When good advice is a pointless idea

Ross Douthat's sensible, and thus unusable, advice to the Romney campaign betrays the daily tightening of the latter's right-wing straitjacket.

An optimistic, essentially pragmatic, Reagan-channeling Mitt Romney is strongly recommended by Douthat, which would be a capital recommendation indeed, if only Mitt Romney weren't so invested in a gloomy, profoundly ideological, Limbaugh-channeling campaign. It's not that Romney happily prefers gloom over optimism, and so on; it's that he necessarily prefers it.

Hence when Douthat urges, for instance, that Romney "[supplement] his critiques of the Obama White House’s crony capitalism with an acknowledgment of the financial sector’s sins as well," one wonders where Douthat has been. Putting aside Romney's Palinesque assault on Obama's "crony capitalism," has it really escaped Douthat's notice that Wall Street's Lords of Creation simply do not tolerate even the mildest and most legitimate of criticisms any longer? Romney's toadyism to the financial sector isn't just a matter of the campaign's profitability. It's obligatory cowardice.

Or, suggests Douthat, Romney should "[supplement] his promise to repeal the Democratic health care legislation with a vision of what might actually replace it." The far right wants nothing to replace it. That's the whole point of Romney's currently modified version of RomneyCarelessness. Any and all progress along healthcare or any other lines is to be ruthlessly dynamited.

Or, writes Douthat, Romney "might ... [suggest] that this election will come down to 'jobs and kids,' and offering more to struggling middle class parents than just a tax cut on their (meager) capital gains."

Oh dear. Mission control, we've lost Ross, who appears oblivious to Romney's thundering theme of offering nothing on jobs or to kids or to middle-class parents--because in nothingness there blooms the nihilistic horror of Social Darwinism; which, to the far right, to whom Mitt is violently beholden, is far superior to the communitarian ethic of either Judeo-Christianism or authentic conservatism.

In short, Romney is in a box, a straitjacket, a bottomless bunghole of brownnosing in which his ideological overseers demand yet more immersion.

Comments

[Susan Zoon]

Romney cannot inspire or uplift...so all he has left is jacking up the mob and that's what he'll do. Let's not forget the tsunami of money that will hit the airwaves in October.

[Susan Zoon]

BTW... the final paragraph is a thing of perverse beauty. I will, however, need some brain bleach.

[japa21]

Romney is, to put it as concisely as possible, a coward. He couldn't condemn Limbaugh's attacks on Fluke, he can't release his tax returns because they "might be distorted", he can't acknowledge any of the down sides of Bain. Hell, he wouldn't even take the position of head of Bain Capital without a guarantee that if it didn't work, he wouldn't be blamed.

He is totally unable to take responsibility for any mistakes, and as a President (unless you are GWB) there are going to be mistakes made.

I fully expect that at sometime, either the campaign or outside groups will go after this aspect of Romney. If the campaign, it will be more subtle, like, "what does it say about a man who wouldn't condemn the rhetoric of Limbaugh because Limbaugh migth get angry at him?"

Outside groups may be a little, or a lot, more direct. A coward could never follow Douthat's advice.

[Robert Lipscomb]

Lor have mercy, I feel sorry for Mitt. Bless his heart.

[majii]

The stars must have been perfectly aligned for a couple of minutes in order for Douthat to give some sensible advice to Romney. Douthat has spent all of PBO's presidency attacking him for the same things he's now urging Romney to include in his campaign speeches. IMO, it's too little, too late. The time to recommend moderation and concern for the middle class, women, the poor, and kids, was in 2009. Romney can't show concern for these groups at this point in his campaign. It would cost him dearly, especially with the tea partiers.