Mitt Romney’s New Problem: A Rising Sun
Mitt Romney was on the campaign trail in South Carolina yesterday, and brought up the issue he expects to ride into the White House: the U.S. economy. Unfortunately for the former governor, the message isn’t quite the same as it was a few months ago.
In his remarks [Friday], Romney also acknowledged the economy was getting better — something he has said before….
“And [President Obama]’s going to say the economy is getting better,” Romney said. “Thank heavens it’s getting better. It’s getting better not because of him, it’s in spite of him and what he’s done.”
For those keeping track, Romney said twice in three sentences that he believes the economy is “getting better.”
I’ve noticed over the last week, this keeps coming up. Shortly before the New Hampshire primary, Romney said he’s “glad” the economy is improving, but quickly added that President Obama “doesn’t deserve” credit. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Romney also said the economy is recovering, but said “this president has not helped it.”
And in a debate for the Republican presidential candidates last weekend, Romney made his case this way:
“The president is going to try to take responsibility for things getting better. It’s like the rooster trying to take responsibility for the sun rising. He didn’t do it.”
I believe campaign professionals call this a “losing argument.”
Look, I don’t know whether the recovery will strengthen in 2012. The recent evidence has been mixed; experts’ projections vary widely; and the global threats to the economy remain real and hard to predict. There is, however, room for some optimism and Romney himself believes, in his words, economic conditions are “getting better.”
But as a campaign matter, if Romney is right about a strengthening recovery, he has to realize he’s going to lose. For the entirety of 2011, the former governor had a single message he repeated ad nauseum: Obama made a bad economy worse. It wasn’t true, but so long as the recovery was largely invisible, it was a message that could fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.
Two weeks into 2012, Romney has a new message: don’t give Obama credit for making the economy better. In effect, the Republican is arguing, “Sure, Obama inherited a deep recession. And sure, he took a bunch of steps to turn the economy around. And sure, we’re now seeing more jobs being created and more economic growth. But vote against him anyway.”
This isn’t just a tough sell; it’s an impossible one.
Look again at what Romney said in last weekend’s debate: “The president is going to try to take responsibility for things getting better. It’s like the rooster trying to take responsibility for the sun rising.”
By Romney’s own reasoning, the sun is rising and it’s morning in America. As Jon Chait put it, “This seems like a shockingly weak line — if you concede that it’s morning, you’ve lost the argument.”
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly, Political Animal, January 14, 012
Mitt vs. Newt Won’t Be Like Hillary vs. Barack
The 2012 Republican primary probably won’t be much like the 2008 Democratic primary, but Mitt Romney’s campaign is organizing just in case the nomination fight against Newt Gingrich lasts all the way into the spring. The New York Times‘ Trip Gabriel and Jeff Zeleny report that if neither Romney or Gingrich have decisive victories in the early voting states, “Gingrich could be faced with the ultimate challenge to his campaign: the need to survive a war of attrition of the sort for which he is unprepared at the moment.” Romney’s organized in Alabama, Indiana, Delaware, and lots of other later-voting states, while Gingrich’s campaign didn’t file the paperwork in time to get on the Missouri caucus ballot. The Washington Post‘s Philip Rucker, too, reports that Gingrich’s campaign is trying to create a huge organization in just a couple weeks, with staffers sending all-caps emergency emails to Republicans in Ohio to get enough signatures to get on that state’s ballot. Ohio votes in March, though, and it doesn’t seem likely that both guys will be around by then. Not only does Gingrich not have the organization of Obama, he doesn’t have the message Republicans want to hear or an army of new voters to help him win in late-voting states.
The establishment candidate is also the organized candidate
Outsider Obama outmaneuvered frontrunner Clinton by organizing in late-voting states, and by having a strong organization in the Iowa caucuses. But this year, the well-organized candidate is also the establishment choice: Romney. Obama’s surprise victory in Iowa was thanks to his organization — really important for Democrats, as Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist for George W. Bush in 2004, explains at ABC News. But that organization isn’t important for Republicans in the state, he says. The Democratic caucus “involves meeting certain mandated thresholds, convening in groups at each caucus, reconvening, and using various mathematical equations that are instrumental to choosing a winner,” Dowd writes, but Republicans just show up and vote, and then those votes are counted. That means enthusiasm matters as much as organization.
