P.M. Carpenter

Mitt Romney: We all need him, simple as that

In "Mitt Quits. Again. Probably." the NYT's resident satirist, Gail Collins, acutely assesses the man: "Romney has mutated a lot in the time we’ve known him, but the one clear, shining quality that never wavers is his complete inability to make a strong, clear statement."

The latest iteration of Mitt's marvelous circumlocutory powers is of course his instantly famous "That seems unlikely," when asked, by his own imagination, if he would ever change his mind — "Again." — not to run. So Mitt's completely out, although he's not entirely out. Perhaps he's only plotting a 2020 run against President Clinton, or a 2024 run against Chelsea, or maybe he's laying the groundwork to tackle Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky in 2052; or maybe, just maybe he'll be back yet, this year or next.

This, I know, is the thinnest of pixie-dusted reeds upon which I have ever seized. Like Fredo Corleone, Mitt broke my heart yesterday with his sudden betrayal of appearances and faithless disengagement from the field. But unlike Michael, I'm willing to forgive. I need, his party needs, yea no less than the nation needs Capo Romney back in the game; for without him, what have we but a breathtakingly stale, mostly untested and pitiably chaotic crop of GOP mobsters?

Fredo "the Pol" Romney, you see, operated on a firm, Al Frankenlike philosophical foundation: He was smart enough, he was good enough, and gosh darnit he deserved it. He was clueless from there on out, but at least in Fredo R. we saw an almost Nietzschean will to power, based merely on limitless ego, a Gottian readiness to screw the Everyman, and a consequent few hundred million dollars.

Is this not the personalized core of the fetid, pseudoconservative, gangster-swarming Republican Party? Does some lowlife underboss like Ted Cruz or passed-over wannabe like Bu… or sleepy sociopath like (gasp!) Scott Walker think he can really fill the Louis Vuitton shoes of visionary Fredo "the Pol" Romney?

I think not. And Romney, as he articulated in his garbled confession yesterday, knows that is sure as hell not the case. So, to mix cinematic metaphors, Mitt … Mitt … Come back!

 

On Romney, Chait was right, and I was wrong

A bit more than two weeks ago I so disbelieved Jon Chait's "I Refuse to Believe Romney ’16 Is Real" that I referred to his post as a "spoof." It was the kindest interpretation I could think of. For what else did Chait think Romney was up to, I asked, in "assembling a staff, calling donors, formulating a strategy and shrieking to all within earshot (and in possession of press connections) that he's by God running a third time"? I concluded, "What does the poor demagogue have to do to convince punditry's wise men that if he's quacking like a duck …"?

In contrast to my magnificently ill-fated certainty, Chait reflected,

Eight years ago, John Kerry briefly considered another run for president, after also having failed to oust an incumbent despised by his own party’s base and mistaking the outpouring of commitment on his behalf as an expression of personal loyalty, rather than the partisan loyalty it actually was. Soon enough, Kerry came to his senses. Romney will, too.

He has to, right? Right?

Right. Or at least "right" seems mostly, indeed almost entirely right. Romney did leave himself a reentry opening — "I’ve been asked … if there are any circumstances whatsoever that might develop that could change my mind. That seems unlikely" — but it's an exceptionally narrow one. The odds of a brokered convention these days are incalculably long, and Romney has to know that. One other possibility, however, is that Romney is waiting to pounce much later in the year, after the GOP wannabe Gang of Dozens has pulverized each other and so fractured the party that Romney the Eleventh-Hour Savior "seems" more likely.

But all that is wild speculation. For now, anyway, Romney has rendered himself a non-entity — which, contrary to Chait's perceptiveness, I still maintain makes absolutely no sense. As his statement today made clear, he still believes he's the best man for the Oval Office (but what political ego doesn't?), he still believes he could have won the nomination, he still believes he could have beaten Hillary, and with his leaving the door open, he's still proving that the presidential bug never dies. He's also been leading the GOP pack in poll after poll. In sum, he had as many reasons to go on to lose the 2016 general election as he possessed in 2012.

But, notwithstanding what I continue to see as the illogic of Romney's decision today, Chait was right, and I was wrong. 

 

Romney punts on first down

I'm stunned. I shouldn't be, but I'm stunned. Mitt Romney's was among the more bizarre, craven, circuitous announcements-non-announcements in the history of American presidential politics. Which made it classically Romneyesque. Which is why I shouldn't be stunned.

