“Handsome Swindler”: Romney’s Eerie Post-Flip-Flop Consistency
When Mitt Romney decided to get Republican ideological-purity cautionary tale and non-witch Christine O’Donnell to announce her endorsement of him, he was probably thinking about how useful it would be to have the support of another staunch conservative. He may not have been thinking about some of the secondary issues involved in this plan, such as the fact that it would require O’Donnell to talk, which would involve her saying awkward things like, “he’s been consistent since he changed his mind.”
The line actually gets to the nub of the conservative question on Romney. Since he changed his mind, he has indeed been dogmatically consistent. (In contrast to Newt Gingrich.) But why?
One of the most revealing stories I’ve seen on Romney was written by Jonathan Weisman last month in The Wall Street Journal. In it, Weisman chronicles the degree to which Romney simply flipped a switch in 2005, deciding virtually overnight to stop courting moderates and liberals he needed to get elected in Massachusetts and to start courting the right. The switch occurred across the board, on social as well as economic issues:
A gun-rights lobbyist, Jim Wallace, found himself battling the governor over firearms fees and hunters’ priorities. A low point for Mr. Wallace came one day in July 2004 when Gov. Romney was set to sign a bill that banned assault weapons but that also had some provisions gun-rights groups liked. Mr. Wallace had an invitation to speak at the signing ceremony.
At the last minute, a gun-control activist, Jon Rosenthal, got an invitation too. Not only that, but as Mr. Rosenthal rushed into the news conference, he says he saw Romney aides pulling up the name tags taped to the floor that showed where each guest was to stand —tearing up the paper with Mr. Wallace’s name and replacing it with one bearing his own name. The gun-control advocate was placed close to the governor and got the speaking slot that Mr. Wallace, the gun-rights lobbyist, had expected.
Yet in the following year, 2005, both sides on the gun issue noticed a change.
In May of that year, Mr. Romney declared a “Right to Bear Arms Day.” Mr. Wallace’s group, the Gun Owners’ Action League, began having nearly monthly meetings with the governor’s top aides, he says. Mr. Romney signed legislation cutting some red tape detested by gun owners in November 2005, and less than a year later he became a lifetime member of the N.R.A.
The positive interpretation of this narrative, if you’re a conservative, is that Romney will stay bought — he decided to ingratiate himself with the right, and he needs to retain the right’s support to accomplish anything. That’s more or less the argument Ramesh Ponnuru made in his National Review cover story endorsing him. The negative interpretation is that Romney is essentially running a con, though it’s impossible to tell if he was conning Massachusetts then or is conning Republicans now. (My guess, based on Romney’s admiration for his moderate father, is that he’s conning conservatives now, but I can’t really be certain.) When you’re running a con, of course you stay consistent – you have to keep up the front, no matter what.
The robotic consistency of Romney’s newfound conservatism does contrast sharply with Gingrich, who lurches between hysterical right-wing paranoia and bouts of bipartisanship. And yet the erratic character of Gingrich’s swings suggests that they’re unplanned, and thus that they spring from actual conviction, albeit momentary convictions. Gingrich actually believes what he is advocating at the moment he is advocating it. Nobody can plausibly say the same of Romney.
Romney is the handsome swindler who plots to win your mother’s heart and make off with her fortune. Gingrich is like the husband who periodically gets drunk and runs off to spend a week with a stripper in a low-rent motel but always comes home in the end. Which one would you rather see your mother marry?
By: Jonathan Chait, Daily Intel, December 14, 2011
“Newtonian Self-Aggrandizement”: Newt’s Nastiness Comes Back To Haunt Him
The campaign of Mitt Romney, the Rip van Winkle of presidential politics, finally awakenedthis week with a savage counterattack against Newt Gingrich, the man who against all odds is threatening to wrest the Republican nomination from Romney.
In a conference call Thursday sponsored by Romney’s campaign, two surrogates of the former Massachusetts governor let fly with a barrage against Gingrich that was shockingly harsh even by today’s caustic standards.
“For Newt Gingrich, in an effort of self-aggrandizement, to come out and throw a clever phrase that has no other purpose than to make him sound a little smarter than the conservative Republican leadership,” said former White House chief of staff John Sununu, “is the most self-serving, anti-conservative thing one can imagine happening . . . just the latest in a pattern of anti-principled actions that really irritated his own leadership and produced 88 percent of the Republicans in Congress voting for his reprimand.”
“He’s not a reliable or trustworthy leader,” former Missouri senator Jim Talent said of Gingrich’s labeling the House Republican budget a “radical” proposition. He “says and does those kinds of things because he’s not reliable as a leader.”
Self-serving. Self-aggrandizing. Anti-conservative. Anti-principled. Hints of corruption, hypocrisy and bizarre and destructive behavior. These were brutal descriptions, and yet there was something poetic about the belated Romney assault on Gingrich. The attacks were terms were popularized by Gingrich himself in his rise to power.
Nearly two decades ago, Gingrich’s political action committee, with the help of GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz, issued a now-famous memo telling Republican candidates which words they should use to describe their opponents. Among them: “anti,” “betray,” “bizarre,” “corrupt,” “destructive,” “disgrace,” “shame,” “lie,” “pathetic,” “radical,” “self-serving,” “selfish,” “shallow,” “shame,” “sick,” “traitors.”
“These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast,” this Gingrich-endorsed memo explained. “Remember that creating a difference helps you. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.”
