I think Josh Marshall has it exactly right, Romney Telegraphing Loss:
As noted this morning, Wednesday April 11th is day one of the general election. But there are things I’m seeing that tell me that Mitt Romney is kicking off the campaign in a telling defensive posture. What I mean is that on various fronts, Romney is kicking off within Obama’s campaign narrative. He’s living in Obama’s world, playing on his turf.
Example one is the Romney campaign’s push that it’s Obama’s economic policies that are the real “war on women.”
The effort to point to an “Obama Rule” over and against the “Buffett Rule” looks the same to me.
This might be a good talking point at some level. It gives the campaign an affirmative argument on a big issue, which is always at least a bit better than having nothing to say at all. But fundamentally, this is Obama’s turf. It’s me-too. And you hope to keep up that way, not win.
The presumptive Republican nominee needs to create his own campaign themes, not just take slaps at Obama’s campaign themes. What worked in the primaries will not work in the general election for a variety of reasons.
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“…Mitt Romney is kicking off the campaign in a telling defensive posture. What I mean is that on various fronts, Romney is kicking off within Obama’s campaign narrative. He’s living in Obama’s world, playing on his turf.”
No kidding. As if some of us haven’t been saying this for five years. The guy has never either driven a positive narrative or effectively refuted a negative one in his political life. He’s going to start now?
Get ready for five excrutiating months. You asked for it, RINOS. Is it that you hate us so much or just yourselves? Both?
It’s not hatred, but I can understand why a person who is as admittedly angry as you are would go to that rhetorical well first. It’s an absolute lack of respect for your primary analyses. It’s a complete distrust of your logical capabilities based off of months of flawed arguments and erroneous predictions.
raven, you are the real RINO. So is anyone who only votes for a Republican (against Obama, in this election, no less) if the circumstances are right for them.
Save us all the doomsday, Chicken Little, we already lost wishful thinking crap. Just because you want Romney to lose more than you do Obama does not mean everyone else has to be subjected to your anhedonic, joyless, pessimistic perspectives.
Dump Romney and you’ll see plenty of joy — far and wide. Leaping eruptions of uncontainable joy.
Romney is the problem, not “anhedonic” conservatives who want a warrior after 20 years of being pummelled by the Left and being told by their hemophiliac collaborators in the GOP that we have to play nice to win.
I understand your need to stalk me out of aggrieved bitterness at being exposed as a Romneybot when you preferred to hide in the bushes of conceited neutrality, but you might want to direct your attention to people like Josh Marshall (whose reach and influence are much greater than mine) pointing out that Romney is telegraphing his loss. He said it.
You flatter yourself raven. You comment, often, with the same levels of counter productive anger, are often wrong about any number of things (including your self-proclaimed prowess in “outing” me), are against everything and for nothing, and justifiably make yourself a target for “stalking” for it.
And it’s not “anhedonic conservatives,” plural. It’s just you. Again, don’t break your joyless little negative arm patting yourself on the back there Champ; you are not a conservative.
Marshall wrote a paragraph, or two, a day after Romney effectively sealed this up (for the rest of you who didn’t realize this was sealed up a long time ago). Bill grabbed a hold of it because it confirms his biases, that is all that happened it the little piece you want to hide behind.
“And it’s not “anhedonic conservatives,” plural. It’s just you.”
So, I’m the only person predicting Romney’s defeat, or the only one you care to notice predicting Obama’s defeat? It appears that you’re the one flattering me. And all this makes me “anhedonic,” and the “real RINO”? Given these interpretations, I probably shouldn’t be flattered by the flattery.
I freely admit I hate Romney. I suppose I “hate” him in the same way the French resistance hated the Vichy. My greatest wish is the political cancellation of the Romneys of our time. They are ruinous; they having proved so over time and beyond all doubt. People like Romney are why people like Obama exists. Obama is their legacy. Trace it back, follow the story of fear, denial and conciliation all in the name of “getting things done.” The ignorance, folly and self-deception — the sheer indomitably of all three — are towering. The greatest public service people like Romney can perform is to go away and make money and create jobs (as they so often boast of having been able to do). They have no business running for public office in America, certainly not in an America whose very being essence lies stretched to tearing point on the mad-scientist Leftist rack.
And you might want to note the difference between pessimism and prediction, or between declamation and exhortation. There is still time to dump Romney. This is the hope, from which arises the joy. Dump Romney.
We both know neither of these things are true. There are two, distinct factors that aid in your getting “noticed.” First, it’s not that you are predicting Romney’s defeat now but that you have so frequently and so prominently predicted so many other things about the primary (in general) and Romney (specifically) that have turned out to be false. In short, you are a very poor predictor, a visible, easy and readily available target.
Second, it’s not just *that* you predict (poorly), but also *how* you predict (what you predict oh so poorly). I have yet, in lo these many months and Lord knows how many of your comments and my responses to them, to see you say anything positive. To anyone. Even the things you do “agree” with people about are exclusively pessimistic, loveless, joyless and absolutely lacking redeeming value. “So and so, you are right, we really are doomed, and oh yeah, the U.S. really is a dismal and dreary place and there is no hope for the human race. Did I mention how much I hate puppies, sunshine, birdsong, and babies? I do. I hate them all. Burn it all to the ground.”
Yes, appearances can be deceiving.
Because that is a viable solution… If I thought for a moment that you actually thought this was even a remote possibility, I would chalk it up to ignorance and let it slide. I know you know better. The fact that you still insist on saying it proves at least one point I am trying to make here. You are not trying to help anyone or anything other than yourself. The only opinion that matters to you is your own. You are incapable of seeing anything from anyone else’s perspective.
