“Wealth-Tainted Asides”: Mitt, Michigan And A Couple Of Cadillacs
Mitt Romney just can’t stop wealth allusions from creeping into the conversation.
He did it again on Friday. At the end of a speech about his economic plan before the Detroit Economic Club, when it felt as though he was just winging it, he said: “I love this country. I actually love this state. This feels good being back in Michigan. Um, you know the trees are the right height. The, uh, the streets are just right. I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles. I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck. Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.”
Two Cadillacs?
That’s rich, literally.
That’s not what you want to say when you are in Detroit, which, as I pointed out last week, has the highest poverty rate of any big city in America.
That’s not what you want to say in a city where Megan Owens of the Detroit-based advocacy organization Transportation Riders United said on Friday that roughly half of its bus service has been eliminated in the past five or so years.
That’s not what you want to say when discussing a tax-cut plan that, according to models prepared by the Tax Policy Center, would heavily weight the benefits toward the top of the income spectrum.
That’s not what you want to say when, as David Cay Johnston of Reuters pointed out this week, Romney’s plan would:
“Raise taxes on poor families with children at home and those going to college. Romney does this by reducing benefits from the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit and by ending the American Opportunity tax credit for college education.”
That’s probably not the thing to say in Detroit after arguing in a now-famous New York Times Op-Ed article against the auto bailouts, saying: “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”
That was probably not the thing to say on the day after Steven Rattner, the lead adviser on the Obama administration’s auto task force in 2009, smacked you down in a New York Times Op-Ed article for suggesting that the government “should have stayed on the sidelines” and allowed the companies to go through “ ‘managed bankruptcies’ financed by private capital.”
As Rattner put it:
“That sounds like a wonderfully sensible approach — except that it’s utter fantasy. In late 2008 and early 2009, when G.M. and Chrysler had exhausted their liquidity, every scrap of private capital had fled to the sidelines. I know this because the administration’s auto task force, for which I was the lead adviser, spoke diligently to all conceivable providers of funds, and not one had the slightest interest in financing those companies on any terms. If Mr. Romney disagrees, he should come forward with specific names of willing investors in place of empty rhetoric. I predict that he won’t be able to, because there aren’t any.”
Ouch. I need to catch my breath after that one.
O.K., carrying on.
The “couple of Cadillacs” comment probably wasn’t the thing to say the day after the Pew Research Center found that most Americans now support the bailouts, with 56 percent saying “the loans the government made to G.M. and Chrysler were mostly good for the economy.”
That probably wasn’t the thing to say in a city where you published an op-ed in The Detroit News on Valentine’s Day continuing to argue against the bailout, saying:
“This was crony capitalism on a grand scale. The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.”
That probably wasn’t the thing to say the week that your campaign felt the need to remove this lovely little passage from The Detroit News’s endorsement of you before sending it to reporters:
“We disagree with Romney on a point vital to Michigan — his opposition to the bailout of the domestic automobile industry. Romney advocated for a more traditional bankruptcy process, while we believe the bridge loans provided by the federal government in the fall of 2008 were absolutely essential to the survival of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. The issue isn’t a differentiator in the G.O.P. primary, since the entire field opposed the rescue effort.”
The Detroit Free Press’s endorsement this week echoed the complaint about Romney’s opposition on the bailouts, calling him “dead wrong” and saying that in the past year he has been “refashioning himself as something other than what his record suggests. He has made gestures toward economic and social radicalism, and eschewed the common sense of cooperative governing that made him a success in Massachusetts.”
But what is likely more telling about Romney’s ineloquence and continued wealth-tainted asides that draw attention away from his message onto his wallet is this gem from his Friday endorsement by The Arizona Republic:
“There are better orators in American politics. Indeed, the Democrats appear to have one. And certainly there are Republicans who better project the passion for the office they seek. Steady, unflappable Romney would not a ‘passion president’ make.”
So, poor oratory, anemic passion, possessed of “utter fantasy,” and gestures toward radicalism while cruising in a couple of Caddies: That’s probably not the image you want going into a make-or-break primary.
By: Charles Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, February 24, 2012
“Not As Radical But Just As Ridiculous”: Mitt Romney’s Tax-Plan Flim-Flam
Well, it was about perfect, wasn’t it, that Mitt Romney gave his big economic speech before about 1,200 supporters in a 65,000-seat football stadium? Whether the stadium or the speech was emptier is the obvious question of the moment. Pathetic as the pictures of the event were, I’d have to hand the trophy to the speech. Some of Romney’s specifics weren’t as far out there as those of his opponents. His proposed individual marginal tax rates, for example, are radical, but not as radical as those announced by the remaining three other Republican candidates. But his plan is even worse than theirs are in a way that we’ve come to know as typically Romneyesque. He is desperately eager to please the right wing and also to try to seem like the responsible one, but there is no way to do both of things without lying.
