The Case for Romney

Jon Chait, like me, is a Mitt Romney fan. The key bits:

Last year, The Boston Globe obtained his campaign strategy document laying out what it called "Primal Code for Brand Romney." "Primal" is a perfect description for Romney's view of the GOP base. He approaches conservatism not as a respectable ideology but as a series of (in Lionel Trilling's famous phrase) irritable mental gestures. The strategy memo suggests he drive home the message "Hillary = France." Romney has promised to "double Guantanamo" and demanded that Mike Huckabee apologize for criticizing President Bush's foreign policy. This is like a Hollywood parody of a right-wing Republican--think "Bob Roberts," or Tom Cruise's character in Lions for Lambs--but more clever.

If Romney's public sentiments were more intelligent than this, I'd fear he actually believed it. Giuliani's conservatism, to offer up one contrast, is intelligent enough for me to think he genuinely buys into it but still dumb enough for me to fear for the future of our country if he manages to win the election. The mindless tribalism of Romney's pandering is paradoxically reassuring. The form his pandering takes is a measure of the contempt in which he holds the electorate in general and Bush-era Republicans in particular. I share his sentiments completely.

Right. I don't think one should delude oneself into thinking that Romney is a secret liberal or would become one in office, but he's a careful, calculating guy. No furtive motions. Rudy Giuliani's not as right-wing on some issues, but he's bonkers on others. John McCain, as I've said, is flighty -- he flip-flops for no good reason, takes up policy positions as a way to prosecute grudges, and loves war. Huckabee's bonkers. In this GOP field, Romney would be the least-bad president.

Comments

they all suck. just say it.

Posted by gregor | January 16, 2008 1:28 PM

Another positive indicator: I'd say that Romney is about the most totally pathological liar to run for the Presidency in many decades, which really is a pretty strong claim to make...

Posted by RKU | January 16, 2008 1:34 PM

>> The mindless tribalism of Romney's pandering is
>> paradoxically reassuring. The form his pandering
>> takes is a measure of the contempt in which he
>> holds the electorate in general and Bush-era
>> Republicans in particular.

"Compassionate [traditional] conservatism" perhaps? Who is Romney's Cheney? Who controls the Republican Party?

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | January 16, 2008 1:34 PM

Romney sucks, but I think the Mormonism cuts in his favor. As the most famous Mormon, he has a responsibility to bring them into the mainstream and show that they're a respectable part of the establishment. I think his desire not to discredit his community means he's not as free to take big risks, which I find mildly reassuring. And among the GOP field, mild reassurance is the best we will get.

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | January 16, 2008 1:35 PM

So he is the Republican Bill Clinton? That's not so bad.

Posted by Curtis | January 16, 2008 1:40 PM

5 comments and nobody has mentioned that the end of the post is missing?

"Huckabee's . . . [what?]"

Is this a game of complete the sentence/paragraph? OK, I'll play. "Huckabee's policy statements are so wacky that you can't take them seriously." Or "Huckabee's policy statements, the few there are, are a mix of off-the-shelf conservative dogma (the flat tax) and evangelical red meat."

Posted by Bragan | January 16, 2008 1:49 PM

I agree, but doesn't this resemble some folk's assurances in 2000 that Bush Jr. would work with Democrats after working with them in Texas?

Posted by yep | January 16, 2008 1:54 PM

the naivete of some pundits is mindbogglng.
as cranky points out, has everyone forgotten bush and compassionate conservatism from 2000?
how many people were arguing that it really didn't matter if he was serious about that agenda.
how it really didn't matter that he was scummy enough to pull that south carolina smear against mccain. how the nature of the presidency itself would limit whatever harm he might do.
how it really didn't matter whether bush or gore won the presidency.
has everyone simply developed collective amnesia?
to reiterate (from previous threads and posts on this issue): the most dangerous person is the person who will pursue and attempt to gain power at any cost. in my experience, a person who will say and do anything to get power, will say or do anything to hold, maintain and increase his power. that possibility is as frightening as can be imagined.
we've seen that dynamic over and over again. why is it so difficult for folks like matt to understand that fact?

