Obama’s a gut fighter, and Romney’s not even in the fight

A friend recommended Michael Goodwin’s column in today’s New York Post, and I second the recommendation. Goodwin sums up very well the essence of Obama’s and Romney’s respective campaigns. Romney invokes national interests and the common good (though almost exclusively in economic terms); Obama aggressively appeals to a collection of minority and special interest groups who profit by enlarged government at the expense of the common good; and Romney, stuck in his bland national appeal, has nothing to say against Obama’s seize-the-wealth (and demonize-the-white-man) approach.

Goodwin concludes:

Against this ruthless juggernaut, Mitt Romney stands like a statue in a snowstorm. Given the state of the world and the incumbent’s record, he should be writing his inauguration speech. But that America is fading. Unless Romney digs deep and finds a new passion for the fight, he’ll need a ticket for the events of Jan. 20, 2013.

The scenario is nothing new, of course. It’s been the standard script of American politics for as long as one can remember. On one side, there are the leftist Democrats ruthlessly set on transforming America into a leftist country, a project in which they have already largely succeeded. On the other side, there are the weak, vague Republicans cluelessly inhabiting their benign Republican universe, where, like statues in a snowstorm, they remain forever blind to the leftist reality of today’s America, or forever unwilling to identify it and oppose it, because that wouldn’t be nice.

To put it another way, Republicans represent the remnant of America’s old Anglo ethos, and the keynote of that ethos is the imperative not to make a fuss. As Hemingway’s narrator Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises says, “I try and play it along and just not make trouble for people.” The Anglo ethos can work well in a traditional society formed and guided by that ethos. In a society that has already been half radicalized and is threatened with destruction, it is a formula for helplessness and surrender.

Here is the article:

It’s bully versus nerd
By MICHAEL GOODWIN
July 8, 2012

Mitt Romney is a good man. He’s smart, successful and there’s not a hint of scandal in his 65 years. He’s boring and a little distant, but those aren’t the flaws that could prove fatal.

Romney’s big problem is that he grew up in another America. He was raised to believe there is a clear standard for adult conduct, that even politics has rules and that it is the duty of a president to unite and lead the nation through its economic crisis.

Timing could be his great misfortune. Fate has given him a demoralized electorate that is growing distant from that old America and an opponent who spouts its verities, but actually believes in none of them.

Barack Obama believes that politics is a knife fight, and the only rule is that he must win. His conduct reflects the unholy mix of a messiah complex with the muscle of The Chicago Way. His goal, he tells us, is to “transform” America, not fix it.

This culture clash explains a presidential campaign operating in parallel universes. Romney is making a broad pitch to the nation as a whole, assuming jobs, the debt, deficit and a strong military are what people care about because they should.

Obama knows that’s no longer true for a big slice of the country. He gives lip service to those issues, but they concern him only to the extent they could be his undoing. His aim is to buy four more years by using the power of incumbency to distribute goodies that will insulate his supporters from immediate pain. In exchange, they’ll give him time to turn the nation into a European welfare state, with an imperial president uber alles.

Obama’s not making a national appeal. He’s micro-targeting groups already supporting him, hoping to drive up their numbers to offset the loss of voters for whom the economy and related fiscal issues matter most.

For him, 8.2 percent unemployment is something to work around, not worry about. It is a distraction to be paved over with side deals for friends, bailouts and trade barriers for unions, a pass on immigration laws for Latinos, subsidized loans for students, huge handouts for green-energy zealots and unleashed regulatory cops to “crucify” producers of fossil fuel. He even leaks national security secrets to boost his warrior cred.

The whole jobs thing is passé because work is optional when unemployment and disability benefits are the new welfare and an increase in food stamps is proof of “fairness.” With only half the country paying taxes, the other half isn’t worried about spending. For their government masters, dependency is good.

Women are patronized with a claim that Republicans are waging “war” on them, even though the Obama economy has done them no favors. Black Americans also get nothing special. Because 95 percent will support Obama no matter what, he doesn’t bother buying their votes. He is their only reward.

Our president is a deeply cynical man, but the more disturbing fact is that his cynicism has freed him from responsibility, and that freedom is proving to be a campaign advantage. The rising star who once claimed to see not a red or blue America but a united one has shed that pose for a message tailored to a country he helped polarize.

Give the devil his due: Obama is a first-rate campaigner, approaching it with a passion he lacks for the Oval Office. His team has sliced and diced the country into ethnic, racial and class pieces, and he follows their road map and revs up the rhetoric on cue.

His bus tour in Ohio was a priceless piece of pandering. In a town tied to auto manufacturing, he could tout his bailout of Detroit and suppliers and announce that he had filed a trade claim against China over its tariffs on American cars.

