“I Could Have Done That”: All Good Ideas Belong To Mitt Romney
So says a campaign advisor, who pinned the auto bailout success on the former Massachusetts governor.
Back in 2009, when the newly elected President Barack Obama was contemplating a bailout of the auto-industry, Mitt Romney emerged from his temporary hiatus to push policymakers in the other direction. “Let Detroit go bankrupt,” he urged in an op-ed for New York Times. For Romney, a managed bankrupcy of the kind he had pioneered at Bain Capital was the only way to “save” the American auto industry. As for Obama’s approach, Romney warned that “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.” A few months later, Romney repeated his warning: If Obama continued on his path, “it would make GM the living dead.”
Three years later, Romney’s prediction hasn’t come to pass. The American auto industry is thriving even as conservatives run with the idea that government is categorically ineffective. In February, during the Republican primary in Michigan, Romney further disparaged the auto bailout, granting its success, but accusing Obama of kowtowing to “union bosses.” This message didn’t play well, and only gave Obama and Democrats an opportunity to tout the success of the bailouts, and contrast them with Romney’s position.
Now that Romney is in the general election, he has begun to shake the Etch A Sketch on a number of issues. One of those, if this comment from Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom is any indication, is the bailout:
“[Romney’s] position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed,” Fehrnstrom said. “He said, ‘If you want to save the auto industry, just don’t write them a check. That will seal their doom. What they need to do is go through a managed bankruptcy process.’”
“Consider that the crown jewel,” Fehrnstrom said. “The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney’s advice.”
Writing at Talking Points Memo, Pema Levy points out that Romney’s position on the bailout has been hazy; he was vehemently against the administration, but in a way that gave him a way to claim credit, as Fehrnstrom does. Of course, the fact that Romney has rhetorical space to take credit for the bailout doesn’t mean that’s any less ridiculous; it’s the political equivalent of twelve-year-old boasting—“I could have done that too! If you’d picked me first.”
One last observation—this continues an odd pattern by the Romney campaign, which inhabits a frame established by the Obama campaign rather than creating something for themselves. First, there was the “War on Women,” where Romney advisors argued that it was Democrats who were fighting the real war on women, while conceding that the existence of an actual war. Then, in Romney’s speech last Tuesday, there was “fairness,” when the former Massachusetts governor argued that government was the real purveyor of unfairness in the country. And now we have the auto industry bailout, where Romney claims to have been the real mastermind behind the policy.
I’m not sure what the campaign hopes to get out of this approach. By continuously talking about Obama on Obama’s terms, they do nothing but put themselves on the defensive. It’s a bad strategy, and the only saving grace is that we’re still early in the election.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, April 30, 2012
“Wasting Our Minds”: A Young Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
In Spain, the unemployment rate among workers under 25 is more than 50 percent. In Ireland almost a third of the young are unemployed. Here in America, youth unemployment is “only” 16.5 percent, which is still terrible — but things could be worse.
And sure enough, many politicians are doing all they can to guarantee that things will, in fact, get worse. We’ve been hearing a lot about the war on women, which is real enough. But there’s also a war on the young, which is just as real even if it’s better disguised. And it’s doing immense harm, not just to the young, but to the nation’s future.
Let’s start with some advice Mitt Romney gave to college students during an appearance last week. After denouncing President Obama’s “divisiveness,” the candidate told his audience, “Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.”
The first thing you notice here is, of course, the Romney touch — the distinctive lack of empathy for those who weren’t born into affluent families, who can’t rely on the Bank of Mom and Dad to finance their ambitions. But the rest of the remark is just as bad in its own way.
I mean, “get the education”? And pay for it how? Tuition at public colleges and universities has soared, in part thanks to sharp reductions in state aid. Mr. Romney isn’t proposing anything that would fix that; he is, however, a strong supporter of the Ryan budget plan, which would drastically cut federal student aid, causing roughly a million students to lose their Pell grants.
So how, exactly, are young people from cash-strapped families supposed to “get the education”? Back in March Mr. Romney had the answer: Find the college “that has a little lower price where you can get a good education.” Good luck with that. But I guess it’s divisive to point out that Mr. Romney’s prescriptions are useless for Americans who weren’t born with his advantages.
There is, however, a larger issue: even if students do manage, somehow, to “get the education,” which they do all too often by incurring a lot of debt, they’ll be graduating into an economy that doesn’t seem to want them.
You’ve probably heard lots about how workers with college degrees are faring better in this slump than those with only a high school education, which is true. But the story is far less encouraging if you focus not on middle-aged Americans with degrees but on recent graduates. Unemployment among recent graduates has soared; so has part-time work, presumably reflecting the inability of graduates to find full-time jobs. Perhaps most telling, earnings have plunged even among those graduates working full time — a sign that many have been forced to take jobs that make no use of their education.
College graduates, then, are taking it on the chin thanks to the weak economy. And research tells us that the price isn’t temporary: students who graduate into a bad economy never recover the lost ground. Instead, their earnings are depressed for life.