"I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee." The opportunity, mind you. And "I’ve been asked … if there are any circumstances whatsoever that might develop that could change my mind. That seems unlikely." Therein lies, of course, Romney's announcement that he's still in the game — that of a brokered convention. Once the others collectively blow their "opportunity" and GOP delegates are scattered hither and yon, Mitt shall await his call to greatness.

What a cheap, cowardly shot at the nomination.

But that's Mitt Romney for you. Today's announcement was merely an extension of his cheap, cowardly politics of 2012. And that, naturally, is why I was hoping he'd throw his hat in the ring with unmistakable directness. Indeed mine was more than a hope, it was a comforting certainty he would. Now this — Mitt's cowardly attempt to win the nomination on the cheap, which deprives us all of his dazzling demagogic acrobatics in at least a dozen GOP primary debates. I. Am. Fucking. Crestfallen.

I would say, You can't do this to us, Mitt. But he just did. He is leaving us with Jeb Bu … Oh Jesus! I can't even write it; my brain and emotional constitution can't bear it.

I must seek refuge in wishful thinking. Hey, I've got it. Mitt's announcement-non-announcement today was merely one of those Ross Perot things: He's in, he's out, he's in, out, in …

 

Lindsey, that's gotta hurt

Well now this, from FiveThirtyEight's Harry Enten, is just a damn shame: 

You’d think a relatively well-known, long-serving senator from an early primary state would be given some respect by 2016 handicappers. But Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who on Thursday formed a committee to explore a run for president, is not even listed on Betfair. To put that in perspective, Jon Huntsman, Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump are.

 

Yeah, bright move, Jeb

A rather quizzical squib, from ABC News:

The biggest hire — and defection — so far in the 2016 sweepstakes shocked and agitated members of Romney’s inner circle yesterday…. Jeb Bush announced he was signing up David Kochel to oversee his exploratory efforts and ultimately run his campaign. Kochel is one of the best Republican operatives in the business, based in Iowa…. He was a core part of Romney’s 2008 and 2012 teams…. It’s a sign that Bush is more serious than ever about running a campaign not steeped in Washington wisdom.

Romney's 2008 and 2012 campaigns were steeped in politically provincial wisdom? Were I Jeb Bush, I'd run from any past Romney adviser as though he were Eric Cantor's pollster.

 

Will Romney's awesomeness win the day today?

Mark Halperin's early-morning Bloomberg piece reports that later this morning Mitt Romney will hold an "update" conference call with major supporters, now that he's "gathered all the information he needs to reach a conclusion about whether to run a third time." Yes, "the data is in," and Mitt must weigh his vast awesomeness, which, in the data, is threefold, against any mitigating factors, which are twofold. So that's the scuttlebutt, although with the pros outweighing the cons — rather unremarkably, wouldn't you say? — Mitt's "update" seems predetermined.

Romney awesomeness factor #2 is of singular interest — awesomeness factor #1, by the way, is that no one could be a better president; awesomeness factor #3 is that no one could be a better nominee — assuming the books haven't been cooked:

Romney … has been briefed on what one Republican source describes as a massive, rolling private polling project recently conducted by a wealthy GOP contributor who shelled out his own money to determine which Republican has the best chance of winning the nomination. The data, collected over an extended period of time in the first twenty states scheduled to hold caucuses and primaries in 2016, shows Romney with a huge lead across the board, and significantly better favorable/unfavorable ratings than the rest of the large potential field.

This polling would be easy to dismiss if its conclusion were an outlier. But its conclusion isn't an outlier; its in near perfect accord with a stream of public polling over the last several months, all of which has shown Romney with double-digit leads over his internal competitors. The latest poll comes from Fox News — I know, the natural tendency is to laugh, but Fox polled the 2012 race with rather impressive objectivity — and it shows Romney leading Jeb Bush by 11 points, and both Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul by 10.

The Fox poll is somewhat suspicious in that it also shows Romney beating Huckabee among white evangelical Christians by 2 points, although the fracturing of the evangelical vote — Huckabee must share it with Santorum, Cruz, Perry et al — could explain that seeming anomaly. More suspicious is that "In hypothetical matchups for a 2016 presidential contest, Romney ties Clinton at 46 percent each." Now that's an outlier.

Those two mitigating factors in Romney's technocratic decision to run? They're more like one-point-five. First, presidential campaigns are punishing crucibles, as Mitt well knows. I'll grant him that one, in full. The second factor in the "data," however, I can already hear Mitt attempting to turn to his advantage on primary stumps: Hillary's path to the nomination is hitherto an uncluttered one, which frees up her general-election cash, while Mitt must battle what he'll portray as a hopeless horde in competitive pursuit of the nomination. His obvious selling point to the primary masses: Go with electability (see Fox poll, accurate or not).