Posted by frankie d | January 16, 2008 1:58 PM

"I agree, but doesn't this resemble some folk's assurances in 2000 that Bush Jr. would work with Democrats after working with them in Texas?

Posted by yep | January 16, 2008 1:54 PM"

In some ways, but the narrative in 2000 was that Bush was a stand-up guy you could have a beer with. Romney, as MY points out here, is such a massive fraud that even he knows he's full of shit. He's the elitist asshole who admits to himself he's the elitist asshole. Meanwhile, Bush believed his own hype about god wanting him to be president. I'm not sure if I buy it, but it's probably the best from our vantage point that we can get from the Republicans these days.

Posted by Reality Man | January 16, 2008 2:00 PM

Huckabee's pathologies go without saying.

Posted by phil | January 16, 2008 2:06 PM

The form his pandering takes is a measure of the contempt in which he holds the electorate in general and Bush-era Republicans in particular. I share his sentiments completely.

Isn't elitism grand?

Posted by AJ | January 16, 2008 2:08 PM

So when Romney panders to Republicans it proves that he hates them, but when Ron Paul panders to racists it proves that he's a racist?

Posted by neil | January 16, 2008 2:13 PM

I'm excited about the Romney. He is obviously the first robot to ever run for the presidency - which is a first way beyond first woman or first black! Many have commented that his designers had difficulty with the Emotion Scan Translator in the first Romney runout, and this is a fair criticism. For instance, message - "Human" LIKE "dog shaped thing" obviously got confused with "Human" LAUGH "cartoon", which is why Romney laughed so heartily at the idea of torturing his dog shaped thing in so many of the early interviews. But the EST has been tinkered with. I was happy to see it is even in mimicsynch with the Linguistic Operational Interface. The designers had Romney watch Obama and Clinton, and - spontaneously! the Romney bot came out for change and teared up!

This is incredible. Just as Tyler Cowan claims that the IPhone has changed all of world history, the success of the Romney is going down in history whether he wins the nomination at the "Convention of the Pathodrones" or not - this is robotics beyond the winning of a mere chess match.

There are giant hazards ahead, of course. The Romney should not be allowed to watch any cartoons, as that might lead to harm to the actors hired to play the roles of his wife and children. But I expect that he will get much better at picking up human cues in South Carolina. Expect a Southern accent! This bot is taking AI in new directions, and I, for one, am tickled pink.

Posted by roger | January 16, 2008 2:17 PM

Frankie d says that "the most dangerous person is the person who will pursue and attempt to gain power at any cost." Totally agreed, but that's precisely why I think McCain is scarier than Romney could ever hope to be. McCain is a man who, lest we forget, was tortured for years. It's like his core issue, the issue you would think (and I do) means the most to him. And yet, he voted to allow torture since he thought it would get him closer to the presidency. That is some scary shit right there. Which is before we even get to the part where he's a warmonger who's first inclination is to bomb and who has admitted that he's not so good with that pesky economics stuff.

I'll take Romney as the least bad of some very bad options. At least he's proven himself competent at something in his life other than pandering, which let's face it, he's not all that good at. Sure, he sucks, but he founded Bain Capital, which is no small feat. Unlike the current nightmare we're stuck with, he actually was a good businessman and maybe that would translate into some decent leadership skills in office. Better anyway than the rest of that scary scary field of Republicans.

Posted by Roxella | January 16, 2008 2:18 PM

"I would double Gitmo."

This fraudulent empty vessel of a man doesn't deserve to win a pie eating contest.

Posted by WinSmith | January 16, 2008 2:49 PM

A "view source" reveals the bottom of Matt's post:

Huckabee's bonkers. In this GOP field, Romney would be the least-bad president.

Posted by solarjetman | January 16, 2008 3:36 PM

This fraudulent empty vessel of a man doesn't deserve to win a pie eating contest.