First, though, let’s discuss that venue. So a hotel ballroom was oversubscribed. Okay, I know Detroit has been down on its luck for the better part of 40 years, but even so I find it pretty difficult to believe that there is not a venue in the whole metropolitan area that has a capacity somewhere in between the Westin Book Cadillac ballroom’s 1,000 or whatever and Ford Field’s 65,000 (for football; 80,000 for wrestling). The University of Detroit’s basketball teams, for example, must play somewhere. Reports indicate that the Economic Club of Detroit, not the campaign, made the switch. But someone at the campaign said, “Gee, okay!” It’s not a catastrophe, but it is staggeringly stupid. Imagine the field day the right-wing agitprop machine would have had in 2008 with Barack Obama doing something like that. Indeed remember the sport they made of the mere fact of Obama giving a speech in a football stadium, even after he did in fact fill it.
But the deception involved in trying to make 1,200 supporters seem like 80,000 is nothing next to the deception of the plan itself. Romney would lower all six current individual tax brackets by 20 percent. That’s not as drastic as his opponents’ plans. Newt Gingrich, for example, would let any taxpayer choose between paying under the current regime or just paying a 15 percent flat tax. Rick Santorum would have most taxpayers paying just 10 percent. So this is the Romney-the-Reasonable part of the plan. Sticking with six brackets is supposedly meant to signal that he believes in a little stability and is not a loon.
Reducing those rates, of course—along with the reduction of the corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent; along with massively increasing Pentagon spending—will reduce revenue. And here’s the catch, via The Wall Street Journal’s write-up. Romney “said Wednesday that as president, he would direct Congress to make up lost revenue from the rate cuts by limiting deductions, mostly for wealthier Americans. Mr. Romney and his aides didn’t say which deductions would be targeted.”
Ah! There it is. Deductions? We’ll figure those out later. Listen, I have a new fiscal plan for the Tomasky household that I am announcing today. I’m going to go half-time at the Beast and quit doing all my other work, thereby reducing my income by well more than half. But circumstances dictate that I also need to buy a new car, and a nice car, a Lexus, because this household needs a husband/father who isn’t ashamed to be a Tomasky and is prepared for the future because the roads can get awfully dangerous out there in Montgomery County. How will I pay for it, you ask? Well, first of all, you’re a freedom-hater for even asking the question, and second, I’ll simply cut all other household spending to the bone. I’ll end up revenue neutral, I swear.
Romney’s plan is literally about that serious. He won’t announce which deductions because it’s really hard to go after deductions, and because there is probably not enough money there anyway to make up for the lost revenue. But trust him, it’ll all work out.
And here’s a curious thing. Romney commits a grave error, from the right-wing point of view, in even acknowledging that there is lost revenue. If he’d gone to the Mitch McConnell School of Economics he’d know that cutting tax rates increases revenue. So the really interesting question here is: Why does Romney even bother to acknowledge that there will be lost revenue that will need to be made up?
He acknowledges it because some small but quickly vaporizing part of the man still retains some attenuated grasp of fiscal reality. So rather than tell the balls-out, red-meat lie that reduced rates will raise more revenue, he tells the squishy and weasely lie that he’ll take care of the imbalance at a future unspecified date in some future unspecified way. And that, my friends, is Romney to the core. He thinks he can finesse everything, that he’s much cleverer than he is, that somehow people won’t notice. But no one’s buying his line about the bailout. It’s patent nonsense, and Steve Rattner just demolished it on the Times op-ed page today. Romney also looks a little graceless, by the way, saying that he drives the Mustang and the GM pickup, while his wife drives the Cadillacs, plural. The way he added that after a pause, it reminded me of John McCain not remembering how many houses he owned. But Romney remembers. He just thinks he can bluff it.
He makes me really wonder about the private sector in this country. Did he earn all those millions behaving this way, telling people what they wanted to hear, then maybe doing something else entirely, then saying to them that that was his plan all along, then jovially throwing a colleague under the bus? Don’t answer that question.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, February 25, 2012
“Everyday Mitt”: A Few Of Mitt Romney’s Favorite Things
Mitt Romney Visits Michigan
“I love this state. It seems right here. The trees are the right height. I like seeing the lakes. I love the lakes. There’s something very special here. The Great Lakes, but also all the little inland lakes that dot the parts of Michigan. I love cars. I dunno, I mean, I grew up totally in love with cars.”
—Mitt Romney, February 16, 2012
Mitt Romney Visits Arizona
“I love this state, too. It seems right here. Even more right than Michigan. The heat is the right temperature. The spines on the cacti are just the right sharpness. I like drought. I enjoy canyons. I grew up totally in love with canyons. There were pictures of canyons on my bedroom wall. I also love mountains.”