What the young need most of all, then, is a better job market. People like Mr. Romney claim that they have the recipe for job creation: slash taxes on corporations and the rich, slash spending on public services and the poor. But we now have plenty of evidence on how these policies actually work in a depressed economy — and they clearly destroy jobs rather than create them.
For as you look at the economic devastation in Europe, you should bear in mind that some of the countries experiencing the worst devastation have been doing everything American conservatives say we should do here. Not long ago, conservatives gushed over Ireland’s economic policies, especially its low corporate tax rate; the Heritage Foundation used to give it higher marks for “economic freedom” than any other Western nation. When things went bad, Ireland once again received lavish praise, this time for its harsh spending cuts, which were supposed to inspire confidence and lead to quick recovery.
And now, as I said, almost a third of Ireland’s young can’t find jobs.
What should we do to help America’s young? Basically, the opposite of what Mr. Romney and his friends want. We should be expanding student aid, not slashing it. And we should reverse the de facto austerity policies that are holding back the U.S. economy — the unprecedented cutbacks at the state and local level, which have been hitting education especially hard.
Yes, such a policy reversal would cost money. But refusing to spend that money is foolish and shortsighted even in purely fiscal terms. Remember, the young aren’t just America’s future; they’re the future of the tax base, too.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste; wasting the minds of a whole generation is even more terrible. Let’s stop doing it.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, April 29, 2012
“Pouncing On Presidential Coolness”: Meanwhile, Molasses Mitt Slow Jams To Merv Griffin
The right has come up with a new line of attack against Barack Obama: He’s too cool.
You read that right.
Suddenly, it was an act of unpresidential affrontery for Obama to go on Jimmy Fallon’s show. Never mind that presidents and presidential candidates have been doing the late-night thing for two decades, back to Bubba’s sax-playing moment with Arsenio. Never mind that Mitt Romney recited a silly Top Ten list on Letterman and pretended to be reading Kim Kardashian’s tweets. Never mind that George W. Bush went on Oprah. Obama was a bad boy.
“I thought it was really bad, that we had so many issues and problems going on in this country, around the world, and you can’t swing a cat without finding President Obama on a comedy show,” said Fox contributor Dana Perino, Bush’s last White House press secretary.
And there was grumbling about Obama’s comedy stylings at Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner. He was too sharp in going after Romney, he shouldn’t have joked about eating dog meat, and so on. (Uh—I can remember when Bush poked fun at not finding those weapons of mass destruction.)
So is hipness now a political liability?
Clearly this is a concerted effort to turn the president’s charm and wit against him. The Republicans are saddled with a somewhat awkward candidate. It’s hard to imagine Mitt slow-jamming the news on Fallon’s show. No wonder Obama deadpanned at the dinner that Romney “asked if he could get some equal time on The Merv Griffin Show.” Romney isn’t even sure whether to accept an invitation from SNL.
All this is reminiscent of a controversial ad that John McCain ran against Obama in 2008, dubbing him the world’s biggest celebrity and likening him to Paris Hilton. (Today I guess it would be Kim Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan, both of whom were at the correspondents’ dinner.) The Republican National Committee has posted a web ad cutting between clips of Obama riffing with Fallon and Romney giving a serious speech, with the tag line #notfunny.
There’s a larger problem here for the Romney camp. Obama, whether you think he’s cool or condescening, is widely seen by the public as a likable guy. Mitt is widely seen as a stiff. That is not going to change. So in a classic case of political ju-jitsu, the conservatives are trying to turn the president’s strength into a liability: Yeah yeah, he’s hip, he’s happening, but what has he really accomplished? Wouldn’t you rather go with the boring businessman who might fix the ailing economy?
I’m not sure that works. But it may be the best card his team has to play if Romney wants to be performing at next year’s White House Correspondents Dinner.
“A New Pair Of Briefs”: Senate Democrats Plan To Give Mittens A Wedgie
The Hill is reporting that Senate Democrats are planning to bring the Paycheck Fairness Act to the floor this week. The PFA, which is opposed by the Chamber of Commerce and the G.O.P. (and come to think of it, have you ever seen those two institutions in the same place at the same time? just sayin’), would expand the protections enshrined in the Equal Pay Act by, among other things,
allowing employees to compare the pay of male colleagues not only within the same office but also with colleagues in other local offices. A female employee could allege wage discrimination if she is paid less than a male working the same job for the same employer across town.
Unsurprisingly, women’s groups are strongly supportive of the proposed law. It’s a popular piece of legislation, especially among female voters, a group that, in a political season that has been defined by the G.O.P.’s ever-escalating war on women and a widening gender gap between to the two parties, Romney needs to court. So the upcoming vote puts him in a difficult position: he “will either have to split with Republicans and an important business group or take a position that could further erode his support among women.”
The Dems, for once, are playing very smart politics with this. What I don’t understand is why they don’t do this sort of thing more often. One of the signature failures of Harry Reid and the Obama administration has been their reluctance to bring popular legislation to the floor and force Republicans to go on the record opposing it. Using wedge issues to pry apart a political coalition and appeal to swing voters is a tried and true technique. The Bush administration did this kind of thing all to time to Democrats, with great success. Even if there is no possibility that the legislation will pass, political points are scored.
