Romney's Own Petard

Josh Marshall notes that Huckabee's Iowa surge could doom Mitt Romney, and Andrew on a not-unrelated note excerpts messages from folks citing theological disagreements with Mormons as a reason not to vote for him, before lamenting:

It seems to me a shame that a largely competent, decent, Rockefeller Republican like Mitt Romney should be a victim of the party the Christianists have constructed. Compared with Giuliani, he is a blast of adulthood.

There is some shame here, but I don't pity Romney. He could have tried to run as a political heir to George Romney on the basis of his record in Massachusetts, as a moderate technocrat. But he decided to try to remake himself as the Christian Right candidate, so it's really pretty fitting for him to be laid low by a real-deal preacher man like Huckabee or even a more plausible actor like Hollywood Fred.

Comments

He could have tried to run as a political heir to George Romney on the basis of his record in Massachusetts, as a moderate technocrat

He has to win the primary before he can win the general.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 15, 2007 2:05 PM

Seems to me this just proves that demonic Satan-worshippers have a difficult time becoming the favored candidates of the Christian Right...

Posted by RKU | November 15, 2007 2:10 PM

This quotation listed in Andrew's column struck me as hilarious:
-------------

"As an evangelical Christian, I would have no trouble voting for a Catholic or a Jewish candidate, and would even consider voting for an atheist, but can and will never vote for someone [Romney] whose ambitions include becoming god."

Hmmmm. I guess the evangelicals haven't been paying attention to George W's arguments on Presidential powers.

Posted by Don Williams | November 15, 2007 2:18 PM

A post about the Republican race without mention of Dr. Congressman Ron Paul, the one man who can save America?!?

Matt, Justin Raimondo is right. Clearly you (and Kevin Drum) fear Ron Paul.

Either you call him an extremist, or you censor/ignore him.

You're obviously Paulophobic.

Posted by SoCalJustice | November 15, 2007 2:25 PM

There's probably a permutation of the old 'give them a choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican, they'll choose the real Republican' dynamic at work here with Mitt and Frederick of Hollywood, to whit: 'Give them a choice between a real fake, and a fake fake, and they'll choose the real fake every time.'

Posted by Davis X. Machina | November 15, 2007 2:28 PM

Spellcheck wanted 'to whit' there, which is clearly wrong...curious.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | November 15, 2007 2:34 PM

If a man like Romney can become (a?) god, then we are in trouble in the next age.

Posted by hmmm | November 15, 2007 2:49 PM

Here's the other angle on this: Huckabee will ultimately help Romney by forcing him to stop running as a faux Huckabee and start running as himself -- an experienced and successful leader of large organizations, and a politician with a history of working across party lines to get things done. The real Romney is a more attractive candidate.

SoCalJustice,

Occam's Razor suggests another reason why Matt didn't mention Ron Paul in this post: Paul's polling at 4% in Iowa and thus is not a factor. The two leading candidates in Iowa right now are Romney and Huckabee.

Paul has been surprisingly successful at raising cash, but so far this hasn't translated to popular support.

Posted by Fred | November 15, 2007 2:52 PM

Romney is falling into the same trap that Blue Dog Democrats fall into:

If you give the voters a choice between voting for a Republican or voting for a Republican, they'll vote for the Republican every time.

In Romney's case, he's trying to run as a Christian conservative. Unfortunately for him, lots of Christian conservatives think he's part of some weird cult. He can't beat someone like Huckabee on that turf.

Posted by Jinchi | November 15, 2007 2:53 PM

It is a shame that Romney's faith is being used against him. That ought never happen. But it's hard having religious sympathy for a guy who constantly invokes the spectre of jihad, asks for the doubling of Guantanamo, plays up illegal immigration beyond all reason and supports wiretapping all mosques. Romney has tried to overcome the bigotry against him by playing up to an even greater bigotry in the GOP base against all things brown, Muslim or Arab. It's hard to argue tolerance for yourself when you are busy pulling it out from under the feet of others.

Posted by Nathan Hale | November 15, 2007 2:54 PM

Sorry Davis, I should have read through the comments before posting my own.

Posted by Jinchi | November 15, 2007 2:55 PM

No mention of Mike Gravel on your blog today? Clearly, you fear Mike Gravel.