With that memo, and with the slashing style of politics that brought Republicans to power in the House for the first time in generations, Gingrich did more than anybody else to set the tone in Washington. Now, in a form of rough justice, the savagery has come full circle and is being used against its sponsor.
Romney and his surrogates — many of whom served under Gingrich in the House — are portraying Gingrich as erratic, unreliable, hypocritical and a betrayer of friends and principles. They are contrasting that with Romney, a “leader” and champion of “reform” — terms that Gingrich’s memo, based on focus-group research, coached Republicans to use to define themselves.
Gingrich has followed his own philosophy over the years, making an art of name-calling. He once said that Democrats created a “sick society” and were the “enemy of normal Americans.” Democratic congressional leaders were “sick” and had a “Mussolini-like ego” that led them “to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions.”
He called the Clintons “counterculture McGovernicks.” More recently, he accused President Obama of having a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview and called him “the most serious, radical threat to traditional America ever to occupy the White House.” Gingrich said schools should use children as laborers instead of “unionized” janitors — all phrases rich in the “contrasts” that Gingrich’s team advocated in the 1990s.
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones recently dug up a 1978 Gingrich quotation lamenting that “one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty.”
Thanks to Gingrich, this is no longer a problem, in either party. Embracing Newtonian Nastiness, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) called Gingrich “too erratic,” “too self-centered” and lacking “the capacity to control himself.” Former congressman Guy Molinari (R-N.Y.) called Gingrich “evil” and the prospect of him becoming president “appalling.”
Then came the Romney-hosted teleconference.
Gingrich “says outrageous things that come from nowhere, and he has a tendency to say them at exactly the time when they most undermine the conservative agenda,” Talent reported.
Gingrich “is more concerned about Newt Gingrich than he is about conservative principle,” Sununu contributed. The “off-the-cuff thinking . . . is not what you want in the commander in chief.”
Now, Gingrich said he doesn’t want to be “the attack dog in the Republican Party.” But it’s a bit late for purity. He’s Newt Gingrich, and he approved this message.
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, December 9, 2011
“Call Me Crazy” Jon Huntsman: What A Primary Can Do To A Candidate
Remember when Jon Huntsman, the so-called moderate of the Republican presidential field, was saying sensible things about climate change? Well, forget it.
Jon Huntsman attended a packed blogger sit down at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro attended, pressing the GOP presidential candidate about his position on climate change.
In August, Huntsman acknowledged the broad body of science pointing to climate change. Seated at an elite conservative think tank, however, Huntsman played a different tune, saying climate scientists “owe us more” information before we can decide if climate change is real.
“I think there’s probably more debate to be played out within the scientific community,” he said.
For those who haven’t been following him closely, it’s important to realize that Huntsman was not only a voice of sanity on climate change; he actually seemed to take some pride in using the issue to differentiate himself from his Republican rivals. The former governor used to even support cap and trade.
Asked about climate change in May, Huntsman said, “All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them.”
Responding to Rick Perry in August, Huntsman said, “The minute that the Republican Party becomes the anti-science party, we have a huge problem…. When we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.”
Around the same time, Huntsman boasted, “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”
What was “crazy” was thinking Huntsman could thrive in national Republican politics saying sane things about science. Now that the pressure’s on, he’s pulling a Romney, abandoning what he knows to be true, and desperately trying to tell his party’s right-wing base what it wants to hear.
By: Steve Benen, Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 6, 2011
Gingrich Presidential Run Inspires Fear And Loathing In Top GOP Circles
Sure, Newt Gingrich is surging in the polls. But the blunt truth about Newt is that the people who know him best and have worked with him in Washington want him nowhere near the White House or the top of the GOP ticket — and in the end, that’s likely to doom his chances.
Check out the new National Journal “Insiders” survey out this morning, whichi s particularly devastating to the disgraced former Speaker. This is from a regular panel of well-connected Republican operatives. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so savage by these folks against a same-party politician:
“Winning the presidency is all about discipline, focus, and organization,” said one Republican Insider, “none of which are strong suits for Gingrich.”
“With Newt, we go to bed every night thinking that tomorrow might be the day he implodes,” said another Republican. “Not good for our confidence – or fundraising.” A third Republican stated plainly, “Gingrich is not stable enough emotionally to be the nominee — let alone, the president.”
“Bigfoot dressed as a circus clown would have a better chance of beating President Obama than Newt Gingrich, a similarly farcical character,” quipped a Republican.
“Come on,” sighed another GOP Insider, “the White House is probably giving money to Gingrich as we speak.”
What’s a bit unusual about Gingrich is that there probably is a sharp split between how Washington-connected party actors and those farther outside of Washington or with weaker connections to the national party network feel about him. That’s because he’s been out of office for over a decade, and has been treated as a campaign curiosity until very recently. So there’s been no reason for vetting information to spread from those who worked with him while he was in office to local activists, operatives, and politicians, many of whom weren’t even around when Newt resigned in 1998.
For them, the natural inclination is to assume the best about big-name Republicans, and to treat any negative stories about them as the usual garbage from the liberal media. That will change once they start hearing national conservative leaders calling Newt a “farcical character” and questioning his conservative bone fides, as Club For Growth’s Chris Chocola and others did in the Washington Post article on Newt’s policy positions this morning.
As more party actors hear negative things about Gingrich from sources they trust, they’ll quickly lose what little enthusiasm they currently have for him. After that, it will almost certainly filter down to rank-and-file voters. The Newt moment just is not likely to last very long. Too many top conservatives just want nothing to do with the guy. And for good reason.
By: Jonathan Bernstein, The Washington Post, December 2, 2011
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