The Post reports that Gingrich has hired Bush veteran Gordon C. James to build his organization, saying, “I’m just banking on 33 years with the Bush family and all those friends I’ve made to help us do that.” But while James might have a lot of friends, Gingrich has a ton of enemies. Sen. Tom Coburn, who was first elected in 1994 — Gingrich’s Republican Revolution — said on Fox News Sunday that he wasn’t “inclined” to support Gingrich. Coburn explained, “There’s all types of leaders. Leaders that instill confidence, leaders that are somewhat abrupt and brisk. Leaders that have one standard for the people that they’re leading and a different standard for themselves. I just found his leadership lacking.”
Obama’s secret weapon was young people, Gingrich’s is old people
Obama was able to bring in new voters outside of the traditional groups that lined up behind Clinton: young people. But Gingrich’s “secret weapon,” as Talking Points Memo’s Benjy Sarlin put it, is old people. Enthusiasm for Gingrich is not among insurgent activists, but seniors.
Gingrich will have a hard time attacking Romney on health care
Another problem Gingrich will have in sustaining the enthusiasm of the piss-off Republican party base is that he’s weak on the issue they care about most. Obama had the advantage of a record of being against the Iraq war early on, which appealed to Democrats frustrated by eight years of the Bush administration, while Clinton had voted to authorize the war in 2002. Clinton was seen as much more hawkish. But Gingrich can’t make a similar contrast Romney, because in the 1990s he endorsed the part of Obama’s health care overhaul — the individual mandate — that Republicans hate the most.
Obama had a disciplined campaign, Gingrich doesn’t
Obama’s campaign valued loyalty — and no leaking to the press. Obama strategist David Axelrod even told Politico, “There are no assholes. There are going to be no assholes on this campaign.” That helped limit stories about internal bickering that plagued Clinton’s campaign. By contrast, Gingrich’s campaign staff quit on him this summer, and then proceeded to talk mad smack about him in the press for days.
A long primary gave Obama a lot of time to introduce himself to people who’d never heard of him, while a long primary gives Gingrich a chance to remind people why he was run out of town in 1998
A four- or five-month long process means there’d be lots of time to rehash the Gingrich years: impeachment, ethics probe, marriages, the government shutdown. And a long nomination fight means Gingrich will have more opportunities to indulge in one of his weaknesses — saying things that make Republicans really mad. Gingrich famously called a Republican plan to overhaul Medicare “right-wing social engineering,” and it nearly killed his campaign. In the last couple weeks, Gingrich has already floated amnesty for some illegal immigrants and ending child labor laws.
By: Elspeth Reeve, The Atlantic Wire, December 5, 2011
Five Reasons The Occupy Wall Street Movement Really Frightens The Right
The Occupy Wall Street movement really frightens the Right Wing. It is not frightening to the Right because of Congressman Eric Cantor’s feigned fear of “the mob” that is “occupying our cities.” It is not frightening because anyone is really worried that Glenn Beck is correct when he predicts that the protesters will “come for you, drag you into the street, and kill you.”
That’s not why they are really frightened — that’s the Right trying to frighten everyday Americans.
There are five reasons why the Right is in fact frightened by the Occupy Wall Street movement. None of them have to do with physical violence — they have to do with politics. They’re not really worried about ending up like Marie Antoinette. But they are very worried that their electoral heads may roll.
All elections are decided by two groups of people:
Persuadable voters who always vote, but are undecided switch hitters. This group includes lots of political independents.
Mobilizable voters who would vote for one Party or the other, but have to be motivated to vote.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement is so frightening to the Right because it may directly affect the behavior of those two groups of voters in the upcoming election.
1). The narrative
People in America are very unhappy with their economic circumstances. As a result the outcome of the 2012 election will hinge heavily on who gets the blame for the horrible economy — and who the public believes, or hopes — can lead them into better economic times.
Political narratives are the stories people use to understand the political world. Like all stories, they define a protagonist and antagonist. And political narratives generally ascribe to those central characters moral qualities — right and wrong.
For several years, the Tea Party-driven narrative has been in the ascendance to explain America’s economic woes. Its vision of the elites in government versus hard-working freedom-loving people has heavily defined the national political debate.
Of course at first glance it’s an easy case for them to make. The President, who is the head of the over-powerful, “dysfunctional” government, is in charge. Things aren’t going well — so he, and the government he runs, must be at fault.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has helped force the alternative narrative into the media and public consciousness. The recklessness and greed of the big Wall Street banks, CEO’s and top one percent — those are the culprits who sunk the economy and who have siphoned off all of the economic growth from the middle class. They and their enablers in Congress — largely Republicans — are the problem. To address the underlying economic crisis facing everyday Americans we must rein in their power.
