re going to have to suffer."
Some literally burst into tears:
Barbara Sullivan, 71, moved last year to the apartments above the Chisago County Senior Center in North Branch. Waiting on a recent Friday for the hot lunch, which costs $3.50, she watched roughly 20 people play bingo for prizes including canned soup and Chef Boyardee pasta.
"Most of the seniors around here are struggling to make it," she said.
She counts herself among them. She lives on $1,220 a month in Social Security benefits and relied on Medicare to pay for an operation in November.
She believes that she is taking more from the government than she paid in taxes....
But she cannot imagine asking people to pay higher taxes. And as she considered making do with less, she started to cry.
"Without it, I'm not sure how I would live," she said. "With the check I'm getting from Social Security, it's a constant struggle on making sure that I pay my rent and have enough left for groceries.
"I haven't bought a Christmas present, I haven't bought clothing in the last five years, simply because I can’t afford it."
You have to read more than ninety paragraphs into the article to find someone -- a woman described as "a centrist Democrat" -- who thinks someone, perhaps, ought to pay more in taxes because the services are needed:
Barbara Nelson has little patience for people who say they will not need government help. She considers herself lucky she has not, and obligated to provide for those who do.
"Catastrophes happen in life," she said, sitting in a coffee shop in Taylors Falls....
Ms. Nelson, 61, who describes herself as a centrist Democrat, also dismisses the claim that people cannot afford to pay more taxes.
"Anyone who can come into a coffee shop and buy coffee is capable of paying more," she said. "If someone's life can be granted, in terms of adequate health care, if that means I give up five cups of coffee a month, that is a small price to pay."
Even economic right-centrists (David Frum, for instance) acknowledge that government social programs are ingrained in American life. Government programs actually make it easier for capitalism to function in many ways, by softening the shock of layoffs and reducing the burden workers feel when there's illness or infirmity in their families, to name only two examples. But that notion has disappeared from Main Street conservatism. Heartland rightists would rather see themselves punished than admit that maybe government isn't evil.
COULD THE GOP POSSIBLY GET BITTEN BY THE SAME DOG TWICE (ITS OWN)?
I see that Sarah Palin gave the best-received speech at CPAC:
If Sarah Palin had been on the ballot for the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference, there is little doubt she would have won.
The former Alaska governor received far-and-away the most spirited and enthusiastic reception at this convention of about 10,000 conservative activists.
She drew the audience to its feet more than a dozen times during her keynote address on Saturday....
This happened hours after Palin told an interviewer that a brokered Republican convention wouldn't be a bad thing.
Now, I know this isn't going to happen, but let me daydream for a while: Wouldn't it be delightful if, first, the Republican nominating process degenerated into chaos because the party establishment sought the destroy the candidacies of everyone the crazy base liked (Cain, Gingrich, etc.) ... and then we got to a brokered convention and that degenerated into chaos, with the establishment trying to sandbag the crazy base's choice -- Sarah Palin?
C'mon, a feller can dream, can't he?
****
It occurs to me that Palin has now become more or less what she wanted to be: the Hillary Clinton of the right. Hillary's popularity these days is sky-high. Why? To a great extent it's because she's not running for anything, and is thus not a target of criticism. Palin isn't running for anything, either, and recently she's kept a low profile (at least by her standards). Think she'd be this much of a conquering heroine if she were in the race and the opposition research staffs of Mitt Romney and Karl Rove were hard at work generating attack ads and leaks to the press about her, given their awareness of how astonishingly unpopular she is in the eyes of the general population?
So enjoy this for now, Sarah. Just don't try offering yourself as a candidate if the nominating process breaks down, unless you want to be a target of folks who are way nastier than David Letterman
****
And a note to Andrew Metcalf of Crooks and Liars: with all due respect, Andrew, please, just stop:
Sarah Palin and Occupy Could Be Friends
... After three days at CPAC my senses had dulled to the attacks on Obama. But, my ears perked when Palin made a point that wasn't divisive about crony capitalism. She said "crony capitalism" had infected Washington....
