Teddy Kennedy was one of the greatest senators in the history of our country but, when he decided to run for president, he couldn’t articulate a reason why he wanted the job. People are beginning to notice the same thing about Mitt Romney. What’s his motivation? It can’t be anything Obama has done because Romney ran for president four years ago when Obama was merely a low-seniority member of the U.S. Senate. It can’t be the issues, because Romney flips his positions on issues to fit whatever constituency he’s facing at that moment. It appears Romney is running for president because being too rich to work is boring the crap out of him. If he has another reason, I can’t discern it.
In any case, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson has no idea why Romney wants to be president. And he thinks Romney sucks as a candidate, especially when compared to the Frothy One.
The former Pennsylvania senator possesses strengths that neatly fit some of Romney’s weaknesses. Santorum combines a deeply held social conservatism with an authentic blue-collar appeal. Romney has trouble competing in either category. While Santorum is very conservative, he avoids being a conservative caricature. He was one of the Senate’s main advocates of global health programs and a champion of faith-based anti-poverty efforts.
There’s a certain truthiness to these observations, but let’s not overdo it, Michael. Santorum has some blue-collar appeal, but it’s limited by him being the biggest sanctimonious ass in American politics. And can there be a bigger caricature than to have your name redefined as the sometime unfortunate byproduct of a popular sex act involving fecal matter and lube?
But, yeah, anything is better than watching Mitt Romney try to win the vote of a unionized auto worker.
Gerson continues:
And Santorum has an additional advantage over Gingrich as the anti-Romney. The GOP establishment — party types and elected Republicans — viewed the prospect of Gingrich’s nomination with undisguised horror. Having worked with him, they did everything they could to defeat him — a revealing commentary. Santorum is hardly the party favorite, but establishment objections are many degrees less heated.
I’d like to make this more succinct and say that, despite John McCain’s desire to saw Santorum in half with a Vietnamese tent-pole, Sticky Ricky is still several times more popular in DC than Newt Gingrich. Not that that really matters:
And Romney is unable to directly exploit Santorum’s main electoral weakness — his occasional, off-putting relish for the culture wars. Santorum has gone out of his way to question the role of women in the workplace and in the military, and emphasize his opposition to contraception. “One of the things I will talk about,” he said in October, “that no president has talked about before, is, I think, the dangers of contraception in this country.”
I don’t know if Gerson has noticed but opposing contraception is now a mainstream Republican position. Romney can’t exploit a weakness like that. He can’t get to the right of that. But he can play along.
Romney believes in nothing. Maybe not even himself.
Well at least Romney isn’t a neo-fascist. He’s just a nihilist, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/02/15/open-thread-manners-people-manners/
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/2/16/12419/4070
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you’re right — neo-fascism is basically the only place romney can go against an ultra social conservative.
given that romney’s willing to say anything (“gitmo? double it!!!”) and having seen what brings down the house at gop debates (“executions? more faster please!!!”), who’d be willing to bet $10,000 that romney won’t go there for his next big pitch?
(oops! please ignore the links at the top of my reply — those were not intended to be part of my comment)
Romney wants to be President
JUST BECAUSE
because he believes HE should be President.
period
You are partially right. He has the same character flaw as W. He’s always been trying to run from the shadow of his father, just like W was. After all, don’t most sons want to be more successful than their father? Hell, Mittens is a lot like Evan Bayh, also, too. And in all three instances, they’ve each ended as cock-ups. Yeah, W was the most successful in that he had two terms to his dad’s one, but he’s also one of the worst Presidents we’ve ever had.
how bad was W?
He was so bad, that the country elected a BLACK MAN as President.
I’ll say it again, the only way Barack Obama would be elected President is if this country was in the crapper.
Black folks only get a chance, when White folks say, ‘ well, we’re already in shyt, give it to the Black ma – see if he can get us out’
The Onion agrees with you:
Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job (5 Nov 2008)
He’s always been trying to run from the shadow of his father, just like W was. After all, don’t most sons want to be more successful than their father?
Is this the way you’d describe why the Kennedy descendants’ interest in running for office?
Why is the political gene passed on within political families? You could phrase your answer negatively, as above, or positively, in terms of sons viewing their fathers as role models.