This narrative is very compelling and, of course, it is true. It’s not that many voices haven’t framed the debate in these terms for years. But by creating a must- cover story, the Occupy Wall Street movement has forced it onto the daily media agenda. That is great news for Progressives. The longer it continues, the better.
Right Wing pundits have disparaged the Occupy Wall Street movement for not having specific “policy proposals” — but the Right knows better. The Occupy Wall Street movement is advocating something much more fundamental. It is demanding a change in the relations of power — reining in the power of Wall Street, millionaires and billionaires – the CEO class as a whole. It is demanding that everyday Americans — the 99% — share in the increases in their productivity and have more real control of their futures — both individually and as a society. Now that’s something for the Right to worry about.
2). Inside-Outside
Especially in periods when people are unhappy, the political high ground is defined by who voters perceive to be elite insiders and who they perceive to be populist outsiders. Who among the political leaders and political forces are actually agents of change?
In 2008, Barak Obama won that battle hands down. The Tea Party Movement muddied the water. It portrayed themselves as “don’t tread on me” populist outsiders doing battle with President Obama the elite, liberal insider.
Of course this ignores that the Tea Party was in many ways bought and paid for by huge corporate interests — but in the public mind it was a very compelling image.
The Right Wing has always had its own version of “class conflict.” Its “ruling class” is defined as the elite, intellectuals, bureaucrats, entertainers and academics that are out to destroy traditional values and undermine the well-being of ordinary Americans.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, coupled with the movements in Wisconsin and Ohio earlier this year, present an entirely different — and accurate — picture of who is on the inside and who is not.
3). Momentum
Politics is very much about momentum. Human beings are herding creatures — they travel in packs. People like to go with the flow. Whether in election campaigns, or legislative proposals, or social movements, or football games — the team with the momentum is much more likely to win.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has put the progressive forces in society on the offense — it has begun to build progressive momentum.
4). Movement
The Occupy Wall Street movement has managed to turn itself into a real “movement.” Movements don’t involve your normal run-of-the-mill organizing. Normally organizers have to worry about turning out people — or voters — one person or one group at a time. Not so with movements.
Movements go viral. They involve spontaneous chain reactions. One person engages another person, who engages another and so on. Like nuclear chain reactions, movements reach critical mass and explode.
That’s what makes them so potentially powerful — and so dangerous to their opposition.
Often movements are sparked by unexpected precipitating events — like the death of the fruit stand vendor in Tunisia that set off the Arab Spring. Sometimes they build around the determined effort of a few until that critical mass is reached.
In all cases movements explode because the tinder is dry and one unexpected spark can set off a wild fire.
Movements mobilize enormous resources — individual effort, money, person power – by motivating people to take spontaneous action.
The Occupy Wall Street movement in New York has spread to scores of cities — and the fire shows no sign of flaming out. It will fuel the engagement and remobilization of thousands of progressive activists and volunteers who had been demobilized and demoralized, but the sausage-making of the DC legislative process. That is a huge problem for the right that was counting on despondency and lethargy among progressives to allow them to consolidate their hold on political power in 2012.
5). Inspiration
More than anything else, in order to mount a counter-offensive against the Right wing next year, Progressives need to re-inspire our base. We need to re-inspire young people and all of the massive corps of volunteers who powered the victory in 2008.
Inspiration is critical to mobilization. It is also critical to persuasion. Swing voters want leaders who inspire them.
Inspiration is not about what people think — it’s about what they feel about themselves. When you’re inspired you feel empowered. You feel that you are part of something bigger than yourself, and that you — yourself — can play a significant role in achieving that larger goal.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has begun to inspire people all over America. That’s because people are inspired by example. They themselves are inspired if they see others standing up for themselves — speaking truth to power — standing up in the face of strong, entrenched opposition. People are inspired by heroic acts — by commitment — by people who say they are so committed that they will stay in a park next to Wall Street until they make change. That’s what happened in Egypt and Tunisia. That’s what happened in Wisconsin this spring.
The legacy of the Occupy Wall Street movement could very well be the re-inspiration of tens of thousands of Progressives — and the engagement of young people that are so important to the future of the progressive movement in America.
Right-wingers will plant provocateurs in an attempt to stigmatize the Occupy Wall Street movement with violence — to make it look frightening. But if the Movement continues with the kind of single-minded purpose and commitment that we have seen so far, the Occupy Wall Street movement may very well make history. It has already become an enormous progressive asset as America approaches the critical crossroad election that could determine whether the next American generation experiences the American Dream or simply reads about it in their history books.