Palin made a similar point in Iowa on September 3, 2011, two weeks before protesters occupied Zuccotti Park. She said, "It's not the capitalism of free men and free markets of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and risk. No this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts... and influence peddling and corporate welfare," according to an article about the speech in the Washington Post.
... just the brief mention of crony capitalism was important. Even her restraint to not criticize the [Occupy] protesters [who heckled her] ... meant she might understand her Tea Party and their Occupy share similar populist ideas. The roots of the real Tea Party lie in a backlash against the bailouts.
If there's going to be dramatic change in the political system it's going to take more than one side screaming at the other, clinging to their guns or to their tents. And while it's easy for Democrats to belittle the Tea Party as an astroturfing movement and for the Republicans to belittle Occupy as stinky vandals, it's far more difficult to build coalitions behind common causes....
Oh, please. Let me remind you that Palin's prattle about "crony capitalism" goes at least as far back as this Facebook post ("Institutionalizing Crony Capitalism") in April 2010. How'd that work out for progressives at the polls the following November?
Palin's trick in that Facebook post was to attack Obama seemingly from the left in the service of a right-wing agenda. First she argued that Dodd-Frank would be gamed by lobbyists, including President Obama's Wall Street pals -- true enough -- but then she asserted that "government should not burden the market with unnecessary bureaucracy" Yes, she also argued that the law shouldn't "make a dangerous 'too-big-to-fail' mentality the law of the land." But her audience heard that as noise and the anti-regulation pitch as signal -- or did I somehow miss the election in 2010 of a large cohort of Republican freshmen who favor curbs on Wall Street excess?
Forget it -- these folks may say they resent "too big to fail," but they absolutely don't resent "too big (and too reckless) to crash the economy." They may hate bailouts, but they don't hate the reckless financial endangerment that leads to bailouts. (They don't even believe catastrophic bubbles are the result of capitalism; they blame the current crash exclusively on Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act.) They'll never try to lift a finger to stop Wall Street recklessness -- not as long as they're listening to people like Palin.
I see that Sarah Palin gave the best-received speech at CPAC:
If Sarah Palin had been on the ballot for the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference, there is little doubt she would have won.
The former Alaska governor received far-and-away the most spirited and enthusiastic reception at this convention of about 10,000 conservative activists.
She drew the audience to its feet more than a dozen times during her keynote address on Saturday....
This happened hours after Palin told an interviewer that a brokered Republican convention wouldn't be a bad thing.
Now, I know this isn't going to happen, but let me daydream for a while: Wouldn't it be delightful if, first, the Republican nominating process degenerated into chaos because the party establishment sought the destroy the candidacies of everyone the crazy base liked (Cain, Gingrich, etc.) ... and then we got to a brokered convention and that degenerated into chaos, with the establishment trying to sandbag the crazy base's choice -- Sarah Palin?
C'mon, a feller can dream, can't he?
****
It occurs to me that Palin has now become more or less what she wanted to be: the Hillary Clinton of the right. Hillary's popularity these days is sky-high. Why? To a great extent it's because she's not running for anything, and is thus not a target of criticism. Palin isn't running for anything, either, and recently she's kept a low profile (at least by her standards). Think she'd be this much of a conquering heroine if she were in the race and the opposition research staffs of Mitt Romney and Karl Rove were hard at work generating attack ads and leaks to the press about her, given their awareness of how astonishingly unpopular she is in the eyes of the general population?
So enjoy this for now, Sarah. Just don't try offering yourself as a candidate if the nominating process breaks down, unless you want to be a target of folks who are way nastier than David Letterman
****
And a note to Andrew Metcalf of Crooks and Liars: with all due respect, Andrew, please, just stop:
Sarah Palin and Occupy Could Be Friends
... After three days at CPAC my senses had dulled to the attacks on Obama. But, my ears perked when Palin made a point that wasn't divisive about crony capitalism. She said "crony capitalism" had infected Washington....
Palin made a similar point in Iowa on September 3, 2011, two weeks before protesters occupied Zuccotti Park. She said, "It's not the capitalism of free men and free markets of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and risk. No this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts... and influence peddling and corporate welfare," according to an article about the speech in the Washington Post.
