Whoa, Mexico

A quick thought and question to see if anyone reads this:

Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico, where his father had brought the family to live in a Mormon community that included polygamy.  The family previously lived in the states, so this was just a short sojourn in the big scheme of things.

But I thought George Romney was a candidate for president in the 1960s.  How could that be if he wasn't born here?

I guess this Wikipedia article explains it, but that's not exactly defnitive.  It's totally new to me that George Romney was considered eligible as a "natural born citizen" even though he clearly wasn't.  In light of the Kenyan Birther stuff, it brings in all kinds of angles.

Doesn't really matter at all, but I was just wondering....

Centrism, with a Bonus on Mendacity

Following up on yesterday's post, here's Krugman today making a similar point about the center as it relates to Paul Ryan.  Basically the point is that Ryan is seen by squishy centrists as one of the "reasonable" ones even though his policy proposals are breathtakingly radical not to mention completely unworkable (balancing budgets through magic asterisks, like saying he'll make up for the huge reduction in tax rates by closing unspecified loopholes in the tax code).

Why is Ryan seen this way when he's as radical as anyone on the Right?  Well, I think it's mostly a matter of style.  Romney benefits from this too- they're just not firebreathing personalities, a la Gingrich or Michele Bachman or Lindsay Graham.  I can understand why people look at them that way- they just seem nicer and more reasonable than the "radicals".

And they probably are nicer.  My guess is that Paul Ryan is calmer kinder than Newt Gingrich.  He's probably a good father, he probably doesn't cheat on his wife.  But his policies are unquestionably as radical as anything that Sarah Pailin stands for.  Pundits need to be smart enough to understand the difference between style and substance.  Paul Ryan is not a centrist.

As an extra bonus today, this compendium of lies by Mitt Romney in just one week is amazing.  His mendacity is just breathtaking in its scope.  Democrats have got to take him to task on this issue- after all, Al Gore was targeted by Republicans as a liar based on practically nothing outside of association with Bill Clinton.  But what's needed, of course, is for this meme to take hold outside of the world of MSNBC and Daily Kos.  If we had a press that wasn't completely cowed by right wingers attacking it for left wing bias, we might get that- I'm not optimistic.

Lies

The level of lying by Mitt Romney during this campaign is just breathtaking.  I think his strategy is to so overwhelm us with his lies that we all just accept them as a matter of course, excuse them as "what politicians do", and stop talking about them.  

For readers who are playing for the Republican team and need some evidence, look at this. I don't really feel compelled to go over this stuff again, as it seems to me so evident as to be a waste of time to argue.

I've noted before that my Republican friends, who are generally reasonable people who will always vote for whoever will give them lower taxes but who are uncomfortable with the anti-science, religious fundamentalist side of the party, persist in liking Romney because they assume he's lying about some of his current positions.  Don't worry, he won't really end the separation of church and state like he says.  He wouldn't really refuse to bail out the economy if it comes to another crisis. He won't really destroy any rights that gay people have.  He's a technocrat!

Hey, all this may even be true- we don't know.  Now I've never felt like "character" was a great issue on which to base a vote for a politician, as we can't really know about such things.  But doesn't the constant lying worry anyone just a little?  It's just so brazen it turns my stomach.

A Quick Point about Mitt

Lots of chatter about Mitt Romney's insistence that the US shouldn't have bailed out the auto industry.  He's getting hammered for this, as he should, seeing as the bailout has been a smashing success by any measure.  But one point is getting lost here- Romney's disingenuousness.

I know, I know- Romney is disingenuous all the time, so it's hard to call him out on it constantly.  But this is what I mean here: If Mitt Romney had been present in 2009, and in the same situation as Obama, he would have done the same thing as Obama.  He would have studied the situation, he would have seen that there was no funding for an ordered bankruptcy, and he would have bailed out the industry for the same reasons the Obama administration did it.

He just can't admit it now, because anything Obama does immediately becomes Socialist in RepublicanLand.

