Romney the (faux) right-wing extremist

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

Romney touts anti-abortion, anti-gay positions in South Carolina radio ad (link)

-- ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress)

Is he really a right-wing extremist? Is he really anti-choice? Is he really an anti-gay bigot?

Maybe not. In fact, probably not.

But there's Mitt Romney (the real person) and "Mitt Romney" (the candidate who will do and say anything to get elected), and I'm not sure anyone can tell the difference anymore. He's such a shameless panderer, such a suck-up to any and every constituency he needs to win over, and in South Carolina, with Newt hot on his tail and playing up his Reaganite bona fides, he's gone into full extremist mode.

Basically, it's just Mitt being Mitt. And it's not clear at all if he has a soul or if he's just an automaton who has programmed, by himself, to sell himself for votes.

I suspect the latter. Don't let yourself be fooled. He's as faux as they come. And the only thing truly genuine about him would appear to be his penchant for destroying jobs and ruining lives through his vulture capitalism. The rest of it is all for show.

Romney's devastation: Bain, vulture capitalism, and massive profiteering off human suffering

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Romney may be defending his extremist vulture capitalism, capitalism that destroys jobs and ruins lives, and Republicans may be rallying to his side, aghast that anyone should dare question even capitalism at its worst, but there's no doubt one of his core weaknesses has been exposed. As Andrew Sullivan, hardly one to advance a left-wing take on capitalism, writes:

I just watched the Bain documentary featured below and being broadcast throughout South Carolina by Newt Gingrich's SuperPac in full. It's loaded with out-of-context quotes and heavily biased; it focuses on the specific human suffering of the necessary "creative destruction" of capitalism not its general benefits to the economy. It does so through the voices and stories of ordinary Americans. And, as an emotional bludgeon, it's devastating.

But what makes it so dangerous to Romney, it seems to me, is that the Bain Brahmin didn't just fire thousands of working class people in restructuring and in closing companies. He made a fucking unimaginable fortune doing it. That's the issue. Other Republicans can speak about the need for free markets in a sluggish economy. But with Romney, we have a singular example of someone who made a quarter of a billion dollars by firing the white middle and working class in droves in ways that do not seem designed to promote growth or efficiency, but merely to enrich Bain.

*****

I simply cannot imagine a worse narrative for a candidate in this climate; or a politician whose skills are singularly incapable of responding to the story in any persuasive way. This ad is powerful. Romney has already seen a drop in South Carolina. I suspect he'll drop some more. And I suspect once the potency of this line of attack is absorbed by the GOP establishment, there will be some full, if concealed, panic.

I'm not exactly as fond of the "creative destruction" of capitalism as Sullivan is, nor do I think it as "necessary" as he does, and I'm not sure this video is quite as twisted as he says it is, but otherwise I'm in agreement. It's a pretty "devastating" line of attack. And one based on Romney's actual record, not one just made up to make him look bad.

I suspect he'll still go on to win the Republican nomination, not least because many Republicans (particularly the elites) applaud his brand of capitalism and the immense wealth he made at the expense of others, but the long-term damage to his electability could be immense.

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In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the preview for the documentary. It's pretty powerful.

Gingrich on the offensive

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Following up on my post from yesterday on Newt's "chickening out" on Romney and Bain, retreating from his justifiable comments about Romney's "vulture" capitalism, I must say that it does look at if Gingrich is following through on his pledge to attack Romney. He's just making his line of attack broader, and less anti-Republican, and less dangerous to himself, than questioning capitalism.

As Conor Friedersdorf reported at The Atlantic, Newt sent out a "blast" to National Review's e-mail list that hits Romney hard and asks for conservative support to take him down:

We can either nominate a timid Massachusetts moderate Republican to take on a secular socialist who threatens to turn us into a nation like the decrepit Republics of Western Europe, or we can nominate a bold Reagan conservative who will take the fight to Barack Obama in the Fall. Will you join me?

There's no more time for talking about stopping Mitt Romney. We're going to do it next week in South Carolina or he's almost certain to be the Republican nominee, whether conservatives like us want it or not. It's up to you, right now.

*****

As Speaker of the House, I forced Bill Clinton to accept welfare reform, four straight balanced budgets, and extensive tax cuts. Since then, Republicans have governed like moderates. My 21st Century Contract with America is the boldest, most conservative plan put forward. We will get America back on the path to job creation and economic growth with conservative principles. If that's the kind of President you want in the Oval Office, then I need your help today because the mainstream media and Republican establishment absolutely cannot wait to nominate Mitt Romney.