And his responses to Charlie Savage show that he'd treat the US like a Bain Capital corporate acquisition, constitutional limits on executive power be damned.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 16, 2008 3:36 PM

In 1980 GHW Bush ran as a pro-choice republican, and called Reagan's supply-side tax cuts "voodoo economics." When he ran again in '88, he distanced himself from those views and pandered to the conservative base in much the same way Romney is doing now. A lot of moderates, me included, thought that he was playing them for suckers and if elected would return at least somewhat to his previous sensible ideas.

Didn't work out as we hoped.

Posted by MattT | January 16, 2008 4:29 PM

this whole "mitt's not such a bad guy" thing seems guaranteed to bite us in the ass.

here's hoping a dem is sitting at 1600 next Jan. otherwise, a republican president will likely get to replace ginsburg and/or stevens on the court.

Posted by mencken | January 16, 2008 5:20 PM

If it's a Mormon-African American contest or Mormon-woman contest, bigots will stay at home on Election Day. The Republican establishment can't afford to let that happen.

Posted by Hans B | January 16, 2008 5:37 PM

Why am I not reassured. Let me lobby for Huck as the least bad Republican. Well, I'll do that later.

One good thing about a Huck presidency is that the GOP as we know it will be destroyed. That might be fun. Then again suppose those abandoning The Party take over the Democratic Party? Stranger things have happened. Those long term shifts in American political history seem to make so much sense in hindsight but when they happen nobody quite sees it happening.

Corporatists are now abandoning The Party in droves. As well they should. Huck the populist could seal the deal. Hillary can play ball with the corporatists like no other Dem president ever.

As a general principal I hold that States are shrinking in power and the power is flowing to the modern business corporation. Corporations will continue to overwhelm, replace and or co opt governments. The Democrats will make a fine partner for them.

Posted by rapier | January 16, 2008 7:42 PM

What is this compulsion to select the least bad of the field? Just for everybody to explain why they think someone else's pick sucks? To suggest that if the Republicans run some specific guy, it might actually be a close race?

They all suck - even Ron Paul for the most part, who couldn't get elected anyway, so he's irrelevant.

None of these morons are fit to be President, and that should be the Democratic standard line, distinctions be damned.

None of the Democratic morons are fit to be President either, but that's another issue - along with the issue of whether ANYBODY is fit to be President or whether we should even have Presidents.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 16, 2008 7:47 PM

Give me a break. Do you really think candidates don't ALL have image and issue strategies. You only go after Romney. Hmmmm. It would seem that his ENTIRE personal life has been an affirmation of conservative moral values and his business life an affirmation of traditional market principles. I will tell you what is transparent, your Romney bashing.

Posted by DLounsbury | January 17, 2008 3:25 AM

I don't think Romney would seek out war for its own sake like Giuliani or McCain might, but war does provide an unmatched opportunity to manipulate the electorate, and I don't see President Romney passing that up. Furthermore, unlike McCain, Romney wouldn't be in a war to win, with the required commitment of resources, but like Bush would allocate the politically expedient resources leading to yet another war that shouldn't be fought at all being fought badly.

Posted by aleks | January 17, 2008 4:20 AM

I'm increasingly convinced by Matt's Pro-Mitt argument (notwithstanding the excellent point about what was similarly expected of a "moderate" like Bush and what eventually transpired).

One question for Dems though: assuming your team takes Congress (this is a safe assumption, right?), does no one have any confidence in their ability to block and constrain a warmonger like Rudy or Johnny Mac?

Posted by Cerro | January 17, 2008 6:53 AM

Ann Coulter is a hard-core Christian and she's supporting Romney because its so obvious to her he's the most competent choice. But not all the other Christians! They're supporting Huckabee, even though my friends who work for McCain's campaign tell me that McCain considers Huckabee to be his "useful idiot" who he propped up in Iowa and New Hampshire only to try and take Romney down. I think we need a new party, the "Jesuscrats" where we can dump all the idiots who will only vote for rednecks that attend their protestant congregations.

Posted by Steven Rinehart | January 17, 2008 10:33 PM