Romney and Concern for the Poor

I've always liked the definition of a political gaffe as when a politician accidentally says something he really believes.  Many have jumped on Mitt Romney for his comment in a CNN interview that he's "not concerned about the poor".  Now this can be taken out of context, no doubt.  Romney went on to clarify that he wasn't concerned about the Poor because "there's a safety net" for them, just as he's not concerned for the Rich because they have money and will be fine.  His point was that the Middle Class is his focus.

And that's a good strategy, since most Americans see themselves as "middle class", even those who are objectively pretty rich (remember the brouhaha from the well-off complaining that there shouldn't be higher taxes on thos making $250,000/year, since "that's not rich!"- never mind that $250K is more than four times the median salary in the US).

But let's be clear about the implications of Mitt's statement.  He's not concerned about the Poor because "there's a safety net".  But in reality that safety net is pretty thin and tattered.  And the GOP's plan is to lower funding for the safety net- if Mitt's elected, the Poor will require a lot more of our concern, since they'll be losing services as government shrinks so we can afford tax cuts for the wealthy.

Hey, that's still a legitimate point- Republicans believe that poor people are at fault for being poor, and safety net programs just encourage them to stay poor.  I think it's wildly inaccurate for Romney to claim that he's "not concerned about the Poor".  Everything in his platform and rhetoric suggestes he's quite concerned about the Poor, because they're mooching off the public trough.  So he's lying about his lack of concern.  But of course lying is just what Mitt does- every time he opens his mouth.

"Moderate" Doesn't Mean What You Think it Means in the GOP

It occurs to me, in watching the Republican race for the presidential nomination, that the framing of "conservative" candidates (Gingrich, Perry, Bachman, Cain) and "moderates" (Romney, Huntsman) isn't really very precise.  For starters, we now have two ostensibly arch-conservative candidates (Gingrich and Perry) viciously attacking Romney from Left on his history as a "vulture capitalist" (to use Perry's term). We have Romney displaying foreign policy positions that are as right-wing as can possibly be imagined, and Huntsman's economic platform is as conservative as anyone's.

Romney's history is certainly not as conservative as the others in the race, but he's been running as fast as he can away from those old positions.  Yet he still can't seem to break into the Conservative Club no matter how hard he runs.

So I think that's because being a conservative today isn't really about policy positions, it's about style.  Gingrich has this thing nailed down perfectly- he's caustic, hyperbolic, and choked with rage all the time.  Perry has a less angry way about him, but his Texas Good Old Boy shtick, so reminiscent of George W. Bush, signals "conservative" to voters. 

Mitt Romney just doesn't speak to the Tea Party id, much as he tries.  Mitt is hyperbolic like Newt, but he can't carry it off with quite the same snarl that's really the hallmark of the Right these days.  And of course Mitt comes from the old Eastern establishment elite wing of the Republican party- he has so much of the patrician about him he just can't shake it.  It looks like he'll win the nomination anyway, thanks to superior organization and money, but he just doesn't seem to fit the Republican party any more.  The party is now dominated by the South and mountain West, and they like their policians "down home".  George W. Bush is the model for that party now- you don't have to be a regular guy (both GWB and McCain were very rich), but you're supposed to come off like one.  Romney just doesn't, and I think that's really why the party is holding their noses while voting for him.

Newt Gingrich: Class Warrior or Just Really Pissed at Romney?

Newt Gingrich and his minions have been putting out a mean campaign against Mitt Romney, focusing on his history at Bain Capital.  It's actually pretty shocking- Democrats timidly suggesting Wall Street regulation and a 4% increase in the top marginal tax rate have been accused of engaging in "class warfare" by Republicans, but now we have Gingrich putting out a 30 minute video filled with heart-rending stories of regluar people whose work lives were ruined by Bain layoffs.  I particular love the line that Bain's "greed was matched only a willingness to do anything to make millions in profits.”  Although that is nonsensical, it's a lot closer to class warfare than anything President Obama has said in the past few years.

So why did Gingrich do it?  On the surface it seems like the right winger is flip-flopping and has moved to the Left, and the GOP elites are reportedly livid about this line of attack, which could hurt Romney greatly in the general election.