And so it goes, one special-interest cookie at a time. There’s no pretense of eliminating the deficit or paying down the debt. Entitlement reform is for chumps.

So are growth and job creation because they would require different polices, ones that would get in the way of remaking America into something his wife can be proud of every day.

Against this ruthless juggernaut, Mitt Romney stands like a statue in a snowstorm. Given the state of the world and the incumbent’s record, he should be writing his inauguration speech. But that America is fading. Unless Romney digs deep and finds a new passion for the fight, he’ll need a ticket for the events of Jan. 20, 2013.

- end of initial entry -

An Indian living in the West writes:

I haven’t been following the campaign with keen interest until now. I looked at some videos of the two candidates. I am particularly intrigued by Romney. He embodies a number of qualities any sensible person would want in the leader of the country. He is exceptionally sharp, very very successful in his career, has real world experience, did not spend his life race huckstering and most of all is not motivated by race resentment.

But having seen the speeches, I was a little disappointed. He lacks “punch.” His speeches sound like corporate speeches coming from a Harvard MBA. I will tell you this: Bush II had few redeemable qualities but he had this ability to connect with the average Joe in the way that Romney does not. Both Bush and Romney were born into successful families and lived like the top one percent lives. But Bush carefully honed his image to connect with average people in the way that Romney cannot seem to do. I think this has to do with Romney having surrounded himself his whole life with super high IQ types who have made billions solving seemingly insoluble business problems. However, they did not, I think, spend much of their lives with “common people.”

That article you linked to is right on the money. I would correct him on his quote of the unemployment number. Government statistics have ceased to be reliable measures of unemployment or inflation, both of which are massively understated. Real unemployment (if you include people who have stopped looking for work) is closer to 20 percent. The number in the Great Depression was 25 percent. The difference is that in the Great Depression, there was no welfare state and so we saw lines outside soup kitchens. This time, the welfare state has created high structural unemployment in which a large number of people are incentivised to not work at all. Why should those people vote Republican?

So we have a list of people who (in the main) will not vote Republican:

(1) Blacks (13 percent of the population)

(2) Hispanics (12 percent of the population)

(3) unmarried or separated women (10 percent?)

(4) Government employees (state, local and federal)

(5) Homosexuals

(6) Jews (two percent)

(7) Asians (two percent)

(8) Liberal white men

This is just a short list. You could make this list much bigger by including all the people who are net recipients of government benefits (50 percent of the population). They have no incentive to vote Republican either.

The only major group (not by numbers but by clout) that seems to have swung decisively towards the Republicans are the super-rich financial types on the East Coast. Amazingly, this group supported Obama overwhelmingly in 2008. I think they have since then begun to see the true picture of what is coming if you get another four years of Obama. Even the hyper-successful Jewish fund managers who are all billionaires are now lining up behind Romney.

I have a feeling Romney doesn’t really understand how big a hurdle he needs to cross to win. This isn’t like 1980 with Reagan against Carter. The country has changed. And the Democrats have elected themselves a whole new electorate that simply will not vote Republican and will loyally vote Democratic.

James N. writes:

I’ve been meaning to write to you about this for some time. I think the problem we face goes beyond Obama’s fighting style.

In any system of government, people will gravitate to a leader. Managers can also be leaders, but the skill sets are not the same.

In the past twelve months, Obama has become increasingly bold about showing the people that he knows how to wield power. In this light, successfully intimidating Roberts into changing his vote is a HUGE victory for Obama, going far beyond the specifics of “Obamacare”, which cannot and therefore will not work as designed.

Now, Obama’s objectives in his power displays are not good ones; in fact, real Americans should deplore his goals. But, nevertheless, as a man who knows what he believes and knows how to exercise the power inherent in his office, even if that involves running a few red lights, he will face Romney the manager and compromiser.

This makes him very dangerous. I attended Romney’s July 4 speech, even shook his hand. I do not think he’s a leader. Your point about Anglo culture and Anglo manners is a good one. As Romney himself put it in a debate, or pre debate press event, he wasn’t going to “set his hair on fire” to appeal to conservatives.

He has to beat a man who will set the whole damn country on fire, if necessary to win. That is the subtext for this election.

LA replies:

After Romney’s unseemly haste to endorse McCain after McCain beat him in 2008, and, even worse, after his endorsement of McCain in the latter’s Senate race in 2010, I said that Romney is not a leader:

Palin’s endorsement of McCain in his Senate re-election bid was understandable, given her indebtedness to him as the man who raised her to national prominence. But Romney, the 2008 conservative standard bearer, endorsing McCain? McCain, the archenemy of conservatism? McCain, the man who viciously and dishonestly beat up on Romney during their last debate in 2008? The truth is that for all his good qualities, talents, and intelligence … Romney is not a leader. At his political core … he’s a plastic man, an opportunist.