The Republican base can't wait to elect an anti-war, libertarian-leaning Congressman as their candidate, and only an authentically anti-war candidate like Mike Gravel will have the ability to win the general election.

But you DC types fear being proved wrong.

Posted by fear itself | November 15, 2007 2:55 PM

I don't think that Matt is right. Part of what must frustrate Romney is precisely that his faith is socially conservative, but you have so many anti-Mormon bigots out there who don't care how conservative that faith is, because of their prejudices against anyone who espouses a different sort of Christianity than they do.

Now, that wasn't the point Andrew Sullivan was making, but there is a sense in which Mitt Romney is being mistreated by people who basically agree with him because they are bigots.

On the other hand, I suppose you can say that this is inevitable when you seek out the votes of bigots in the first place.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 15, 2007 2:59 PM

It is a shame that Romney's faith is being used against him.

That's where you and I disagree. Romney's been quite happy to target Muslims and atheists in the past. He feels that America needs a religious conservative as its leader.

So why can't people decide whether they think his religion is acceptable.

If being a believer is important, then certainly what you believe is important too.

Posted by Jinchi | November 15, 2007 2:59 PM

This "petard" business really should be retired from the language. A silly, affected usage from a Shakespearean phrase of which hardly anyone knows the literal meaning anymore.

Posted by Usage crab | November 15, 2007 3:04 PM

The Romney people appear to be little perturbed at Huckabee sucking up the falling off votes for Boss Hogg. They should be miffed, but it seems they think it is voters drifting over to the latest fad - and those voters will leave Huckabee once they know his tax raising record, Open Borders record, and condemnation of those who want to stop illegal immigrants as "bigots".

Still, they should be pissed that they are not getting the Thompson falloff - and I think Fred (the poster @2:52PM ) is ight. Time to stop appealing to the dumbest of the anti-abortion extremists that want "complete lifetime purity" on their pet topics.

Huckabee will ultimately help Romney by forcing him to stop running as a faux Huckabee and start running as himself -- an experienced and successful leader of large organizations, and a politician with a history of working across party lines to get things done. The real Romney is a more attractive candidate.

Absolutely. The only experienced, successful leaders of large organizations are Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, and Richardson - and Rudy and MItt have far more impressive records than the 2nd tier candidates.

Huckabee is likable, but so is obliquely talking, deliberately foggy Obambi the cute young timid deer afraid to offend Big Bad Mama Bear.
Doesn't make the Huckster or Obambi Presidential material.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 15, 2007 3:09 PM

But he decided to try to remake himself as the Christian Right candidate,

I can't help but think that if the Mitt Romney who was governor of MA were running in this race as a Democrat he'd be the national front runner right now.

But he made other choices so f*ck him.

Posted by Don | November 15, 2007 3:20 PM

Yeah, no pity for Romney. Live by the wingnuts, die by the wingnuts.

What's more interesting is how, if Huckabee does kill Romney, it affects the rest of the race. Most people are assuming it'll give the nomination to Giuliani, which is probably true. On the other hand, if Huckabee becomes the Not Giuliani candidate in the race, it could get very interesting--and by 'interesting', I mean extremely bloody and damaging to Giuliani.

Huckabee is the one Republican candidate who (rhetorically at least) hasn't bought into the plutocratic excesses of his party. Huckabee is the guy who, on CNN, described the GOP as "a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the corporations". Imagine, then, how he would run against Wall Street's Mayor. Huckabee's best shot at beating Giuliani for the nomination would be to make the Democratic case against Giuliani for us.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 15, 2007 3:39 PM

"A silly, affected usage from a Shakespearean phrase of which hardly anyone knows the literal meaning anymore."

The literal meaning is plain to anyone who's ever read Hamlet (the most famous play by the most famous playwright in the English language) in high school; the quote comes from one of Hamlet's most widely-quoted soliloquies. Even if "petard" is archaic, the sentence before it isn't hard to understand at all and makes it clear that "petard" is essentially a synonym for "mine". ("I'll delve one yard below their mines and blow them at the moon..."). It's about turning the tables on an enemy, by using their own weapons against them. In Hamlet's specific analogy, using siege mines/petards to blow up ("hoist") the engineers who laid the mines.