I think the answer is that Gingrich is in a frothing rage at Romney over the negative ads put out by Romney's super-PAC allies in Iowa, which basically sunk Newt's campaign.  There's no question that Newt was trying to run a positive campaign (vis a vis the other Republicans anyway; he's quite willing to be outrageously negative and misleading about Obama), but when he took the lead and started threatening Romney's front-runner status, the gloves came off and Romney just wiped him out with negativity.

I think Newt sees this as payback.  He was trying to play by what he thought were the rules.  Then Romney changed the rules at the last minute, without giving Gingrich the time to make it up in Iowa.  Now Gingrich is finished, but he wants to take Romney down with him.  Why should he just give up when he's been screwed over?

It's just hard to believe that Newt Gingrich is about to become a redistributionist social democrat.  This is just him shooting wildly, trying to wound in order to satisfy his rage.  Well, nobody ever said Newt Gingrich had the temperament to be president.

One More Thing About Romney

One other point about Mitt Romney.  As I wrote yesterday, there's nothing wrong with his history as a corporate raider and serial layoffer of workers.  I don't hate capitalists.

 

What gets me hating, though, is when corporate raider-types are seen as some sort of Heroes. I don't even like all the paens to Steve Jobs as some sort of saviour. Mitt Romney and Steve Jobs were well rewarded for their service to society, and made no sacrifices that weren't extremely well compensated. Firemen running into burning buildings and soldiers patrolling valleys in Afghanistan, and social workers staffing homeless shelters are contributing to society in ways far more heroic, and they're not seeing 8-figure annual incomes. Romney's work at Bain is totally fine, and if he stayed there I would have no complaints about his work (even though I wouldn't want to do it). But he's trying to claim that his experience there qualifies him to "create jobs" as a political actor, and that's just ridiculous. Businessmen know how to make money- that's what Romney's good at. They don't know the first thing about how to make political things happen from the legislative end, and their business experience doesn't give them any worthwhile knowledge about how to manage a large economy.

Mitt Romney, Ruthless Capitalist

So now Mitt Romney is catching heat from Newt and his other rivals about his career at Bain Capital.  Basically the Republicans are starting to notice that what this important businessman did during his career was to work for a venture capital firm that made its money not by creating jobs, but by laying people off and making companies lean and mean.  Sometimes they even made money by stripping companies, selling off the good parts, and leaving the rump corporation to go bankrupt.  Romney's claim that he "created 100,000 jobs" while at Bain has been proven to be complete bullshit.

So let me be clear about my criticism here: I don't think Mitt Romney and his minions at Bain Capital did anything wrong, illegal, or even immoral.  It's Capitalism, and you're allowed to make money.  If lots of powerless workers get screwed over in the process, well that's capitalism and the resulting increased efficiencies in our economy probably produce more wealth for all of us in the long run.

But....

When Romney campaigns on the basis of his business experience, we should keep in mind what his experience actually is.  He doesn't "know how to create jobs".  That's not really close to what he did- he made money mostly by making companies more efficient by uncreating jobs.  Again, that's totaly fine, and more power to him.  But don't tell us that means he can figure out how to get America back to work- it's simply not relevant experience.

Narratives of Mitt Romney

So much of politics, and life more generally in fact, revolves around the narratives that we generate to make sense of the world.  Politicians get defned in certain ways, and it's hard to shake a narrative once it takes hold.  So of course it's important for the candidates and the parties to work the media and the culture to nail down the narrative that they want to generate.

Republicans are really good at this game.  They defined Bill Clinton as "slick Willy", and the narrative of him as a liar became locked into the public consciousness.  Of course it didn't hurt that Clinton was indeed a liar, at least around the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, giving them ammunition to fuel the narrative to which they had already commited.

My favorite Republican example of this was what they did to John Kerry: "flip flopper".  Now Kerry didn't really change positions any more than the average politician.  In fact, he changed less than many- he's basically been a consistently moderate liberal politician from day one.  But George W. Bush's campaign in 2004 successfully hung the flip flopper narrative on Kerry, even though it was Bush who had run in 2000 as a "Compassionate Conservative" and who had essentially made a hard right turn upon getting into office.  And it worked.