My own father was Town Moderator of an Open Town Meeting community in New England for over a decade, so, obviously, I know what’s it’s like to be born into the political elite. Heh. I think Mitt Romney and the various Kennedys were raised to think that people have a responsibility to serve their communities and their country by taking on the task of handling the public’s business and advancing the political values they believe in. The very different ideas that Mitt Romney and Joe Kennedy have about what that business and those values should be doesn’t change the underlying sense that working the public sector is something they have a responsibility to do.
That would make sense if Mittens stood for anything other than his own deification. Same for Little Bush and Poppy Bush (ok, well Bush Sr. believed in showering his rich friends with capital gains tax cuts; perhaps so he could be toast of the yacht club). It’s hard to know what motivates Bayh; I look at him and can only think “What a dick!” The Kennedy boys were a complex brew of all motivations, many of them quite dark. But at least they each tried to serve those in need and, for this, they deserve some measure of compassion for their foibles.
I think Mitt Romney actually believes, in his heart of hearts, in his pro-business Republicanism as advancing the common good.
Kennedys, yes, they have an ethos of service instilled in them from childhood. Mittens, no.
These men are cowards.
He has no ethos.
These are the rules. Nothing to be afraid of.
Santorum might have an ethos, but he’s over the line.
It’s not fair. His girlfriend gave up her toe.
“[In 1999, Karen Santorum] sued for $500,000, despite the fact that her medical bills totaled approximately $18,800.
While the jury awarded Karen $350,000, a judge later reduced the amount to $175,000.
By the time of the lawsuit, then-Sen. Santorum had taken up the cause of tort reform, twice sponsoring or co-sponsoring bills limiting the non-economic awards for pain and suffering that a plaintiff could seek to $250,000.”
Huffington Post, 2/15/2012
Joe III is running for Barney Frank’s seat in the House.
You wrote,
There’s a certain truthiness to these observations, but let’s not overdo it, Michael.
Santorum has some blue-collar appeal, but it’s limited by him being the biggest sanctimonious ass in American politics.
One might also hope that it’s limited by the fact that the man is an egregious class enemy.
But maybe that’s too much to hope for, after all.
Is that why you don’t even mention what would normally be taken for a rather significant fact, to a progressive?
You also wrote of a popular sex act involving fecal matter and lube.
“Popular”?
Well, yes, in some circles, no doubt.
Hmm.
(And “Sticky Ricky”? Really?)
I suspect the fact that Romney was born without a personality is only partially to blame. The MA governor stuff has been a lead anchor for his whole campaign. Another big factor is that he has been largely unable to talk about his faith. That’s a huge weakness in a republican primary post Reagan. The base needs God-talk. It’s like not having a deep threat in football. I guess Romney can’t get all gooey about Jesus because then people immediately think about funny underpants or lost tribes or something. I wonder if Romney has considered going all in on the Mormon faith thing rather than avoiding it. It’s a risky strategy but spun correctly could really connect. Certainly his faith is no weirder than Santorum’s. But probably they are right to avoid it because I doubt Romney could pull it off.
No, his protestations of sincerity ring hollow. There’s not much Mittens can do to extract himself from the ooze. He’s like a prehistoric animal caught in the La Brea Tar Pits. Anything he does to dislodge himself just lodges him more deeply. His only hope is that his last remaining opponent is too weak organizationally and to repugnant even to the GOP base (or at least unappealing) to pull off the upset.
In partial defense of Teddy he did essentially answer Mudd’s question — America wasn’t doing as well as it should under a Dem president — though he did so in typical Teddy semi-inarticulate style, and in a context where since his formal announcement was yet to come, he might have felt talking about why he wanted to run was premature. Not his finest or smoothest moment for sure but hardly the disaster the press made it out to be, especially as one reads the transcript of his answer.
But to link Ted with Multiple Choice Mitt is a bit of a reach. Mitt is all over the place on the major issues, depending on where he needs to position himself in an electoral contest. He stands for nothing except getting himself elected. Ted was anything but a political shape shifter, being easily one of the most steadfast principled liberal pols of the 20th C. Unlike some of his liberal colleagues we never had to wonder about what TK stood for nor whether he would do a 180 on liberal interests in order to fit his beliefs with the changing political tenor of the times.
Though liberals in 1976 and 1980 did have such concerns about candidate then president Jimmy Carter, who didn’t seem to have strong progressive principles and who seemed to stand for little except getting himself (re-)elected. Kinda like Mitt.