... just the brief mention of crony capitalism was important. Even her restraint to not criticize the [Occupy] protesters [who heckled her] ... meant she might understand her Tea Party and their Occupy share similar populist ideas. The roots of the real Tea Party lie in a backlash against the bailouts.
If there's going to be dramatic change in the political system it's going to take more than one side screaming at the other, clinging to their guns or to their tents. And while it's easy for Democrats to belittle the Tea Party as an astroturfing movement and for the Republicans to belittle Occupy as stinky vandals, it's far more difficult to build coalitions behind common causes....
Oh, please. Let me remind you that Palin's prattle about "crony capitalism" goes at least as far back as this Facebook post ("Institutionalizing Crony Capitalism") in April 2010. How'd that work out for progressives at the polls the following November?
Palin's trick in that Facebook post was to attack Obama seemingly from the left in the service of a right-wing agenda. First she argued that Dodd-Frank would be gamed by lobbyists, including President Obama's Wall Street pals -- true enough -- but then she asserted that "government should not burden the market with unnecessary bureaucracy" Yes, she also argued that the law shouldn't "make a dangerous 'too-big-to-fail' mentality the law of the land." But her audience heard that as noise and the anti-regulation pitch as signal -- or did I somehow miss the election in 2010 of a large cohort of Republican freshmen who favor curbs on Wall Street excess?
Forget it -- these folks may say they resent "too big to fail," but they absolutely don't resent "too big (and too reckless) to crash the economy." They may hate bailouts, but they don't hate the reckless financial endangerment that leads to bailouts. (They don't even believe catastrophic bubbles are the result of capitalism; they blame the current crash exclusively on Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act.) They'll never try to lift a finger to stop Wall Street recklessness -- not as long as they're listening to people like Palin.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
RUPERT MURDOCH: THE WIT AND WISDOM
A tweet from the reportedly gen-yoo-wine Twitter feed of Rupert Murdoch:
Wow -- that's so true! After the second half of a game, one team actually does lose! (Smacks forehead) Gosh, I never thought of that! And it's true that no pols admit that, isn't it? Politicians always say that after every game, both teams win! Right? Don't they?
Rupert's so smart! This is clearly why they pay him the big bucks!
Also:
"Alternate life style" -- you mean like BDSM? Or being an adult baby? Yeah, I guess we don't want welfare to fund anything like that -- although it occurs to me that if it funds your career as a dominatrix, that might improve your economic standing and the GDP. You'd think Murdoch would be in favor of that!
A tweet from the reportedly gen-yoo-wine Twitter feed of Rupert Murdoch:
Wow -- that's so true! After the second half of a game, one team actually does lose! (Smacks forehead) Gosh, I never thought of that! And it's true that no pols admit that, isn't it? Politicians always say that after every game, both teams win! Right? Don't they?
Rupert's so smart! This is clearly why they pay him the big bucks!
Also:
"Alternate life style" -- you mean like BDSM? Or being an adult baby? Yeah, I guess we don't want welfare to fund anything like that -- although it occurs to me that if it funds your career as a dominatrix, that might improve your economic standing and the GDP. You'd think Murdoch would be in favor of that!
EYES ON THE WRONG PRIZE?
Last night, BooMan reassessed the Republican race:
For the first time, I am beginning to think that Romney might actually lose the nomination and that Santorum might win it.
And, even worse, I am beginning to think that Santorum is a much stronger candidate against Obama than Romney. I think Gingrich is a stronger candidate than Romney. I just can't exaggerate how bad I think Romney is as a politician and as an alternative to the president.
I'm also beginning to think again that Romney might lose -- Public Policy Polling now tells us that Santorum has a massive lead over Romney, 38% to 23%, among Republicans nationwide. (And possibly, as Tom says, the Obama contraception decision pushes social issues to the top of the GOP agenda, which helps Santorum as a Republican candidate, and hurts Romney.)
And then there's BooMan's other assertion: would the non-Romneys really be stronger candidates against Obama?