By: Robert Creamer, Published in Huff Post Politics, October 12, 2011
The Tea Party Chronicles
Raising Cain
Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza is rolling in dough and rising in the polls. A new national survey of primary voters by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News has the Hermanator in first place ahead of Mitt Romney and all the other Tea Party types. The question is whether working families will support Cain’s plan for a national sales tax to pay for lower taxes for bankers and billionaires? I don’t think so.
Don’t Know Much about History
The Tea Party takes its name from the Americans who dumped British tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation in 1773. The Tea Partyers profess great reverence for the founders but the Tea Party candidates are clueless about the founding of our nation. Tuesday Rick Perry placed the American Revolution in the 16th century which would have given our founders only a few years to get things rolling after Columbus came to town. Previously, Michele Bachmann described the founders as abolitionists, a portrayal which would have greatly surprised the hundreds of slaves owned by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. By the way, Representative Bachmann, the Boston Tea Party, like the battles of Lexington and Concord, was in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.
Greed is Good
Greed is good should be the motto for the Party of Tea, the party formerly known as the GOP. Tuesday, Every POT member of the United States Senate opposed the president’s proposal to reduce payroll taxes and provide tax breaks for small businesses which hire people without jobs. Why did the POT spit the bit on the issue that Americans care most about? Because Democrats would pay for the tax cuts for working families and small businesses by making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. Greed is good for the Tea Partyers and their billionaire buddies who bankroll their big budget campaigns. Because the POT blocks action in Washington on jobs, thousands of Americans occupy Wall Street and streets across the country to protest corporate greed. Will the numerical advantage that the 99 percent have triumph over the money muscle of the 1 percent. Yes, it will.
ObamaCares
Time magazine released a new national survey yesterday that shows Barack Obama beating all his POT challengers. The secret of the president’s success is Obama’s caring. A clear majority (57 percent) of likely voters believe that Barack Obama cares about the problems of people like themselves. It’s not surprising that Americans feel that the president cares about them when the Party of Tea goes out of its way to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits for seniors but fights to the death to protect federal tax freebies for bankers, billionaires, hedge fund managers, and corporate jet setters.
It’s about Time
The same Time magazine national survey indicates that two of every three Americans believe the rich should pay more taxes. Which explains why more than half (54 percent) of the likely voters have a favorable opinion of the protesters against corporate greed while only one of four people (27 percent) have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party. The Tea Party has been replaced by the new kid on the block. Far be it for me to give advice to Republicans but they better quickly take back their party from the extremists before voters dump the old GOP into the harbor with the Tea Party.
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, October 13, 2011
How Dare Cheney Criticize Obama For Taking Out A Terrorist
By near-universal account of those who condemn terrorism, the killing of jihadist Anwar al-Awlaki was a good thing. This was a man believed to be behind the attempted Christmas Day, 2009 bombing of a U.S. aircraft over American soil. It was a man U.S. officials say was trying to blow up American cargo planes by putting explosives into the packages on the planes, a man believed to have been hatching plans to poison fellow Americans.
Al-Awlaki was killed last week in Yemen in a drone strike, not only ridding the world of a dangerous terrorist, but depriving al-Qaeda of a powerful recruiter.
And Dick Cheney wants President Obama to apologize for it.
The irrepressible former vice president sees the killing as justified, to be sure. He’s just mad because he thinks Obama is hypocritical for criticizing what the Bush administration, in almost comically euphemistic terms, described as “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on imprisoned al Qaeda suspects. As Cheney told CNN’s State of the Union:
They’ve agreed they need to be tough and aggressive in defending the nation and using some of the same techniques that the Bush administration did. And they need, as I say, to go back and reconsider some of the criticisms they offered about our policies.
The self-centeredness of the comment is astonishing. A key al-Qaeda subject is killed, and Cheney is thinking about what it means for the reputation of the previous administration? If we’re demanding apologies here, why not demand apologies from the people who are screaming about the budget deficit now after voting for laws and wars that vastly increased the budget deficit? And the al-Awlaki killing doesn’t have anything to do with waterboarding. We don’t know whether al-Awlaki was found because of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” There are surely legitimate questions to be asked about whether and why a U.S. citizen should be targeted, either on U.S. soil or abroad. But hypocrisy isn’t the issue here.
Former President Bush has been gracious and quiet as his successor takes on the problems of the economy and national security. If Bush has disagreed with what Obama has done, he’s kept it to himself—something that is not only just good manners for a former president, but in the specific arena of national security, important to giving a sense of continuity in front of the international audience. How unfortunate that Cheney cannot behave in the same way.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, October 3, 2011
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