The Economist: "Mitt Romney's campaign: The flail wail"

[highplainsdem]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/09/mitt-romneys-campaign

There are two problems with Mr Romney's choice of the themes of deficit reduction and immigration reform. The first is deficit reduction. The second is immigration reform. Mr Romney can't win on either of these themes. He can't win on deficit reduction because his tax and spending plans, sketchy as they remain, will either increase the deficit or increase taxes on the middle class; his denials that this will happen lead quickly into a maze of mathematically irreconcilable claims that, if they don't necessarily refute his claims, do confuse voters and neutralise his argument. Deficit-cutting is a weak issue, less important to voters than employment or personal income, but it used to be the one economic issue where Mr Romney could count on a consistent advantage over Barack Obama; now, even that's no longer the case.

And he can't win on immigration reform because he's barely talked about immigration reform, he represents a political party that has largely been co-opted by a fervid anti-amnesty movement, and when he has talked about the issue he's vowed to veto the DREAM Act and used terms like "self-deportation". He trailed Barack Obama among Hispanics by 64% to 27% as of late August.

The big story driving the news cycle Monday morning is Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei's article in Politico, "Inside the campaign: How Mitt Romney stumbled", on the disarray over the past few weeks in Mr Romney's campaign. They report that Stuart Stevens, the campaign's chief strategist, scrapped the convention speech he'd commissioned eight days earlier from Peter Wehner, a top Republican speechwriter, "setting off a chaotic, eight-day scramble that would produce an hour of prime-time problems for Romney, including Clint Eastwood’s meandering monologue to an empty chair." To judge from today's attempted reboot, Mr Romney is still stumbling.

This of course is just horserace reporting. It'd be easy enough to write the whole thing off as a mediocre candidate with an unexpectedly poor campaign team. Frankly, I don't think that's what's going on here, and I don't think either Mr Romney or Mr Stevens are entirely at fault. Take the themes they're focusing on today. On the deficit, Mitt Romney didn't invent the mathematically irreconcilable trifecta of promising massive tax cuts, no reductions in Medicare or defence spending, and lower deficits; Republicans have been running on that platform since Ronald Reagan. It's the policy incarnation of the splits between three of the party's constituencies: the wealthy, the defence establishment, and the elderly. On immigration, Mitt Romney didn't drive the anti-immigration wave that has swept through the GOP over the past decade; he's simply been forced to go along with it. His incoherence on this subject is the policy incarnation of the split between three of the party's constituencies: conservative Hispanics (including Cubans) and pro-immigration business elites, on the one hand, and ethnically nationalist whites, on the other. What we're seeing here is not simply a flailing campaign run by a mediocre candidate. It's a campaign trying to cope with the fact that the fundamental coalitions and policy bargains its party represents are falling apart.

[Nye Bevan]

1. I love "The Economist". Intelligent, opinionated and not wedded to any particular party.

They will skewer whoever deserves skewering. Which happens to be Romney right now.

[aquart]

2. Tra la!

[Cha]

3. Thank you, The Economist..wonder if Clint Eastwood

reads that?

Also, since Stephanie Kirchgaessner brought it up..why did Stuart Stevens scape Peter Wehner's speech and have only 8 days to scramble for another..that turns out they forgot the Troops?

[Spazito]

4. Good read overall but I would somewhat disagree with this...

aspect:

"It'd be easy enough to write the whole thing off as a mediocre candidate with an unexpectedly poor campaign team. Frankly, I don't think that's what's going on here, and I don't think either Mr Romney or Mr Stevens are entirely at fault."

I DO think this is reflective of a mediocre candidate with an unexpectedly poor campaign team and the responsibility for that falls directly upon Romney and his team. All candidates sign on to their party's main themes when they decide to run to be the party's candidate. It is up to the candidates and their campaign team to find a way around those themes that are most troublesome and determine the themes/issues that the public can be persuaded to support and go from there.

Romney and his campaign team failed miserably on all counts, imo, and to try and mitigate that failure, as this article attempts to do, is somewhat disingenuous.

[Jim Lane]

5. I have more sympathy for Romney and his minions than you do.

You write, "It is up to the candidates and their campaign team to find a way around those themes that are most troublesome and determine the themes/issues that the public can be persuaded to support and go from there."

That sounds fine as a generalization -- but, given the specific problems the linked article identified, how would you actually do it? IOW, if you were the new Romney campaign manager, and you wanted him to win, what general course would you take in the campaign?

I really can't think of what I might do that's better (as in more likely to win) than what they're doing now, at least with the VP selection now locked in. That was their last realistic chance to make a fundamental change.

[Spazito]

6. It is more what I would NOT do...

Lie about numbers, issues, etc, that can be almost immediately shown to be outright lies. I would not use spokespersons for the campaign that are, at best, inarticulate, at worst, inarticulate and unprepared. As the article stated:

"Republicans have been running on that platform since Ronald Reagan. It's the policy incarnation of the splits between three of the party's constituencies: the wealthy, the defence establishment, and the elderly."

Republicans have been ELECTED on that platform, sad to say, the same platform as it is today, so the mess that is the Romney campaign falls directly at their feet and as the candidate, at Romney's feet.

I am very happy with the complete fuck-up that is the Romney campaign, I am hoping they keep it up and with the news of the hidden video this afternoon, my hopes are being fulfilled.