I have to disagree on Gingrich -- he's too much of a hypocrite/blowhard/egomaniac/know-it-all; he appealed briefly to GOP voters when they saw him attacking debate moderators and thought he could out-debate Obama, but, really, that's all he had. In the general population, his unfavorable ratings are off the charts. I'm crushed that he's fading in the polls, and that he can't possibly come back unless a new debate moderator tosses him one that he can hit out of the park (which I think all future moderators will avoid doing).
But Ricky?
I think enough liberals and moderates know, or could easily see, how extreme his agenda is. I think his sanctimony and extremism shine through. But there's an aw-shucks, sad-sack quality to him that may make him harder to hate than Gingrich or Romney.
That's also the reason I think Romney might have a hard time crushing Romney the way he crushed Gingrich -- non-Republicans may ultimately be turned off by Santorum, but Republicans seem to have positive feelings toward him. And, well, there's this:
But his digs at the president are not what people talk about as they crowd around him to shake his hand. It is his 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, or Bella, as she is known, who has a fatal chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 18. Bella's struggle is the emotional undercurrent of his campaign and, for his supporters, has become inseparable from Mr. Santorum's appeal as a Christian conservative who opposes abortion.
"When she got pneumonia, he stopped his campaign," said Stephanie Broardt, an Oklahoma City stay-at-home mother who stood on a chair to watch his speech. "He strikes me as a good father. That's another reason why I love him, because he's a family man. Other candidates cannot say that."
It's Sarah and Trig Palin, minus Sarah's diva act. Could general-election voters be swayed by this, if he beat Romney for the nomination? Especially if mainstream pundits started saying Santorum is really kind of a good guy? (Beyond the obvious -- David Brooks, Joe Klein -- my money's on Niall Ferguson as a spreader of that meme; see Ferguson's recent love letter to Charles Murray in Newsweek. I could imagine him writing the Newsweek cover story on how Santorum could lead an American moral regeneration.)
But would Santorum really be a tougher opponent against Obama? A recent Rasmussen poll says he would, but Rasmussen is an unreliable wingnut propagandist; by contrast, the latest Fox News poll has Obama beating Romney by 5 and Santorum by 12 -- and Gingrich by 13, for what it's worth. (Yeah, it's Fox, but the Fox polling operation has always had a surprising tendency to play it straight, even if the results contradict Fox propaganda; this survey, for instance, shows 61% approval for the Obama birth control policy, even before yesterday's policy adjustment.)
My worry would be that the Obama reelection team has concentrated all its efforts on planning for a race against Romney, with, it seems, no Plan B; an Obama aide recently reaffirmed this to The New York Times:
"When you guys were all out there writing your Herman Cain stories, we were not following you into that sideshow," one Obama aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We are keeping our eyes on the prize."
Four years ago, Team Obama had no plan when Sarah Palin was put on the GOP ticket. The Democratic National Committee had launched a Web site called thenextcheney.com, with negative information about everyone the Dems thought could be on the short list -- and Palin wasn't included. And you'll recall that McCain/Palin briefly surged to the lead after Palin's convention speech.
I think the Obama team was woefully unprepared for Palin, and lucked out when she turned out to be an idiot and an albatross. Would the Obama team be equally unprepared for Santorum? And is he unappealing enough for that not to matter? I think he is, and I hope I'm right, but I'm not sure.
(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)
Last night, BooMan reassessed the Republican race:
For the first time, I am beginning to think that Romney might actually lose the nomination and that Santorum might win it.
And, even worse, I am beginning to think that Santorum is a much stronger candidate against Obama than Romney. I think Gingrich is a stronger candidate than Romney. I just can't exaggerate how bad I think Romney is as a politician and as an alternative to the president.
I'm also beginning to think again that Romney might lose -- Public Policy Polling now tells us that Santorum has a massive lead over Romney, 38% to 23%, among Republicans nationwide. (And possibly, as Tom says, the Obama contraception decision pushes social issues to the top of the GOP agenda, which helps Santorum as a Republican candidate, and hurts Romney.)