 

Will Sullivan REALLY hang it up?

Sullivan acknowledges my thanks to The Dish for having sent many of you this way, before he retires to more leisurely activities. But the more I think about it, the more I believe he won't manage his non-blogging retirement very well; which is to say, he'll be back. I mean, if nothing else, we're heading into presidential campaign season, and this one promises to be a real bobbydazzler. Can he possibly resist the Iowa circus? the GOP debates circus? the inevitable groaning about inevitable Hillary's inevitable missteps? the flipping and flopping of Mitt? or the brain-numbing banality of Jeb's dynasty redux? or Ted Cruz's McCarthy-look-and-sound-alike charade? I think not. In fact I think it — America's traveling, quadrennial Big Top of political buffoonery — is the one thing of absolutely irresistible blogging attraction. That's sure as hell is what keeps me going these days. I'm staying right here, and I have a feeling Sullivan will be joining me, online. The circus is just too damned seductive. 

 

Finally, a Sarah Palin-defender emerges

The Weekly Standard's "In Defense of Sarah Palin," by Mark Hemingway (where's Billy?), is a lonely advocacy, and the defense's lead sentence to the third paragraph is a riot of understatement: "Perhaps Sarah Palin has proven she's not a major intellectual."

It can't get much funnier than that. Nonetheless, Hemingway tries: "Let me assure you that there are lots and lots of dumber politicians that were never attacked in such a vicious and unforgivable manner. They are allowed to hide behind handlers, and in many instances, grow into the job."

Palin's 2008 veep rival, Joe Biden, for instance, is a "total buffoon," writes Hemingway. From there one begins to lose consciousness from all the other disconnects, such as: "Frankly, I think Palin had raw political talent and intelligence that, had it been properly guided and allowed to develop free from the trauma of having her family being persecuted every five seconds, we'd all be talking about a very different woman."

Has Hemingway never read the horrifying history of Palin's 2008 campaigning? Her handlers became apoplectic in the face of Palin's refusals to listen to sensible advice. The grisly harridan knew better than McCain's seasoned counselors, including "Bullet Head" Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace. "Going rogue" didn't come from nowhere.

Hemingway's final defense is that old and usually reliable chestnut — blame the media:

The real problem lies not with Palin so much as our slanderous media pursued someone they found threatening to their myopic liberal consensus so doggedly and cruelly that they undoubtedly had a hand in creating the problematic, tabloid figure she's become all these years later. Maybe Palin isn't entirely a victim, but because she seems to be an unsteady figure in 2015 it is by no means vindication for what her critics said and did to her in 2008.

The prosecution's rebutting summation is short: We've never seen a politician with thinner skin or a more high-schoolish tendency for revenge. Those are Ms. Palin's career-ending liabilities now, and they were her career-ending liabilities then. Nixon — not Woodward and Bernstein — got Nixon, and Palin got Palin. That — if history even remembers her — is how history's verdict will read.

 

One way to weather the right's "stark raving madness"

Krugman takes note of his paper's reporting that Ted Cruz has joined Rand Paul in the insane, politically motivated push to "audit" the Fed, thus ending its century of political independence. Krugman asks: "How does one report on politics when a significant wing of the political spectrum is, not to put too fine a point on it, stark raving mad?"

It should be noted that some Democrats, too — most notably, Bernie Sanders — have called for auditing the Fed. It's the populist thing to do. The difference? Were the Fed to "fully open its books," as Cruz has now demanded it do, most Democrats in pursuit of Fed "transparency" would concede the exposed facts and monetary policies contained therein. In brief, their populist agitation would blow over.

Not so with the Cruzes and Pauls and their "significant wing of the political spectrum" — known as stark raving madness. No facts, no evidence, no proof contrary to populist agitation is ever good enough for this crowd. How, then, as Krugman asks, does one report on their politics? With true grit, my friend. With true grit. Well, with that and the historical assurance that ultrapopulist nimrods have been assaulting America for two centuries — we've suffered the sectional firebreathers and Ben Tillmans and Huey Longs and Joe McCarthys — and we're still standing.   

 

Tea partiers are like the new, new, new Dick Nixon: Not even a stake in the heart will do it

The Republican Party's purification machine continues to hum. Politico:

Congress hasn’t even been in session a month and a raft of Republicans are already being threatened with primaries in 2016. The reasons run the gamut, from backing John Boehner for speaker to objecting to an anti-abortion bill….

