Let Mitt be Mitt

In his political love life, Ross Douthat yearns for a little excitement, a few fireworks--a bit of real passion, something perhaps less than Byronic but more than the phonebook. Douthat's trying, he's really trying, to love the one he's with, I'll give him credit for that, but his man keeps dozing on the sofa by dusk:

[L]ately the Romney campaign seems to have decided that they can win this election without taking any substantial risks at all...; his general-election campaign seems carefully constructed to be as cautious and boring and even attention-repelling as possible...; the riskiest move the presumptive Republican nominee has made in the last two months was his decision to attend a fund-raiser with Donald Trump.

Douthat seems surprised, and for the life of me I can't understand why. In Romney's robotic ways he represents the McDonaldization of American politics: you can have that tasteless, artery-clogging gob of processed animal flesh and perfect(ly) white bread with mustard or without, with onions or without, with pickles or without; but however you have it, it'll be bland, because it's meant to be tasteless, because some tastes offend.

Douthat urges behavior modification:

[S]ometimes the best way to win a bloc of voters is to actually try to win them. In this case, that would probably mean offering a policy agenda more attuned to the ways in which recent Republican economic policy hasn’t always delivered for middle-income voters – a health care agenda that promises more to the uninsured, say, or a tax agenda that’s more family-friendly than the current Romney proposals.

In other words, Douthat suggests that at the eleventh hour the Republican presidential candidate woo him and others with wholly non-Republican policies. Douthat's gentle, euphemistic counseling and attempt at "meaningful" communication is hilarious: Dear Mitt, please scuttle, if you wouldn't mind, "recent Republican economic policy [which] hasn’t always delivered for middle-income voters"--yes, a gut-wrenching, retirement-demolishing, home-foreclosing, job-obliterating great depression is generally deemed short in the middle-class, happiness-delivery department--and "a health care agenda that promises more to the uninsured" is love's way of saying either an individual mandate or single-payer.

But I'm going to defend Mitt here. He should, with no little manly justification, just tell Ross: "You knew who I was, you knew what I was, before we got engaged. So don't try to change me now."

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

I agree with your characterization of Mitt's strategy, and he is walking straight into Obama's strategy of accentuating a relentless ground attack with tactical precision aerial strikes.

The groun attack is comprised of relentlessly making his case for his plns for jobs and deficit reductions and contrasting that with Mitt's non-approach and the the GOP plans.

I am about the only person I know who believed and continues to believe that Biden's gaffe on gay marriage was no gaffe. It is but one of many tactical strikes: the Bin Laden anniversary, women's rights under Obamacare, gay marriage, and now immigration rights. Some of these seem to be planned; some might be opportunistic in timing; but they all seem to have already been on the shelf, ready for deployment.

If I am correct, then we will see more every couple weeks. I continue to believe the final full offensive will be a September/October debate about the GOP votes to kill Medicare.

These guys are good.

Mitt - not so much.

[Peter G]

In the early years of growing to massive proportions McDonald's made a study of the refuse to be found in their own trash can. Among the many things they discovered is that many people like the idea of pickles on that signature Big Mac quite a lot didn't actually like the taste. Rather than rewrite much advertising copy they chose to reinvent the pickle, or rather invent the denatured pickle. Looks like a pickle slice but without the offensively sharp tang. Pardon my strange disquisition but I think you are looking at, in Mitt Romney, the political equivalent of the denatured pickle.

[majii]

Douthat and other disgruntled republicans should have thought of the things he mentioned when the TP emerged and the mainstream republicans followed them over the cliff. Romney is trapped in many positions that he's going to find will be hard to get out of. The current problem for him is to explain what he'd be willing to do to reform our immigration system, including dealing with our undocumented immigrants. Another problem for him is that he's adopted the Ryan Budget which only heats us GWB leftovers and calls them something new. Romney also appears to have a problem connecting with average Americans. The guy didn't know that some fast food restaurants encourage customers to use touch screen to place their orders! His foreign policy platform is MIA, and he has no plan for reforming our health care system except to return to the time when insurance companies can deny coverage for pre-existing conditions like domestic violence. One of my major sticking points where Romney is concerned is that he refuses to answer any question on any issue that is important to Americans without having to consult his advisers. Instead of making him look like a leader, it makes him look like the wimp he really is. Douthat and others in the GOP thought that they could package Romney in such a way that Americans would forget everything about republican governance and vote for him because he was a success at Bain. Sheesh.

[majii]

**heats up**

[japa21]

Romney is not out to win voters to his side, he is out to prevent possible defections and desertions from his side. He knows that he is guaranteed about 45% of the vote and is hoping voter suppression tactics and the economy will drive down the Obama turnout so that will be enough. Actually voicing any substantive policy may cost him some bloc of voters, therefore he avoids doing so.