Clark Coleman writes:

Your description of the Anglo ethos pretty well describes George H.W. Bush. But when he fell far behind Dukakis in the polls, he attacked Dukakis and moved right and won. Romney’s bland front-runner campaign was also seen before the GOP primaries. But when he was sinking under attacks from opponents, he counter-attacked and drove them into the ground, amidst cries of dirty politics and so on. We can only hope that the same response is forthcoming down the stretch of this campaign.

LA replies:

I expect that Romney will replicate McCain.

In ‘08 McCain used vicious dirty tactics on Romney and beat him, then went soft like a pussy cat on Obama.

Romney—like McCain attacking Romney in ‘08—told vicious lies about Gingrich. And I expect that in the general he will go soft like a pussy cat on Obama.

Danny B. writes:

On whether Romney will go soft like a pussycat on Obama, no, I don’t think so. I detect that Romney is quite opposed to Obama, to some extent on a philosophical level, in the sense that he considers Obama to be almost a socialist. He sees Obama as the man who is sinking America (don’t bother with his campaign speeches; just read his 2010 book No Apologies).

John McCain in 2008 had no disagreements with Obama. He liked him as a friend, and essentially didn’t care about losing because Obama was the Magic Negro who would save America from its racist past. But Romney sees Obama as the socialist who is slowly bringing America down to loser status among the nations of the world. So he will campaign hard.

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I think and hope that Romney is going to pound Obama, even if he does it in a WASP, Bain Capital sort of way.

LA replies:

I was talking the other day to someone who thinks that Romney will not repeal Obamacare and therefore there’s no point in voting for him. I replied that Obamacare is so terrible that even if there is only a one in ten chance that Romney plus a Republican Congress will repeal it, I will probably still vote for him. However, in the meantime, I’m not going to fool myself into thinking that Romney stands for anything or that he is anything other than a hollow man, a technocrat.

July 9

Howard Sutherland writes:

I just read your post, “Obama’s a gut fighter, and Romney’s not even in the fight.” Coincidentally, I had been thinking about the same problem when a libertarian friend (a Ron Paul man who has convinced himself that Romney is strong) sent me a comment about Romney’s advantages over the incumbent. After Romney’s non-responses to the Arizona and Obamacare decisions, and his tacit acceptance of Obama’s illegal illegal (not a typo) alien amnesty, I had to counter. What I wrote him is below. Pretty much on VFR’s wavelength, I think. I have since sent my friend a link to the VFR exchange, so he’ll see that I’m not alone in having such reservations!

As things look now, I’m afraid Obama will win re-election rather handily. Romney seems too diffident to stand and fight him on the issues; I wonder if Obama’s skin tone has an effect on just how hard Romney is willing to fight. I’m convinced McCain handicapped himself on that basis. Romney is not a whole lot less liberal than McCain, so I worry about that. And am I the only one who is thoroughly sick of being presented only with candidates who have been to Harvard to have their minds destroyed there? Romney strikes me as more of the same-old/same-old. Let’s just say I’m quite sure Romney would be far more comfortable chatting with Barack Hussein Obama at a cocktail party than he would with you or me!

On immigration, Romney needs to forget about pandering to Hispanic voters. Most will not vote for him no matter what he does. More importantly, for every Hispanic vote he might win by pandering with amnesty proposals and the like, Romney risks losing ten on-the-fence white American lower-middle and middle class voters who need reasons to come out and vote for a Republican candidate who does not excite them. For this reason (along with the fact that it would mean surrendering any concerns about Obama’s constitutional eligibility, as Rubio is himself not eligible) [LA replies: why is Rubio not eligible? He was born in the U.S.], it would be disastrous to pick amnesty-supporting Marco Rubio as his running mate. Americans would then know the illegal alien/immigration fix is in, and that Romney’s views on the question are really no different from Obama’s. Special pleading for illegal aliens is not what unemployed and under-employed American swing-voters want to hear right now. Actually, if Romney had guts, he would make a point of asking why Obama is doing something—his mass illegal-alien amnesty—that is most harmful to black Americans, who suffer the consequences proportionally even more than white Americans. That won’t win Romney any black votes, but might help keep some fed-up black voters home on election day. Obama’s people are aware of that vulnerability: on BHO’s website, his amnesty-preaching at an Independence Day naturalization ceremony is prominently featured on the Hispanic-interest part of the website, and totally unmentioned on the black-interest part. Thanks to Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional amnesty, followed by the Arizona decision, immigration is potentially a great issue for Romney. I fully expect him to punt it, though, both because mass immigration has no negative effect on him or his family and because he thinks it’s faintly racist to make an issue of it. Romney is an ultimate elitist—actually very Bush-like—and such people don’t make a scene about such things.