Republicans have tried a number of negative narratives on Obama, most notably the "socialist" one in which the president is allegedly dedicated to class warfare in a Marxist sense.  This hasn't really grabbed hold except on the far Right, though, partially due to the strong discipline of Obama and his refusal to give them much real ammunition.

Mitt Romney won't let go of this narrative, though.  He's brought it up a notch recently, in speeches like this:

Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes.

In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing—the government.

As many have pointed out, this is just a flat-out lie. Obama has never said that government should create equal outcomes, and in fact has never even implied it.  His policy proposals don't lead to equal outcomes, just to Clinton-era tax rates. 

This isn't the first time Romney has engaged in flat out lies about Obama's positions.  He has accused Obama of "apologizing for America" to other countries, a clearly false claim.

So I'm hoping that Democrats and those in the media start working this narrative: Romney is a liar.  He'll say whatever sounds good in the moment, but ultimately we have a Republican nominee who believes it's totally fine to lie whenever he opens his mouth.  This can also be linked to the flip flopper narrative that is much more appropriate for Romney than it ever was for Kerry.  Here's a guy who said he was for abortion rights, and now is against them.  Was for an individual insurance mandate and is now against it.  How do we know which time he was telling the truth?  His own party doesn't really believe he's telling the truth about his positions now, which is why they keep looking for someone better.  Democrats need to beat this issue to death.

Mitt Romney and Flip Flopping (updated)

So Mitt Romney has worked on his answer to the criticim of being a flip-flopper.  Here's something from a recent debate:

Again, it was Harwood who got to the heart of the matter, pivoting from a question about Romney’s seemingly shifting views on an auto industry bailout to a query about whether he lacked a core.
It has been a charge that has dogged him since Romney abandoned his 1994 and 2002 support for abortion rights, his 2003 backing for a regional greenhouse gas pact, and the endorsement of gay rights he expressed during his 1994 Senate campaign and 2002 candidacy for Massachusetts governor.
Romney replied this time: “I have been married to the same woman for 25 - excuse me, I will get in trouble - for 42 years. I have been in the same church my entire life. I worked at one company, Bain, for 25 years. And I left that to go off and help save the Olympic Games.”
Finding his sealegs, he continued, “I think it is outrageous the Obama campaign continues to push this idea, when you have in the Obama administration the most political presidency we have seen in modern history. They are actually deciding when to pull out of Afghanistan based on politics.”
Then, Romney added a red-white-and-blue coda: “Let me tell you this, if I’m president of the United States, I will be true to my family, to my faith, and to our country, and I will never apologize for the United States of America. That’s my belief.”

So that's his explanation for his changed positions on so many key issues over his political career, and it seems that many in the media have lapped it up.  I heard commentators on Morning Joe praising this answer to the skies.

I can't understand what people are talking about.  Noboby's ever questioned Romney's faithfulness to his wife or to the Mormon Church.  It's a totally separate question.  I don't doubt that he has a personal "core". I doubt that he has a political one.  Think about this laundry list:

• He was pro-choice when he was governor of Massachusetts.  Now he's radically pro-life
• He passed universal health care with a personal mandate in Massachusetts.  Now he claims the very similar Affordable Care Act is an assault on liberty
• He believed in Climate Change, along with the scientific consensus, but now is a total denialist
• He supported cap and trade, a market-based solution to pollution controls (along with John McCain), until he decided it was an assault on business
• He's been all over the place on the Auto Bailout, supporting it before it happened, and now criticizing it because Obama took the advice.

I go back again to the amazing conservative media machine's ability to tar any non-conservative with any criticism through constant repetition.  They decided to make John Kerry a "flip flopper", in spite of the fact that he's been a consistent moderate liberal his whole career.  And now comes Romney, with 180 degree turns in policy constantly- I wonder if this issue will gain any traction during the general election.

As I've said before, the moderate "Wall Street Journal Conservatives" I know are ready to vote for Romney, believing that he's just lying about his extreme Tea Party positions to get the nomination.  They assure me that he'll pivot to sanity in time for the general election and as president.  Of course that same belief is held by Tea Party types, who don't want to vote for him for the same reason.  But the moderates ready to vote for him need to remember that he'll be working on re-election once he's elected, and it sure looks like the path to re-election for Republicans is to govern hard right.  It worked for Bush II, and Reagan, and the moderate path failed for Bush I. 