Posted by Fred | November 15, 2007 3:53 PM

Actually, evangelical Christians should be more broadminded. Even our evangelical President put all sorts of footnotes and reservations on the 10 Commandments when they were sent up to him for signature:

1) God: " you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol ..."
Bush: Well, ok. Sure. Whatever. However, Mammon deserves some due. And with gold approaching $900 an oz, that golden calf also deserves some reasonable respect.

2) God: "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God..."
Bush: Yeak, ok. Except when I swore under God to protect and defend the Constitution, I
reserved my powers as President to disregard any items in the Bill of Rights that might
hamper my ability to grab the oil ..er I mean, to protect and defend the US from terrorists. And Democrats. which borders on being the same thing.

3) God: " Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you....
the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work"

Bush: Sure. In fact, I generally like to take the whole month of August off as well. Plus July.

4) God: "Honor your father and your mother ..."
Bush: "Oh, I always listen to Mom. Dad too -- unless he send those jerks James Baker and
Brent Scrowcroft around to advice me on how to conduct my bidness. Then it's time to remind
old pop that he ain't running the ranch no more. "

5) God : "You shall not murder."
Bush: Ok, Unless I need to grab a few billion barrels on oil for bidness and a few hundred thousand dumbass Iraqi civilians get in the way. Then it's tough noogies. Can make an omelet without breaking a few hundred thousand eggs, you know.

6) God: " Neither shall you commit adultery."
Bush: Now, come on God. Laura's a nice woman , but that field's been pretty well ploughed , if you catch my drift. You don't think I pedalling my ass off on that mountain bike to shape up for her, do you?

7) God: " Neither shall you steal."
Bush: Well, we didn't STEAL those Iraq oil deposits, exactly. We're just trying to put some local management in that will be ..er.. REALISTIC when negotiating leases with the ole boys down in Houston. The boys who
looked after me when you apparently were otherwise occupied, God.

8) God: "Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour."
Bush: Now hold on there. We may have gilded the lily a little bit when talking about Saddam's nukes and mushroom clouds over US cities , but our intentions were good. And don't hold Tenet to that "slam dunk" business or to that "intelligence" he had Colin present to the UN. Tenet's a prankster -- couldn't help pulling Colin's leg. Ole boy 'bout wet his pants from laughing when telling me about it afterwards.

9) God: "Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour."
Bush: Well, oil deposits are kinda communal property, know what I mean? Tragedy of the commons and all that.

Posted by Don Williams | November 15, 2007 3:53 PM

"could doom Mitt Romney"

Won't something just doom them all?

Posted by David in NY | November 15, 2007 3:53 PM

Tom Hilton,

Don't get your hopes up. Chris Ford mentioned Huckabee's insurmountable weakness: his Bush/Kennedy position on illegal immigration. That's a position that at least 80% of the GOP base disagrees with. Giuliani and Romney have both sinned in the past on this, but they are both running as immigration hawks. It's too late for Huckabee to switch positions on this, and when voters realize what his position is, his poll numbers will drop like McCain's did.

Posted by Fred | November 15, 2007 3:59 PM

I think Mitt has shown himself to be a better actor than Fred. Just look at the polls. Fred's not even trying to act very hard. He's already taken at least one two small, almost meaningless, principled stands on issues.

Posted by bob | November 15, 2007 4:01 PM

btw, this strategy was NEVER going to win:

He could have tried to run as a political heir to George Romney on the basis of his record in Massachusetts, as a moderate technocrat.

No chance in hell!

Posted by bob | November 15, 2007 4:02 PM

Tell me something I don't know, Fred.

Unless you've read Hamlet and therefore have the context, the literal meaning of the phrase is utterly opaque. No one knows the noun, and the verb conveys a completely wrong image to anyone with a 20th-century vocabulary.

In short: No one knows what it means. Evidence: You felt it necessary to take a paragraph to explain it.

Posted by Usage crab | November 15, 2007 4:33 PM

Well, crab, YOU seem to know what it means, and you see it often enough to be annoyed by it. Were you just looking out for the rest of us? Because from the cheap seats it just looks like preening about your uncommon vocabulary and reading habits.

Posted by mark | November 15, 2007 4:50 PM

Were you just looking out for the rest of us? Because from the cheap seats it just looks like preening about your uncommon vocabulary and reading habits.

Yes, that's exactly what it was.