Mitt Romney Visits the Dentist
“I love this place. I love drills and fillings. I love plaque, and also the removal of plaque. I like teeth that are inside the mouth, but I also like teeth that are outside the mouth. I grew up totally in love with novocaine. I’m addicted to novocaine. I wish I could go to the dentist every day, and get a shot of novocaine. My dentist is just the right height. He’s also approximately the right width.”
Mitt Romney Visits the Bathroom in the Coach Section of a Commercial Airplane
“I am absolutely in love with this place. The toilet is just the right size. I love cramped spaces that smell like human waste. I’m totally in love with used paper towels. I like it when other passengers flush the toilet, but I also like it when they don’t.”
Mitt Romney Visits a Department of Motor Vehicles
“I love this place, so much. The lines are just the right length. Not too short. I hate short lines. I love how this place hearkens back to a simpler time in our history, before we knew how to efficiently process people through a system that could very easily be automated. I grew up in love with civil servants struggling to perform simple tasks. There’s something very special in here. The eye charts. I love eye charts.”
Mitt Romney Visits Rick Santorum’s House
“I really love this place. I love tiny houses that only cost one or two million dollars. I grew up in a bedroom about the size of three of these houses. I love the domestic staff that works inside a house, but also the staff that works outside a house. Where is all the staff? I don’t see them. I think this house is terrific, especially given the size of Rick Santorum. I think he is the perfect depth.”
By: Jeremy Blackman, The New Republic, February 24, 2012
Mitt Romney”s “Anti-Immigrant Extremist” Friends: The Worst Kind Of Company One Could Keep
Mitt Romney’s endorsement sheet is beginning to read like a who’s-who of tough talk, anti-immigrant extremists: Former California Governor Pete Wilson, Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeau, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the architect of immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia, have all signed on to his campaign. Unfortunately for Romney, these names alone have the potential to embolden the very community they seek to disempower.
Until this week, Romney was boasting the endorsement of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau, a co-chair of his Arizona campaign. Babeau came to national attention after starring in John McCain’s 2010 “Complete the Dang Fence” ad, part of McCain’s effort to fend off a right-wing primary challenger. Babeau went on to become a frequenter commentator on Fox News. He’s even running for Congress. Then, last week, the Phoenix New Times revealed that Babeau had maintained a multi-year relationship with a Mexican immigrant who he allegedly threatened with deportation if any details of their relationship were to become public. Babeau swiftly stepped down as co-chair of Romney’s Arizona campaign, leaving some big shoes to fill.
Enter America’s self-proclaimed “Toughest Sheriff,” Joe Arpaio. Sheriff Joe, who the Department of Justice recently accused of systematically profiling and abusing Latinos, is busy lining up presidential hopefuls to kiss his ring. On February 13th, Arpaio took to Twitter to announce that he’d received a call from Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich seeking his endorsement. “Nice surprise and what a gentleman he really is,” Arpaio wrote. Then on February 18th he gave a shout out to yet another suitor, tweeting, ”Big week ahead, I’ll be meeting another presidential candidate.” Arpaio doesn’t exactly have a Midas touch— he’s endorsed the failed campaigns of former U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, and Republican drop-out Rick Perry. But polls find that over 30 percent of Republican primary voters are more likely to vote for a candidate if he boasts Arpaio’s endorsement.
Ever the desperate salesman, Mitt Romney continues to trade Latino general election votes for the votes of his primary’s fringe electorate. No one should understand this trade-off better than Pete Wilson, a godfather of the anti-immigrant movement. In 1994, then-Governor Wilson led the fight for Proposition 187, the “Save Our State” initiative, which would have barred undocumented immigrants from access to social services like health care and public education. But then the effort boomeranged: the Republican push for Prop 187 galvanized the state’s Latinos, inspiring drives for naturalization and voter registration and turnout that turned Reagan’s state into a Democratic stronghold. In a general election, Pete Wilson doesn’t have enough fans to offset the potential cost of his endorsement. Ask Meg Whitman. She flaunted Wilson as chairman for her 2010 gubernatorial campaign as a way to build conservative credibility in a tough primary. Then she spent the general election unsuccessfully trying to distance herself from Wilson when he became a liability with Latino and independent voters. That’s of no immediate concern to Romney. Facing a primary that just won’t end, he’ll do what it takes to get some of California’s proportional delegates, no matter the cost.