You can have a conservative nominee for President if you want one, but you have to stand up and fight for it. Not next week or next month, but right now. I hope you will stand with me today.

So much of this is ridiculous -- Obama as "secular socialist"? Dubya as "moderate"? Newt pushing Clinton around all by himself? -- but, then, Newt himself is pretty ridiculous, an egomaniac with a rather delusional sense of self and rather dubious ideological rhetoric. And yet he's making the anti-Romney case that we've been waiting for these many long months.

His problem is that while he can be an effective messenger there's just no way Republicans are going to let him be their nominee. Even if he would be able to stand up far more forcefully than Romney ever could to Obama, particularly in the debates (another of his current selling points), he's just too egomaniacal and too unstable, too much of a renegade, too much of a risk.

Romney is extremely vulnerable, to be sure, not least with so many prominent conservatives (e.g., Limbaugh, Will, Kristol) refusing to back him, but he continues to benefit from the lack of effective opposition, from the lack of a credible alternative. Newt will give it a run in South Carolina, where he's doing fairly well in the polls, but that will likely be that.

Romney will go on to win the nomination, likely with all of these attacks clinging to him like gonorrhea. That will turn out to be Newt's great contribution to the 2012 presidential race.

Gingrich chickens out on Romney/Bain, but "Armageddon" still on the way in South Carolina

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

What is it with Newt? For all his bluster, when push comes to shove, as they say, he backs down and collapses like a house of cards. We saw this when he referred to GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan's "radical" budget plan as "right-wing social engineering" and then, humbled and humiliated, came crawling back. And we're seeing it now as he's retreating from his recent comments about Mitt Romney's job-destroying tenure at Bain Capital:

Newt Gingrich signaled Wednesday that he believes his criticism of Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital is a mistake — and that he’s created an impression that he was echoing Democratic rhetoric.

Gingrich conceded the problem when pressed by a Rick Santorum supporter at a book signing here Wednesday.

"I'm here to implore one thing of you. I think you've missed the target on the way you're addressing Romney's weaknesses. I want to beg you to redirect and go after his obvious disingenuousness about his conservatism and lay off the corporatist versus the free market. I think it's nuanced," said Dean Glossop, an Army Reservist from Inman, S.C.

"I agree with you," Gingrich said. "It's an impossible theme to talk about with Obama in the background. Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect... I agree with you entirely.

The anti-Obama comment is ridiculous, of course. Obama has proven to be a middle-of-the-road technocrat, not a class warrior, and indeed a great deal of what he's done so far has been about rescuing capitalism from itself and otherwise trying to relieve some of the excesses around the edges. As for the rest of his response, Gingrich may just have been unwilling to be as blunt as he usually is when challenged face-to-face. But his point was never about corporatism or the free market, as if those two absolutes are the only options. Rather, it was about ethical capitalism (to the extent capitalism can ever really be called ethical) or unethical "vulture" capitalism (making money at all cost with no regard for the consequences).

But it's not clear how far he's willing to do, in either direction, and Newt seems to want to have it both ways. On the one hand, he doesn't want to come across as anti-capitalist, which is how anyone who dares say a bad word about capitalism comes across to conservatives, not least because he still has a highly profitable future as a leading conservative public figure but also because going too far could lose him valuable conservative support in South Carolina and, should he stay in the race, beyond. On the other hand, he sees a huge opening and wants to bring down Romney, whom he seems to loathe for both personal and political / partisan / ideological reasons. So what to do? Well, play both ends, in the typical Newt way, and try to shift the debate away from capitalism generally, which is where it's gone, and more towards Romney personally. Hence this, from a Gingrich spokesman:

This issue at hand is neither about Bain Capital, private equity firms, nor about capitalism. It is about Mitt Romney's judgment and character. It was Governor Romney's decision to base his candidacy, in large part, on his background as a portfolio manager. Thus, it is entirely legitimate to ask questions about whether he is accurately presenting how he conducted himself during that career.

In a broad sense, it's still about Bain Capital, private equity firms, and capitalism, of course. But that won't work, because Republicans have generally recoiled in horror at Gingrich's (and Huntsman's and Perry's) populist attack on "vulture" capitalism. So it has to be about Romney, about his "judgment and character," about his specific role at Bain, about what he did there, about the consequences. No matter that all he did there was act like (and profit like) the sort of capitalist Republicans hold in high regard -- which is why Santorum, who certainly has no great love for Romney, is arguing that an attack on Romney/Bain is an attack on capitalism.