Supporters of the Obama administration certainly have a point when they argue that the President’s effectiveness has been severely hampered by an extraordinarily hostile and recalcitrant Congress. But the President has other powers to move his or her agenda forward, such as appointments, executive orders, and working with Congressional leaders to bring votes to the floor that will put the opposing party on the defensive. My biggest disappointments with the Obama administration have been its failures in these kinds of areas, where the President really does have a lot of control. Which is why I despair when I read about things like this. Or this.
That said, I don’t want to dwell on the negative here. I heartily applaud what the Dems are doing with the Paycheck Fairness Act vote, and I strongly encourage them to wield the wedge a lot more often. Among other things, it help builds morale amongst the base — it’s fun to nail those bastards to the wall and observe their obvious discomfort as they squirm and try to weasel their way out of going on the record. More like this, please!
By: Kathleen Geier, Washington Monthly Political Animal, April 29, 2012
“Things We Know To Be True”: The Death Of Facts In An Age Of “Truthiness”
According to columnist Rex Huppke, there was a recent death that you might have missed. It wasn’t an actor, musician or famous politician, but facts.
In a piece for the Chicago Tribune, Huppke says facts – things we know to be true – are now dead.
Huppke says the final blow came on Wednesday, April 18, when Republican Rep. Allen West of Florida declared that about 80 members of the Democratic Party in Congress are members of the Communist Party.
“That was the death-blow for facts,” Huppke tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.
One call to the Communist Party USA confirmed that this was, in fact, not true. According to them, no one in the U.S. House of Representatives is a member of the Communist Party. Days later, Allen West stood by his comments.
So that led Huppke to the idea that if someone of any political party can say something so patently untrue and stand by it — which seems to happen more and more often, he says — then facts must be meaningless and dead.
“[Facts are] survived by rumor and innuendo, two brothers, and then a sister, emphatic assertion,” he says. “They’re all grieving right now, but we wish the best for them.”
There’s another sibling that may be too busy thriving to grieve. Comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” as the notion that truth doesn’t lie in books and facts but rather, in your gut. If Huppke is right and facts are indeed dead, perhaps Colbert’s satire is our reality. Where does that leave those of us seeking the truth?
If Facts Are Dead, How About Fact-Checking?
Bill Adair is the editor of PolitiFact, a website run by a team of seasoned journalists that checks facts made by members of Congress, the White House and interest groups. Despite Huppke’s obituary, he tells NPR’s Raz that the market for fact-checking remains strong.
“Whether the fact has actually died or is just on its death bed, I think it means it’s a great time to be in the fact-checking business,” Adair says, “because there are just so many questions about what’s accurate and what’s not.”
PolitiFact’s fact-checking process is long and arduous. The team spends a lot of time researching whether a fact is true, half-true or not at all true, then posts their findings to the site. When it’s over, however, the team at PolitiFact — and even some Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists — can’t always convince people what is true.
Adair often gets emails accusing them of being biased, but he says he’s not sure who they’re supposed to be biased in favor of because they get criticized a lot by both sides.
“I think that’s just the nature of a very rough-and-tumble political discourse,” he says. “We are in a time when there’s more political discourse than ever … and when you hear somebody say your team is wrong, almost like a referee, you’re going to argue with the ref. You’re going to say the ref is biased.”
The ‘Backfire Effect’
Increasingly, people don’t just say the referee is biased, they say the referee is outright lying.
Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan, and a colleague of his, Jason Reifler, conducted an experiment where they had people read a mock new article about President George W. Bush.
The article quoted Bush as saying his tax cuts increased government revenue, which is false. Some of the participants were then given a second article that had a correction: it said the Bush tax cuts actually led to a decline in tax revenue, which is true.
Those who opposed President Bush were more prone to believing the second article, while those who supported Bush, even after reading the second corrected article, were more likely to believe the first.
Nyhan calls this phenomenon the “backfire effect,” and it affects people of all political stripes.
“In journalism, in health [and] in education we tend to take the attitude that more information is better, and so there’s been an assumption that if we put the correct information out there, the facts will prevail,” Nyhan says. “Unfortunately, that’s not always true.”
In some cases, giving people corrective information about a misconception can make the problem worse, Nyhan says. That’s the “backfire effect,” and it can make them believe in the misconception even more strongly.
While there have been times of less polarization among political elites, Nyhan says there has never been a golden age of factual agreement. People have always believed incorrect things, but what has changed is the way our society is structured.
“That trend toward polarization has exacerbated this divergence in factual perceptions, to the point that it seems like we’ve lost something,” he says.
It’s simply too hard to walk back misconceptions once they’re out in the wild, Nyhan says, whether put there by political elites or another source. If there was a greater reputational price to pay for putting falsehoods out there, he says, perhaps there would be fewer of them in the first place.
“That, to me, is a difficult problem, but certainly an easier one than trying to change human nature,” he says, “which is what you’re talking about when you try to talk about convincing people. It’s just too difficult most of the time.”
By: NPR, NPR Staff, April 29, 2012
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