If Romney’s other endorsements are any indication, there can be no doubt that he’d gladly swap general election Latino votes for 32 percent of Republican primary voters, even in a state where he has no real competition. Democrats are already portraying Romney as having two faces: wooing Latino voters out of one side of his mouth and courting anti-immigrant champions out of the other. In advance of last month’s Florida primary, the Romney campaign aired Spanish-language spots aimed at Hispanic voters, while in South Carolina he touted the endorsement of Kobach. Immigration advocates decried the hypocrisy. The problem is that Romney doesn’t see himself that way because he misunderstands the Latino community. Romney believes that he can call the DREAM Act a “handout” and sell Draconian immigration laws to those of us who are citizens by telling us that they only affect those of us who are not. He claims that he’s pro-legal immigration, just anti-illegal immigration, as though that clarifies the issue. What Romney doesn’t realize is that even those Latinos who are American-born or naturalized citizens often come from mixed-status families, learn in mixed-status classrooms, and live in mixed-status communities. For us, the “undocumented” aren’t anonymous; they are people we know and love. For us, the Wilsons, Babeaus, Arpaios and Kobachs of the world aren’t brave problem solvers. They are simply put, the worst kind of company one could keep.
By: Alicia Menendez, Contributing Writer, NBCLatino, February 21, 2012
“Warning, Warning”: Mitt Romney Is Out of Flops on Abortion
Lots of politicians, and quite a few presidential candidates, have changed their minds on abortion. This is partly because, in its broadest terms, it is a weighty, complex issue with a legitimate case to be made on both sides, even if one side has a stronger case (I’m not talking here about subsidiary issues like parental consent or the despicable laws requiring women to get ultrasounds or anything like that, just the basic question of whether abortion is right or wrong). It’s also because in recent years, both parties have tolerated less and less deviation on the issue, particularly in anyone who wants to be their presidential nominee. There are still a few pro-life Democrats (like Harry Reid) and pro-choice Republicans (like Olympia Snowe), but the days when someone could hope to get on a national ticket without toeing the line on abortion are gone.
So if you’ve been around a while, there’s a chance you held one belief in your early years, but then moved to align with your party later on. This is what happened, for instance, to George H.W. Bush (a great advocate of reproductive rights in his early years as a member of Congress) and Al Gore (who started off his career pro-life). Chances are most people don’t even know that about Bush or Gore, but people sure do know that Mitt Romney changed his views on abortion. Why? A few reasons.
First, it happened very recently—over a period between 2004 and 2005, when he was moving toward his first run for president. Second, there’s lots of video of Romney loudly declaring his pro-choice position and promising to be a vigilant guardian of a woman’s right to choose. Third, he has flipped on a lot of things, so the abortion change fits in with a broader impression of Romney as opportunistic and unprincipled. And finally, Romney has never offered an explanation of why he changed that Republican voters find persuasive.
So today, Will Saletan offers a long, exhaustive story about Romney’s history with abortion, documenting every movement on the issue over Romney’s career, and all the ways (many of them shamelessly dishonest) that he has tried to justify those movements:
When you see the story in its full context, three things become clear. First, this was no flip-flop. Romney is a man with many facets, groping his way through a series of fluid positions on an array of difficult issues. His journey isn’t complete. It never will be. Second, for Romney, abortion was never really a policy question. He didn’t want to change the law. What he wanted to change was his identity. And third, the malleability at Romney’s core is as much about his past as about his future. Again and again, he has struggled to make sense not just of what he should do, but of who he has been. The problem with Romney isn’t that he keeps changing his mind. The problem is that he keeps changing his story.
Saletan paints Romney’s history of changes on abortion like everything else about Romney: careful, methodical, planned, full of rewritings of the past, and utterly devoid of any discernible principle or genuine sentiment.
If he gets elected, though, will Romney be different in any meaningful way from a candidate who had been anti-abortion all his or her life? Let’s look at what he’ll actually do. He’ll instantly reinstate the Mexico City Policy that bans U.S. support for any group that even suggests abortion overseas, pushing that pendulum back to the Republican side. He’ll sign any legislation Congress might come up with restricting reproductive rights. And perhaps most importantly, he’ll appoint to federal courts, and to the Supreme Court, judges who want to overturn Roe v. Wade. If Romney were elected and one of the five justices who currently support Roe (Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor) retires or dies, he will absolutely, positively appoint a successor who is ready to overturn Roe.
Because he doesn’t have much choice, whatever he believes deep down. He has to dance with the one who brung him, and the Republican party will simply not tolerate anything less. Republicans may fear that he’ll get to the White House and suddenly shift back to being pro-choice, but that simply isn’t going to happen. Try to imagine the category-5 shitstorm that would result if a President Romney nominated someone to the Supreme Court that Republicans felt was a less-than-reliable vote to overturn Roe. If he was in his first term, he’d immediately get primary challengers. If he was in his second term, they’d try to impeach him. Even if most Americans don’t want to overturn Roe, the political cost of another shift for Romney would just be too high. And it’s hard to argue that for him, there’s any other calculation to be made.
By: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, February 22, 2012
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