Romney's box

Jonathan Chait, in a rare moment of dissociation:

The smart move for Romney is to ignore conservative caterwauling. The only question is whether he’ll be able to, or whether his base, as it has done from time to time, will force him to run the campaign they want rather than the one Romney needs.

This "smart move" is the impossible move that would double as Romney's most catastrophic move. Or, looking at it from the other direction, the dumb move for Romney is to bow to and obey conservative caterwauling, which is the inescapable move that doubles as Romney's most catastrophic move.

He is that boxed in, and it is unrealistic as well as blithely un-arithmetic to imagine that Romney could ever risk alienating the right-wing base any more than he already has. Given the immense deployment of negative advertising this fall--which traditionally depresses the independent vote to the near clinical point of agoraphobia--odds are the presidential election will result with extraordinary predominance in a base-turnout operation. Even the suggestion that Romney could intelligently cease running the campaign they want is, simply, otherworldly. 

But of course he's screwed running that campaign--the intelligent, obsequious campaign--too, because, simply, there aren't nearly enough votes among his base to push him over the top. 

That old saying, Where there's a will, there's a way? It's horseshit. Sometimes you're just fucked, no matter what. Hello, Mitt.

Comments

[majii]

Ann Romney is now saying that it's the Obama Campaign's desire to kill her husband. I haven't heard such hogwash in many years. I think what is killing Romney's campaign is his weaving and bobbing on important issues, his reliance on RW media to get his message out, his cowardice in expressing his opinions on any issue, and his failure to disclose his financial and tax information, among other things. The WSJ and many on the Right want Romney to come out swinging at Obama on the Affordable Care Act, but they seem to be forgetting that the many similarities between Romneycare and the ACA provide very little wiggle room for Romney.

[Robert Lipscomb]

At the risk of supporting the Supreme Court decision, the super-pacs are NOT intended to support candidates. They are designed to support agendas. To the extent that they also help a particalr candiate, that is coincidental.

As I have said, the first priority of this election is for the corporate wing of the GOP to take full control of the GOP. This is but one reason they gladly supported Romney's nomination even though Romneycare was a fatal flaw in his campaign.

The Kochs are not the least bit troubled by destroying Romney's campaign by nominating him and simultaneously villifying Romneycare (Obamacare). The main point is that there is a bona fide corporatist leading the campaign and not someone beholden to the Religious Right.

The more interesting dynamic is the paradox ofthe corporatists' (Kock's) interests in competition with the orporate beneficiaries of ACA: healthcare providers, helath insurers and large corporations that provide employee healthcare. Large manufacturing companies - and other - will see their health insurance costs reduced (or at least decellerate) from ACA.

[Peter G]

This makes me feel positively Olympian. Gazing down upon the poor mortal Romney while he undertakes the Sisyphean task of fitting himself to his own Procrustean bed. And the dammed thing keeps changing length.