One thing I know is in Romney's "core"- winning.

UPDATE: Here's another great post from TNR on Romney's meta-flip flopping.

Somewhat lost amid the tizzy over Rick Perry's “oops” moment this week was that the former Massachusetts governor flip-flopped on whether or not he flip-flops. Observe Romney justify his many shifting views to a New Hampshire town hall audience in late September:

“In the private sector, if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well, you’ll get fired for being stubborn and stupid,” Romney said. “Winston Churchill said, ‘When the facts change, I change too, Madam.’”

The Churchill quotation, as many noted gleefully, is in fact properly attributed to John Maynard Keynes. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because since then Romney has changed his mind. He’s actually not a flip-flopper! During Wednesday night’s GOP candidate debate, when confronted with accusations of flip-floppery, Romney readily counted himself among the stubborn and stupid: “I think people understand that I’m a man of steadiness and constancy.”
Someone call Jorge Luis Borges, because Mitt’s flips and flops are getting downright meta.

GOP Debate Thoughts (well, really Mitt Romney thoughts)

Tuned in to part of the debate last night, and saw more highlights this morning.  Here are some thoughts:

• Mitt Romney is the only one in there who sounds like he knows what he's talking about.  Everyone else on stage sounds either crazy or stupid or both.
• One of the reasons Romney doesn't sound crazy is that even when he's saying crazy stuff he's so obviously pandering that sane people are convinced that he's lying about his views.  I think the crazies see this too, however, which is why they don't trust the guy.
• There's a good chance the Republican nominee will win in 2012.  This is true no matter who is nominated- if the economy goes into a double dip, then Obama loses no matter what.  So although I won't be voting for any of these people (I'm not voting for a pro-life, low taxes, end-the-welfare-state candidate), I will be rooting for the one who will be the least destructive to the country, and I guess that's Romney.
• The problem for him is this: yes he's pandering when he supports Paul Ryan's economic plan- he must know that the numbers don't add up and it will lead to higher deficits- but when he's in office he may well be straitjacketed by his campaigning and the rage of his base.  Look what happened to GHW Bush when he got sane and broke his "read my lips- no new taxes" pledge- he was voted out of office and forever hated by the zealots even though that tax compromise led to the Clinton-era surplus.  A President Romney's first priority will be to get re-elected.  I'm not sure how he finds that path.  If he follows the Republican platform as it's laid out now, the economy will be disastrously affected.  If he gets technocratic and realist, he loses the crazies in his base.
• I'm considering the possibility that I'm just wrong about the economy.  Maybe Keynesian economics is dead, and austerity and balanced budgets will work after all.  Maybe President Romney will usher in a new Morning in America.  If he wins, I'll be hoping so, but I won't be very optimistic.

Thoughts on Mitt Romney

Mitt is the favorite Republican candidate of most of my conservative friends.  Which makes sense- he's from Massachusetts, he governed the state competently, he was a good businessman (the background of all my conservative friends- they really respect good businessmen), etc.

So what about now, as Mitt runs right to attempt to appease the wingnuts who don't trust that he's really one of them (because he really isn't)?  I hear he's having a campaign event as a Tea Partier.  He is fully in favor of austerity during our jobs crisis.  He professes belief in magic Laffer effects to tax cuts.  He will take most any position that will win him votes, and seems to have no core beliefs.  My favorite example of this was during the 2008 primary debates when the subject of Guantanamo detentions came up, and Romney famously said "I'd double Guantanamo!".  This from a guy with no particular hawkish bent previously.

So he talks like a wingnut.  But the wingnuts don't quite believe it.  And of course his moderate supporters don't really believe it either, which is why they still support him even though his positions are identical to those of Rick Perry at this point.

Another way to look at it is this: many mainstream conservatives support Romney because they assume he is lying about his beliefs to pander to the nutters.  These people hope that he is actually pandering. 

There's character for you!