Many of the primary campaigns are almost certain to fizzle once the reality of what it takes to dethrone a sitting lawmaker sets in. Regardless, it’s a rude awakening for a Republican establishment that hoped it had put insurgent challenges to rest.

If the Republican establishment really had that hope, it's more incompetent than we thought.

For all their faults, tea party activists are among the sublimest believers in participatory democracy: they haunt their pols with incessant demands, they're unafraid of (or oblivious to) official power, and above all, they vote. They may have unsophisticated, even demented ideas about the organic roles of compromise and pluralism in politics, but unbalanced ignorance en masse — though amusingly pathetic at times — is still a force to be reckoned with.

Ignorance possesses determination, while sophistication often gives up. This, the Republican establishment didn't know? Who's amusingly pathetic now?

 

Frank Luntz —> Ron Dermer —> end of story

When one's chief character witness is the reigning prince of political shiftiness and sincerity's molestation — I am speaking, of course, of word-smithereener Frank Luntz — then one may consider oneself a victim of ironic justice. Hello Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the United States, whom Luntz has condemned by praising him to the NY Times as "more direct than [other ambassadors], he’s less judicious with his words, but he makes it up with principle."

Remember, Luntz lives in opposite world, every disingenuous opposite day; hence Luntz's attestation to Dermer's high-minded principles is the lowest of recommendations. It turns out that Luntz, who taught The Principles of Underhandedness at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1990s, was Dermer's mentor — and thereafter his verbally deceitful boss, in the run-up to the Gingrich Revolution of '94.

And that explains how Ambassador Dermer can now so unashamedly say that his current boss, Bibi Netanyahu, never meant "to wade into your political debate or make [his Boehner invite] a partisan issue," or to "be disrespectful" to President Obama. Horseshit, all. It's the Luntzian way.

As the Times puts it, "For those who have tracked Mr. Dermer’s rise," from Republican strategist to Netanyahu henchman, his "maneuvering over the speech appears to be in character" — meaning it lacks it. "He’s a political operative, he’s not really an ambassador," says former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer. "To think about going behind the back of a friendly country’s administration and working out this kind of arrangement with the parliament or the Congress — it’s unheard-of."

Ah, but not in veteran GOP-operative world. There, there are no rules — except the ones the other side must obey. And as for undissembling language? Fuggedaboutit.

 

Sullivan is hanging it up

"I want to let you know I’ve decided to stop blogging in the near future" — Andrew Sullivan, today, to his readers.

I can't say I'm surprised. Sullivan mentions health issues: "not HIV-related," but rather the "result of fifteen years of daily, hourly, always-on-deadline stress" — another way of saying, mental bombardment. My daily routine isn't nearly as unforgiving as Sullivan's; I've no million readers or 30,000 subscribers to please every day, and candidly, I've never wanted that many. There's a heavy and brutal price to be paid for what's called online "success," which Sullivan is now paying. I'm poor but mostly content in my meager ways. Could I stand to triple my readership and thus at least crawl out of poverty? You bet your ass. But even at that, I'd still be the master of my domain, rather than the slave of a relentlessly demanding site.

Sullivan's had enough of those relentless demands. He's pulling out, and one could read this development between his lines for the last few weeks. Something just seemed, well, off. Although his writing remained top-notch, it seemed infused with a certain yet inexpressible discontent. So I'm not surprised he's hanging it up. I wish him all the best.

I'd also like to thank Mr. Sullivan for his past "Blog Love" link to this site and his occasional linking to particular pieces here. I have heard from many of you that you found my site through The Dish, and I must say what's unique about that is rarely do such major sites acknowledge the small ones. Sullivan and his staff never played the insider-bloggers' "club" game; if they found a piece interesting or worthy of note, they noted it, and it made no difference that its author was not of national notoriety. That helped my overall readership a great deal, it was damned refreshing, wonderfully democratic, and just plain decent of them.

I shall miss Andrew Sullivan.       

 

So how's that "governing" thing working out for Republicans?

From PBS' Morning Line:

Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, who is in a Pennsylvania district Mitt Romney won in 2012 just 51 to 48 percent, last week lamented the kinds of issues House Republicans have been taking up so far in this new 114th Congress. In his words:

"Week one, we had a Speaker election that didn’t go as well as a lot of us would have liked. Week two, we spent a lot of time talking about deporting children, a conversation a lot of us didn’t want to have. Week three, we’re debating reportable rape and incest — again, not an issue a lot of us wanted to have a conversation about. I just can’t wait for week four."

So what about Week Four? It will be about (drum roll) repealing Obamacare.