And then there's BooMan's other assertion: would the non-Romneys really be stronger candidates against Obama?
I have to disagree on Gingrich -- he's too much of a hypocrite/blowhard/egomaniac/know-it-all; he appealed briefly to GOP voters when they saw him attacking debate moderators and thought he could out-debate Obama, but, really, that's all he had. In the general population, his unfavorable ratings are off the charts. I'm crushed that he's fading in the polls, and that he can't possibly come back unless a new debate moderator tosses him one that he can hit out of the park (which I think all future moderators will avoid doing).
But Ricky?
I think enough liberals and moderates know, or could easily see, how extreme his agenda is. I think his sanctimony and extremism shine through. But there's an aw-shucks, sad-sack quality to him that may make him harder to hate than Gingrich or Romney.
That's also the reason I think Romney might have a hard time crushing Romney the way he crushed Gingrich -- non-Republicans may ultimately be turned off by Santorum, but Republicans seem to have positive feelings toward him. And, well, there's this:
But his digs at the president are not what people talk about as they crowd around him to shake his hand. It is his 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, or Bella, as she is known, who has a fatal chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 18. Bella's struggle is the emotional undercurrent of his campaign and, for his supporters, has become inseparable from Mr. Santorum's appeal as a Christian conservative who opposes abortion.
"When she got pneumonia, he stopped his campaign," said Stephanie Broardt, an Oklahoma City stay-at-home mother who stood on a chair to watch his speech. "He strikes me as a good father. That's another reason why I love him, because he's a family man. Other candidates cannot say that."
It's Sarah and Trig Palin, minus Sarah's diva act. Could general-election voters be swayed by this, if he beat Romney for the nomination? Especially if mainstream pundits started saying Santorum is really kind of a good guy? (Beyond the obvious -- David Brooks, Joe Klein -- my money's on Niall Ferguson as a spreader of that meme; see Ferguson's recent love letter to Charles Murray in Newsweek. I could imagine him writing the Newsweek cover story on how Santorum could lead an American moral regeneration.)
But would Santorum really be a tougher opponent against Obama? A recent Rasmussen poll says he would, but Rasmussen is an unreliable wingnut propagandist; by contrast, the latest Fox News poll has Obama beating Romney by 5 and Santorum by 12 -- and Gingrich by 13, for what it's worth. (Yeah, it's Fox, but the Fox polling operation has always had a surprising tendency to play it straight, even if the results contradict Fox propaganda; this survey, for instance, shows 61% approval for the Obama birth control policy, even before yesterday's policy adjustment.)
My worry would be that the Obama reelection team has concentrated all its efforts on planning for a race against Romney, with, it seems, no Plan B; an Obama aide recently reaffirmed this to The New York Times:
"When you guys were all out there writing your Herman Cain stories, we were not following you into that sideshow," one Obama aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We are keeping our eyes on the prize."
Four years ago, Team Obama had no plan when Sarah Palin was put on the GOP ticket. The Democratic National Committee had launched a Web site called thenextcheney.com, with negative information about everyone the Dems thought could be on the short list -- and Palin wasn't included. And you'll recall that McCain/Palin briefly surged to the lead after Palin's convention speech.
I think the Obama team was woefully unprepared for Palin, and lucked out when she turned out to be an idiot and an albatross. Would the Obama team be equally unprepared for Santorum? And is he unappealing enough for that not to matter? I think he is, and I hope I'm right, but I'm not sure.
(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)
Friday, February 10, 2012
Did the President Just Give the Republican Nomination to Santorum?
Yeah, I know--it sounds like a Slate pitch. Based on all available data, Romney is still the overwhelming favorite. And yet...Michael Walsh is deranged even by Corner standards, but he makes a solid case:
The contretemps over the HHS mandate can do nothing but help the candidacy of Rick Santorum. For months, Mitt Romney has been lamely defending Romneycare, hiding behind the shriveled fig leaf of the Tenth Amendment to obscure what everyone now acknowledges — that the Massachusetts program is the forebear of and inspiration for Obamacare....Walsh has the politics right: this puts the focus on Romney's big weakness (among Republicans), while making Santorum's signature issue a litmus test for the party. At the very least, it makes Santorum's chances a lot better than the 13% they give him on Intrade.