All of which is to say, Newt, who is running neck-and-neck with Romney and who has only this shot left to save his campaign, has to walk a very fine line here. And while he appears to be retreating from the Bain line of attack, he also appears to be broadening his overall line of attack on Romney with a clear message that he hopes will resonate with a Republican electorate in South Carolina that is far more conservative than the one in New Hampshire:

"This is going to be Armageddon – they are going to come in here with everything they've got, every surrogate, every ad, every negative attack," Gingrich said. "At the same time we'll be drawing a sharp contrast between a Georgia Reagan conservative and a Massachusetts moderate who's pro-gun control, pro-choice, pro-tax increase, pro-liberal judge, and the voters of South Carolina will have to look and decide."

Gingrich framed the attacks on the former Massachusetts governor as a gauntlet any candidate must face if they expect to succeed against President Barack Obama.

"The last thing you want is to nominate somebody who collapses in September because they can't answer the questions," Gingrich said. "I mean, so you better answer - you know, people want to attack me for my past, that's fine. I either will answer it and be ready to be the nominee or I won't. Romney ought to have to meet the same test."

Gingrich, who has sparred with Romney frequently at debates, said he had no personal opinion of his opponent.

"No, I have no view," Gingrich said when asked his personal judgment of Romney.

Really? No view? But I thought this was now all about Romney's "judgment and character." (Again, we see that Newt wants to have it both ways. The lesson is to question the honesty of everything Newt says. Always.) Regardless, it's finally happening. After months of the non- and anti-Romneys turning their guns on each other, Newt at least is taking the fight straight to Romney and saying, assuming he follows through on this (which may not be a safe assumption given his tendency to chicken out), what many, if not most, conservatives, and hence most Republicans, think of their current frontrunner.

Behind the Ad: Newt Gingrich hits "Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney" over abortion

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Another installment in our new "Behind the Ad" series.)

Who: Newt Gingrich attacks Mitt Romney

Where: South Carolina.

What's going on: Well, he said it was coming, an all-out offensive against Romney in South Carolina, a last-ditch effort to tear down the frontrunner and likely nominee and to resurrect his campaign.

Assuming it really does materialize, a lot of it will be about Bain Capital, where Romney set about making millions destroying jobs and ruining lives, but of course that leaves open the charge -- a huge problem in a hyper-capitalist party like the GOP, where the slightest bad word about capitalism amounts to indefensible heresy -- that Gingrich is anti-capitalist. (What he's really doing is advocating an ethical capitalism inimical to the unregulated capitalism that Romney exploited and is defending now, but Republicans like their plutocrats to be self-aggrandizing looters with no regard for the consequences.).

In South Carolina, though, the opening against Romney is really on the social conservative front, and Newt and others, like Santorum, will no doubt focus a great deal of their energy in the coming days on Romney's fairly progressive (at least by Republican standards) past, including on key wedge issues like abortion. Hence this ad, which accuses Romney of having "governed pro-abortion" in Massachusetts:

Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney: He can't be trusted.

That's a powerful message that hasn't gotten much of an airing so far in the Republican race, what with the various non- and anti-Romneys so often turning their fire on each other instead of on Romney. It may not be enough to knock Romney off his perch, what with the conservative opposition deeply divided and with neither Gingrich nor Santorum possessing the broad appeal or clear electability that one would need to mount a serious challenge at this point in the campaign, particularly with most of the party elites in Romney's corner, but if pressed enough it could resonate strongly with the many Republicans uncomfortable with the thought of Romney as their party's nominee, particularly in a state like South Carolina.

If nothing else, though, it highlights one of Romney's glaring weaknesses, one that Democrats will no doubt seek to exploit come general election time. If he embraces or even acknowledtges his progressive past, he picks up independents but loses vital conservative support. But if he continues to run to the right, as he will have to do as long as this conservative challenge continues, he risks further alienating the center and losing whatever lingering credibility he may have with non-Republicans. One thing he'll try to do is avoid having to talk about issues like abortion altogether, focusing instead on jobs and the economy (while lying about his ugly record at Bain) and smearing Obama as an anti-American socialst Europhile (while playing up American exceptionalism in a shameless appeal to knee-jerk, delusional patriotism), but there's not much he can do as long as these conservative efforts to expose him as a faux conservative continue.