Actually, I meant it as a joke. Usage humor! Hah! Hilarious! I'd only recently, after years of frustrating puzzlement, learned what it literally meant. People would use it, I'd ask what it meant, and they couldn't tell me! I really do think it's silly and affected and a little French-sounding. But then Fred got all didactic and preeny and shit in a way that really, I think, supports my case. (Really, it was him doing the preening, not me.)

So there. My nefarious motives exposed.

Posted by Usage crab | November 15, 2007 5:10 PM

Usage Crab,

I know you were aiming for obnoxiousness here and not logical consistency, but see if you can spot the contradiction in your response to my comment.

First, you wrote

"Tell me something I don't know, Fred."

Implying that I was an idiot to assume that you weren't familiar with the Hamlet passage.

Then you wrote

"No one knows what it means."

Implying that I was right to assume you weren't familiar with the Hamlet passage.

Which is it? And as for this:

"Evidence: You felt it necessary to take a paragraph to explain it."

I felt it necessary to explain it not because I thought "no one" knew what it means (the first sentence of my paragraph explicitly refutes this) but because it seemed that you didn't know what it meant. Judging from your petulant response to Mark, my guess is that you didn't know what it meant until I just explained it to you. So for that, you're welcome.

Posted by Fred | November 15, 2007 5:53 PM

Usage crab, referring to Shakespeare's "petard" analogy -

People would use it, I'd ask what it meant, and they couldn't tell me! I really do think it's silly and affected and a little French-sounding.

Kind of hard to call it affected when it is one of the world's most recognized quotes, comes from the world's greatest English writer in what was plausibly his best work.

I read the play with an English teacher more interested in the structure and staging than in what certain words meant...for a while I thought it was a sort of pike...but I knew for sure what the phrase meant. Being undone by your own actions. Japanese, Chinese, the US Marine Corps, American Indians and others have similar phrases - but Shakespeare's was the most metaphorically and visually...err...dramatic.

Of course I know what it means now after revisiting Shakepeare as an adult.
Perhaps that's why I laughed hysterically when someone sagely commented at work "Ah, hoist on their own petards, it seems" - after news that 4 Al Qaeda in Fallujah rigging a comrade up with a suicide bomb accidentally set it off and dozens of Islamoids were spotted picking hoisted pieces and parts off rooftops and out of trees for burial the next day.

"Allah u Akbar!" "Yeah, Omar! Kill the American infidels and Shiite heritics!" "Allah loves us if we kill. Praise him!" "Boy, all those virgins will be fun for you!" "Go, Omar! Go!" "Hey Fawazah! This wire seems to be not connected..." "Nooooooo!!"

BBOOOOOOOOMMM!

Posted by Chris Ford | November 15, 2007 6:02 PM

Usage Crab: Tell me something I don't know, Fred.

Unless you've read Hamlet and therefore have the context, the literal meaning of the phrase is utterly opaque. No one knows the noun, and the verb conveys a completely wrong image to anyone with a 20th-century vocabulary.

In short: No one knows what it means. Evidence: You felt it necessary to take a paragraph to explain it.
---------------------------------

*I* knew what it meant. A largish collection of gunpowder in a sealed (sometimes inadequately so) container for the express purpose of undermining and destroying either walls or siegeworks themselves (a la the incident at Petersburg in 1864).

I didn't have to read Hamlet or get it in context. I have known it for some time. Whether or not you choose to discount someone who knows the term as "no one less one incredibly historically minded blog reader" equals "no one" is up to you to decide.

Posted by Clark | November 15, 2007 6:05 PM

Even our evangelical President put all sorts of footnotes and reservations on the 10 Commandments

It does make one wonder exactly how many stone tablets would have been required for the signing statements.

Posted by latts | November 15, 2007 7:34 PM

I hate to have to come to Fred's defense, but usage crab, don't be an asshole.

Posted by Reality Man | November 16, 2007 5:04 AM

Remember Romney is man who opened up the first Repubican debate by declaring "I'm for doubling the size of Guantonomo Bay!" I believe even the president(not cheney) would close it if he had polical cover to do so.

It is shameful that he is the "adult"!

Posted by centrist | November 16, 2007 1:04 PM

Reality Man,

Mighty chivalrous of you.

Centrist,

I think you have to distinguish between the early stories about Guantanamo and the reality of how it is being run today. It may be one of the best-run prisons in the world today, and it has been under plenty of scrutiny.

Posted by Fred | November 16, 2007 9:54 PM