As serendipity would have it for the "moderate" Charlie Dent, Dana Milbank also has a column today on the bumbling, stumbling congressional GOP: an abortion bill has been pulled (with "More than one House Republican … complain[ing] about the 'females' in the caucus"); border-security legislation is snarled; the Keystone pipeline bill is stalled; the Benghazi hearings are reaching a refreshingly new madness; the party is split on both trade and war authorization; Boehner has diplomats in an uproar; and McConnell's "three-ring circus" of multiple factions, malicious infighting and broken promises is just beginning.

All this, on merely the eve of week four!

Remember the GOP's pre-November plea? Just give us a chance to prove we can govern.

 

Where else does Huckabee think this will play?

Huckabee takes his Moral Revivalism on the road:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said in a recent radio appearance that while in New York for his Fox News show, he experienced significant culture shock from all the "trashy" women swearing in a professional setting.

"In the South, or in the Midwest, there in Iowa, you would not have people who would just throw the F-bomb or use gratuitous profanity in a professional setting," [said] Huckabee.

And, complained the GOP's Billy Sunday, some of the ladies were smoking and wearing dresses above the ankle?

To me, the one really puzzling part of the Huckabee quote is "gratuitous profanity." If the "people" were discussing, say, the sorry-ass state of the Republican Party, then profanity would not only have been non-gratuitous, it would have been almost inescapable. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, as I recall, once included used for emphasis in its definition of "motherfucker," which incorporated as well the adjectival form, "motherfucking." So if one wished to unmistakably emphasize the Republican Party's sorry-ass state, what better choice of descriptors than the latter "F-bomb" variation?

To be used in a "professional setting," of course.

 

The latest dreary grudge match: Pareene vs. Chait

Yesterday I read Jon Chait's NY Magazine article, "Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say: How the language police are perverting liberalism." It was an enjoyable read, because it's well written, as is most everything Chait writes. I also disagreed with much of it; I found his anxiety about rampant academic censorship too extended, and his general thrust — "While politically less threatening than conservatism … the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed" — overblown. I nearly rattled out my objections, especially to Chait's "philosophical" generalization. But then I recalled my many transgressions along the same lines, and further recalled that the good Dr. Samuel Johnson had once written perceptively about the "grandeur of generality." I promptly forgave both myself and Jon Chait, and set my rattling machine aside. 

Gawker's Alex Pareene did not. He instead exploded — at length — with indignation, rattling out "Punch-Drunk Jonathan Chait Takes On the Entire Internet." The polemical punishment contained therein fails to fit Chait's thought crimes: Chait "embarrass[ed] himself," says Pareene; Chait is a "broken" man"; Chait "hates it" that "writers of color can be just as condescending and dismissive" as Chait is (here, Pareene is invoking the writer's famous spat with Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates); Chait once worked for one of those "center-left opinion journalism shops" (the New Republic), which for "many years was actively fighting for white supremacy!"; and so goes, and goes, Pareene's screed. Accusing Chait of having once been in league with a center-left journalistic force of "white supremacy!" is more than absurd, some would say it's deeply offensive. I very much doubt Chait cares, however — I know I don't — since offensiveness, since Paris, is in fashion. And for Pareene, offensiveness causes readers to Gawk, right? 

And that's the whole point, right? Pageviews! Find a polemics writer of greater Internet heft than oneself's, and then rip into him or her. Hurl a disproportionate counterpolemic his or her way, and then sit back and wait for said writer of greater Internet heft to respond, linking, it goes without saying, back to the counterpolemic — which I can almost guarantee you Chait will find irresistible. And Pareene knows it. So off we all go to a counter-counterpolemic (for who dislikes a good street fight?), which inspires a counter-counter-counterpolemic. Those pageviews … rack 'em up, boys. 

Actually, this is an old academic trick. The obscure but wise assistant professor would, in search of tenure (a passed-over fad), conjure an outrageous thesis on some topic in some academic journal which would inspire fierce professional opposition, all of which the asst. prof. then "answered" in yet another journal article, which inspired more professional criticism — in short, the asst. prof.'s career was made, and tenure soon granted. Pretty damn smart.

Given the chance, would I join Chait and Pareene and Coates' Internet circus? Of course I would. Hell, I'm doing it right now. The Chait-Pareene spat is something to write about, something different from the same old, same old, and pageviews it will get. The chief difference betwixt their act and mine is that I'm too obscure to be much noticed — to be "answered." Were my Internet presence more prominent, I'd be more offensive about all of this, more polemical. For therein lies the prize of gargantuan pageviews. It's all a bit dreary, perhaps, but that's just the way it is.