Because now that the coercive evil of Obamacare is visible even to E.J. Dionne Jr., Romney’s “signature achievement” during his one term as governor ought to finish him as the GOP standard-bearer.
Santorum, of course, is a much weaker candidate than Romney in the general. I don't think this is 11-dimensional chess or anything like that; putting contraceptives front and center is smart strategy for lots of straightforward reasons. If Santorum gets the nomination, though, it'll be one more happy convergence of luck and strategy for the President.
SEVERELY BAD CHOICE OF WORDS, MITT
Mitt Romney just said this at CPAC:
...I fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but I was a severely conservative Republican governor.
Oliver Willis says on Twitter, "romneybot's internal thesaurus looked up 'very' and spouted out #severely." Sounds about right -- or, more likely, he hires speechwriters who are as tightly wound as he is. (And yup, #severely is now a hashtag.)
Want to know why this is a terrible choice of words, Mitt? Here's what people associate with the word "severe," according to Google autofill:
Ouch.
****
UPDATE: Odd New York Times headline:
Appealing to Activists, Romney Calls Himself 'Severely Conservative'
Shouldn't that be "Trying and Probably Failing to Appeal to Activists, Romney Calls Himself 'Severely Conservative'"?
Mitt Romney just said this at CPAC:
...I fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but I was a severely conservative Republican governor.
Oliver Willis says on Twitter, "romneybot's internal thesaurus looked up 'very' and spouted out #severely." Sounds about right -- or, more likely, he hires speechwriters who are as tightly wound as he is. (And yup, #severely is now a hashtag.)
Want to know why this is a terrible choice of words, Mitt? Here's what people associate with the word "severe," according to Google autofill:
Ouch.
****
UPDATE: Odd New York Times headline:
Appealing to Activists, Romney Calls Himself 'Severely Conservative'
Shouldn't that be "Trying and Probably Failing to Appeal to Activists, Romney Calls Himself 'Severely Conservative'"?
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS A GOP SUPER PAC IN ROBES, AND IT SHOT FIRST
There's not much detail in this New York Times story, but it hints at the unspoken story of the contraception battle: the Catholic Church declared war first, months ago, seemingly (who'da thunk?) just in time for an election that's likely to turn on the electoral votes of large swing states with lots of old, culturally conservative Catholic voters. The church fathers were just looking for an excuse to start shooting:
When after much internal debate the Obama administration finally announced its decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to cover birth control in their insurance plans, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle.
Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty, including the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the birth control mandate, issued on Jan. 20, was their Pearl Harbor.
Hours after President Obama phoned to share his decision with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops’ headquarters in Washington posted on its Web site a video of Archbishop Dolan, which had been recorded the day before....
The speed and passion behind the bishops' response reflects their growing sense of siege....
That last line is nonsense. It doesn't reflect a "state of siege" -- it reflects a sense that a perception of siege can be created, and will sway voters to pull the lever for the party the church favors, which is the GOP.
Over at Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner makes the planned nature of all this much more explicit:
Four days before Christmas, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops paid for a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post, co-signed by dozens of leaders of Catholic institutions. But the ad offered no holiday cheer. Instead, it aggressively highlighted the Bishops' pointed confrontation with the Obama administration: either amend a regulation requiring employer health insurance plans to provide contraception without a co-pay, or stand accused of religious discrimination.
The Bishops' opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services rule ... was to date the most public salvo from their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. That effort was launched last June.... At the Bishops' annual meeting in Baltimore this past November, Dolan took his charges into conspiratorial territory, telling reporters that "well-financed, well-oiled sectors" were attempting to "push religion back into the sacristy." ...
And the bishops have clearly been working hand-in-glove with the GOP for some time:
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution last October, Bishop William E. Lori, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, described LGBT equality and access to reproductive care as "serious threats to religious liberty," that "represent only the most recent instances in a broader trend of erosion of religious liberty in the United States."