On Obamacare, Romney needs to stand fast again and campaign on nothing short of a full repeal—John Roberts and the Supreme Court’s four other Leftists be damned. Again, I doubt he will do it; his instinct will be to be polite and cut a deal with people like himself. He is already waffling, seemingly unable to decide whether the individual mandate is a penalty, as Obama and congressional Democrats have consistently said, or a tax, as John Roberts just said in allowing Obamacare to stand. The truth—and this is what Romney should say—is that the individual mandate is (i) explicitly a penalty and in its effect a tax and (ii) is unconstitutional as either, in the first case as grossly overreaching what the Commerce Clause permits and in the second as grossly exceeding any rational interpretation of Congress’s constitutional taxing power. Here, too, Obama and the Supreme Court have given Romney a great issue to run on. Again, I expect him ultimately to punt, because as an elitist liberal he really doesn’t have a problem with a federally mandated “solution,” as long as he can be made to believe it might work, and because he just isn’t much of a fighter anyway.

The Republicans should have drafted Jim DeMint as their presidential candidate. He is a man of conservative principles who would fight to win. They didn’t, of course, because they are Republicans—not conservatives. The GOP’s best remaining option is to nominate DeMint as Romney’s running-mate, where he might be able to help Romney at least articulate some conservative principles. The thing that most puts people off about Romney is that he doesn’t appear to have any principles beyond appearing to be a sincere Mormon (in itself a turn-off for quite a few). In his responses so far to Obama’s illegal and unconstitutional amnesty, to the Arizona decision and to the Obamacare decision, Romney has only reinforced that perception. Bad news for America is good news for Obama, as always.

LA replies:

Yes, being a Morman is Romney’s only consistent and sincere belief.

July 10

An Indian living in the West writes:

I haven’t been following the campaign with keen interest until now. I looked at some videos of the two candidates. I am particularly intrigued by Romney. He embodies a number of qualities any sensible person would want in the leader of the country. He is exceptionally sharp, very very successful in his career, has real world experience, did not spend his life race huckstering and most of all is not motivated by race resentment.

But having seen the speeches, I was a little disappointed. He lacks “punch.” His speeches sound like corporate speeches coming from a Harvard MBA. I will tell you this: Bush II had few redeemable qualities but he had this ability to connect with the average Joe in the way that Romney does not. Both Bush and Romney were born into successful families and lived like the top one percent lives. But Bush carefully honed his image to connect with average people in the way that Romney cannot seem to do. I think this has to do with Romney having surrounded himself his whole life with super high IQ types who have made billions solving seemingly insoluble business problems. However, they did not, I think, spend much of their lives with “common people.”

That article you linked to is right on the money. I would correct him on his quote of the unemployment number. Government statistics have ceased to be reliable measures of unemployment or inflation, both of which are massively understated. Real unemployment (if you include people who have stopped looking for work) is closer to 20 percent. The number in the Great Depression was 25 percent. The difference is that in the Great Depression, there was no welfare state and so we saw lines outside soup kitchens. This time, the welfare state has created high structural unemployment in which a large number of people are incentivised to not work at all. Why should those people vote Republican?

So we have a list of people who (in the main) will not vote Republican:

(1) Blacks (13 percent of the population)

(2) Hispanics (12 percent of the population)

(3) unmarried or separated women (10 percent?)

(4) Government employees (state, local and Federal)

(5) Homosexuals

(6) Jews (two percent)

(7) Asians (two percent)

(8) Liberal white men

This is just a short list. You could make this list much bigger by including all the people who are net recipients of government benefits (50 percent of the population). They have no incentive to vote Republican either.

The only major group (not by numbers but by clout) that seems to have swung decisively towards the Republicans are the super-rich financial types on the East Coast. Amazingly, this group supported Obama overwhelmingly in 2008. I think they have since then begun to see the true picture of what is coming if you get another four years of Obama. Even the hyper-successful Jewish fund managers who are all billionaires are now lining up behind Romney.

I have a feeling Romney doesn’t really understand how big a hurdle he needs to cross to win. This isn’t like 1980 with Reagan against Carter. The country has changed. And the Democrats have elected themselves a whole new electorate that simply will not vote Republican and will loyally vote Democratic.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 08, 2012 02:50 PM | Send
    

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