It looks like it'll be Romney, whether you like it or not

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

"SC GOP veteran tells me he sees signs of consolidation around Romney. Growing feeling that SC wants to keep up tradition of deciding nominee"

-- David Gregory (@davidgregory)

Well, sure. All you had to do was watch that ridiculous GOP "debate" Saturday night. It wasn't really a debate, it was a sort of friendly-fire formality in preparation for Romney's imminent coronation. Shots were taken by the various anti-Romneys, but nothing stuck and he left largely unscathed. (Indeed, the most damage done to Romney was done by himself the next day, when, as if trying to cement his plutocratic bona fides, he said during the Meet the Press debate that politics is for the rich.)

It may well be over. With a big win in New Hampshire tomorrow, Romney could sweep into South Carolina and wrap up the nomination. (There are reports that Newt, suddenly flushed with cash, is preparing to go ballistic on Romney, perhaps out of revenge for what Romney and his SuperPACs did to him in Iowa, but I'll believe it when it happens. Newt still has a lot of money to make as a loyal if occasionally renegade Republican, and I doubt he's going to jeopardize his future by trying to destroy the likely nominee.) He's got Gov. Haley's endorsement, after all, and the opposition is divided, mostly between Gingrich and Santorum.

And yet he remains deeply unpopular with conservatives and the non-elite elements of the party, including the grassroots base. It certainly appears that resignation has set in for many of the movers and shakers in the party, but what of the ideologues, the hardcore loyalists, Tea Partiers and social conservatives alike, who refuse to compromise and who rightly see Romney as an interloper, a phony, and worse? How will they take to being told it's Romney whether they like it or not?

Behind the Ad: Ron Paul targets "serial hypocrite" Santorum in South Carolina

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As we proceed through the primaries and then the general election campaign, not only for the presidency but for Congress and various governorships as well, we're going to be posting some of the more prominent political ads -- in our new "Behind the Ad" series -- and offering some beneath-the-surface analysis. This will complement our extensive political coverage. And, besides, who doesn't like watching political ads, especially when they're viciously negative?

The image here, as you may know, is from Lyndon Johnson's famous 1964 daisy ad, one of the most effective ads in U.S. political history -- not that LBJ was going to have much trouble with the right-wing Goldwater, but this association of the Republican with nuclear armageddon was awfully powerful. (You can watch it here.)

Okay, let's get started...

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Who: Ron Paul attacks Rick Santorum.

Where: South Carolina.

What's going on: Just as he attacked Gingrich as a "serial hypocrite" in Iowa, contributing to Newt's collapse in the polls (and dismal showing in the caucuses), Paul is going after the surging Santorum in South Carolina, the next battleground state after New Hampshire.

In a way, though, SC matters more than NH at this point. Romney will win NH, his backyard, in a landslide. The only question is by how much. Paul will finish second, most likely, but will struggle from then on. Why is he going after Gingrich and Santorum?

On the one hand, he may well want Romney to win -- if it's not going to be him (which it won't be). It makes sense that he would prefer the business-minded, plutocratic Romney to social conservative authoritarians like Gingrich and Santorum, whatever their allegiance to the unregulated free market. And in any event he may realize that Romney is the likely nomination.

On the other hand, he may (delusionally) think he still has a shot and is hoping to take down the anti-Romney alternatives one by one so as to be the only one left standing. There's no way the GOP would pick him over Romney, but, well, who knows what he thinks.

Whatever the case, he may just want to make sure he finishes a strong second, assuming he stays in the race for the long haul (like Pat Buchanan did in '92), so as to have a place of prominence at the convention and more generally within the party. It's not that he'll be the veep pick or have a Cabinet post in any Republican administration, but he can still be a major player, his right-wing libertarian agenda part of the party platform whether the establishmentarian elites like it or not.

At this point, it looks like Santorum is the only credible anti-Romney left. (Yes, I'm assuming that Gingrich is done. Right now he's just pathetically lashing out, once more the egomaniacal bully, at both Romney and fellow conservative Santorum. Wasn't it just a short while ago that Newt was bemoaning all the negativity when it was directed at him?) And so he's the obvious target for Paul's venom. And the place to take him down is South Carolina, where Romney has the lead but Santorum is coming on strongly (and may even be running a very close second) and, with a strong showing, could turn the race into a one-on-one affair, with Paul pushed out.

Just imagine the look on Romney's face when he first saw this ad. And imagine him rubbing his hands together gleefully. If he ends up winning the nomination, he should give Paul an expensive gift (or profusive thanks), just like a running back rewards his o-line after a great season. There would many reasons for Romney's success, starting perhaps with behind-the-scenes Romney booster Karl Rove, but it certainly helps that Paul, who has no chance of winning the nomination himself, is helping to clear the path of major obstacles.