...investigations have already started on Capitol Hill, where Republicans' ears are cocked for controversies they can gin up to paint the Obama administration as anti-religion....
So, yeah, we should call this what it is: super PAC activity.
****
The Obama administration seems to have dared the bishops to take their best shot on this issue. This morning, it looks as if the bishops are winning -- the administration plans to announce a compromise, although it seems to me that a reasonable swing voter would hear about this compromise and think that the White House is making a quite sensible (and sensitive) accommodation:
... what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationship between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization strongly opposed to that care in order to obtain it.
I often see the Obama White House getting entangled in a ginned-up right-wing controversy and seemingly unable to find a way out that will seem reasonable to the center after the right has set the terms of the debate. In this case, though, I suspect that the administration had its next move worked out, and it seems like a good one to me. You're a normal American who supports birth control access? This would preserve that access. You're not terribly religious but you kinda-sorta think that religious groups shouldn't have to involve themselves in stuff they morally object to? This preserves that as well.
What's not to like? The bishops and the wingnuts will angrily answer that question soon, and possibly for months and years to come. But now I think they really may look like the unreasonable ones, even to low-information voters, and even if the right continues to flood the zone with its propaganda.
****
(Posner article via Pam Spaulding.)
There's not much detail in this New York Times story, but it hints at the unspoken story of the contraception battle: the Catholic Church declared war first, months ago, seemingly (who'da thunk?) just in time for an election that's likely to turn on the electoral votes of large swing states with lots of old, culturally conservative Catholic voters. The church fathers were just looking for an excuse to start shooting:
When after much internal debate the Obama administration finally announced its decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to cover birth control in their insurance plans, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle.
Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty, including the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the birth control mandate, issued on Jan. 20, was their Pearl Harbor.
Hours after President Obama phoned to share his decision with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops’ headquarters in Washington posted on its Web site a video of Archbishop Dolan, which had been recorded the day before....
The speed and passion behind the bishops' response reflects their growing sense of siege....
That last line is nonsense. It doesn't reflect a "state of siege" -- it reflects a sense that a perception of siege can be created, and will sway voters to pull the lever for the party the church favors, which is the GOP.
Over at Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner makes the planned nature of all this much more explicit:
Four days before Christmas, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops paid for a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post, co-signed by dozens of leaders of Catholic institutions. But the ad offered no holiday cheer. Instead, it aggressively highlighted the Bishops' pointed confrontation with the Obama administration: either amend a regulation requiring employer health insurance plans to provide contraception without a co-pay, or stand accused of religious discrimination.
The Bishops' opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services rule ... was to date the most public salvo from their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. That effort was launched last June.... At the Bishops' annual meeting in Baltimore this past November, Dolan took his charges into conspiratorial territory, telling reporters that "well-financed, well-oiled sectors" were attempting to "push religion back into the sacristy." ...
And the bishops have clearly been working hand-in-glove with the GOP for some time:
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution last October, Bishop William E. Lori, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, described LGBT equality and access to reproductive care as "serious threats to religious liberty," that "represent only the most recent instances in a broader trend of erosion of religious liberty in the United States."
...investigations have already started on Capitol Hill, where Republicans' ears are cocked for controversies they can gin up to paint the Obama administration as anti-religion....
So, yeah, we should call this what it is: super PAC activity.
****
The Obama administration seems to have dared the bishops to take their best shot on this issue. This morning, it looks as if the bishops are winning -- the administration plans to announce a compromise, although it seems to me that a reasonable swing voter would hear about this compromise and think that the White House is making a quite sensible (and sensitive) accommodation:
... what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationship between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization strongly opposed to that care in order to obtain it.
I often see the Obama White House getting entangled in a ginned-up right-wing controversy and seemingly unable to find a way out that will seem reasonable to the center after the right has set the terms of the debate. In this case, though, I suspect that the administration had its next move worked out, and it seems like a good one to me. You're a normal American who supports birth control access? This would preserve that access. You're not terribly religious but you kinda-sorta think that religious groups shouldn't have to involve themselves in stuff they morally object to? This preserves that as well.
What's not to like? The bishops and the wingnuts will angrily answer that question soon, and possibly for months and years to come. But now I think they really may look like the unreasonable ones, even to low-information voters, and even if the right continues to flood the zone with its propaganda.
****
(Posner article via Pam Spaulding.)
THE PECULIAR WORLDVIEW OF THE PUNDIT CULT
Today, David Brooks tries to tell us what Republican voters (and voters in general) really want, but what he really winds up telling us is what centrist and right-centrist pundits -- at least the ones in his peculiar but disturbingly large cult -- really want.
Brooks is writing about Mitt Romney here:
Republicans ... believe that the next president is going to have to make some brutally difficult decisions in order to reduce the debt. This is not a task for someone who is perpetually adjusting to market signals.
Here's the thing: Republican voters don't "believe that the next president is going to have to make some brutally difficult decisions in order to reduce the debt." Independents and Democrats don't believe this either.
It's not just the fact that most voters care more about jobs than they do about the debt. It's that even when voters focus on the debt, which many of them do, they don't believe these are particularly difficult decisions. I cite this poll all the time, but here I go again: according to Gallup, Americans believe that 51 cents of every dollar sent to Washington in taxes is wasted. Since 1979, that number has never gone lower than 38 cents.
That's because we're constantly hearing, from both parties, that the government is a sinkhole of waste. That leads voters to the conclusion that government is bad, which plays into the right's hands -- but it also means that when voters do talk about cutting spending and reducing debt, they're not calling for the infliction of pain.
You know who actually desires the infliction of pain? David Brooks and his pundit cult.
Brooks goes on to write about Romney:
He needs to show that he is willing to pursue at least a few unpopular policies, even policies that are unfashionable in his own party.
No, he doesn't. This is more pundit-cult thinking. It's the same thinking that underlies the pundit hope for a third-party Messiah who'll win the presidency: cultist pundits want all Americans to be forced to eat something on the dinner plate they don't want to eat -- and think Americans want this, too.
Americans -- Republicans excepted -- want compromise. They want give-and-take. But they don't crave a sacrifice of their own positions. And I just don't understand why the pundit cult thinks they do.
Today, David Brooks tries to tell us what Republican voters (and voters in general) really want, but what he really winds up telling us is what centrist and right-centrist pundits -- at least the ones in his peculiar but disturbingly large cult -- really want.
Brooks is writing about Mitt Romney here:
Republicans ... believe that the next president is going to have to make some brutally difficult decisions in order to reduce the debt. This is not a task for someone who is perpetually adjusting to market signals.
Here's the thing: Republican voters don't "believe that the next president is going to have to make some brutally difficult decisions in order to reduce the debt." Independents and Democrats don't believe this either.
It's not just the fact that most voters care more about jobs than they do about the debt. It's that even when voters focus on the debt, which many of them do, they don't believe these are particularly difficult decisions. I cite this poll all the time, but here I go again: according to Gallup, Americans believe that 51 cents of every dollar sent to Washington in taxes is wasted. Since 1979, that number has never gone lower than 38 cents.
That's because we're constantly hearing, from both parties, that the government is a sinkhole of waste. That leads voters to the conclusion that government is bad, which plays into the right's hands -- but it also means that when voters do talk about cutting spending and reducing debt, they're not calling for the infliction of pain.
You know who actually desires the infliction of pain? David Brooks and his pundit cult.
Brooks goes on to write about Romney:
He needs to show that he is willing to pursue at least a few unpopular policies, even policies that are unfashionable in his own party.
No, he doesn't. This is more pundit-cult thinking. It's the same thinking that underlies the pundit hope for a third-party Messiah who'll win the presidency: cultist pundits want all Americans to be forced to eat something on the dinner plate they don't want to eat -- and think Americans want this, too.
Americans -- Republicans excepted -- want compromise. They want give-and-take. But they don't crave a sacrifice of their own positions. And I just don't understand why the pundit cult thinks they do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)