I am a sarcastic bastard. I know it. I do not often play well with others. I know this too. I actually want to be nice and sometimes regret my tone on here. I see no remorse from you. Ever. You are perfectly content to throw rhetorical/predictive grenades in people’s laps yet find no need to retrospectively explain yourself when your “interpretations” are borne to be base, false and entirely without merit. You are, by definition, an internet troll. Further, your hatred for all brands of conservative thought (other than your own unique, masochistic form, of course) and fair weather approach to conservative politics proves, to me at least, that you are precisely what you see in others: A Republican in Name Only. You are not part of the Republican Party, you are the founder and sole member of your own exclusive Angry Bird Party.
Why not try something constructive for once? How about you try using your (admittedly considerable, if entirely misguided) skills to help solve some of the problems around you rather than sniping at them from the sidelines?
Dear me. So personal.
If you’re at last purged of your adolescent animus for having your insinuations of neutrality spoiled, you’re still welcome to stick to the issues and explain how after a lifetime of quisling equivocations and rank capitulations to the Left Romney will be miraculously reborn as a warrior capable of identifying nay confronting the Left at the bristling apex of its power.
In any case, you’ve inspired a new personal slogan: “Bring back joy to conservatism — Dump Romney!”
See, I’m not entirely bereft of positiveness!
Soooo predictable I (sincerely) almost put “Dump Romney” does not count at the end of that last post.
Next?
Also, my Parthian shot for the night: While I am no psychologist, I am beginning to understand why you oh so readily project “absence of neutrality, adolescence, animus, anger, bias, hatred, rage, RINOism, trollery” etc. onto others.
Pot, meet kettle.
You’ve personalized this to an embarrassing degree and with childish hyperbole. You offer no citations, build no case. This dates back to your phony agnosticism in which you pretended to weigh the various merits of the candidates, over which I and a few others called you out. You’ve been lashing back since. Why so many Romney supporters have felt the need to play that game over the years instead of just openly and proudly declaring why they love Romney and why we should too is perplexing, though suggests some basic insecurity. I can understand. Romney is a joke.
You don’t like negative comments about him. Too bad. Sometimes negativity – declaring what’s wrong, naming the problem — is necessary to get to the positive. The GOP and Romney model of candidate and campaign is staggeringly out of touch and headed for a crash. If you can’t see this, I’m sorry.
I believe quite sincerely there is a chance Romney could be dumped before or at the convention. A certain concatenation of events must occur (in which the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare will play a part) but the grassroots is volatile and dissatisfaction deep; the convention could be a tinderbox. That’s certainly my hope. We still have a chance to avert disaster and take on the Left with fearless vigor and clarity.
Dump Romney, bring back joy to conservatism.
Oh my. You poor, fragile flower. I am sorry this is all so personal for you. You can hide behind your *own* little hyperbolic counter attacks and endlessly project your own character flaws and traits (immature, angry, childish, whiny, RINOish, trollish, thin-skinned, elitist, vapid, specious etc.) on everyone else around you, but it changes nothing. You are who you are. You have nothing of substance to offer the discussion other than informing us all who, and what, you are against. You hate the world? Awesome. No one cares.
You have only one card here raven and it is as weak today as it was all those weeks ago. The fact is, and remains, your poisonous approach towards any other perspective other than your own did as much to convince me Newt’s case was lost a long time ago as anything else in the primary world at that time. You didn’t “out” me but you seem to derive great pleasure from thinking you did.
The truth is, you convinced me that the only case most of you had/have *for* Newt was that you were/are *against* Romney. That’s it. Not one of you could explain how, exactly or even very generally, Newt was supposed to overcome his very real, and very serious liabilities and win the Republican nomination. Sure, you all talked a lot of “hate” and a lot of “hope,” but not one of you could address the reality of the delegate count or the electoral map. You all made fanciful comparisons and highfalutin predictions about how it was and how it was going to be. You all endlessly soap boxed and ranted about this one perceived problem or the other, about *why* you wanted Mitt to lose or Newt to win but not one of you could make a cogent case for *how* that was ever actually going to happen. If I ever thought Gingrich had a chance in this race, angry little folks like you quickly cured me of the delusion.
As far as why I won’t “openly and proudly” declare why I, or anyone else here, loves Romney (to you of all people) should be painfully obvious. First, and geez I hope you don’t take this personally, you are an asshole. Pearls before swine and such… Second, you and everyone else on here has admitted nothing any one of us could say would make a damned bit of difference or change your narrow and entrenched ideas in even the slightest degree. Third, why would any one of us feel the need to defend someone who really doesn’t seem to need our help in the first place? Mitt has been doing just fine without me “declaring my love” (you are serious too) to the ever-crucial LI voting block.
I don’t mind the “negative comments” about Mitt in the least. I actually enjoy them. I am sorry you seem to take my shoving them right back down your throat so personally. I know we are all supposed to be lily-gilded little delicate creatures who leave the meat eating to you “real” conservatives but I prefer the “fangs and elbows” approach so much more. Attack Mitt all you like. It makes me smile.
As far an insecurity goes, I am not the one holding out for a magical comeback from someone other than Mitt. That’s you. I am also not the one who “sincerely” believes that either Romney will be “dumped” or this race is going to go to the convention. That is you too. Further, I am not the guy crying about how much I hate the other guy who just pushed my guy down on the primary playground, whipped his ass and made us both look like politically ignorant and impotent fools. That is absolutely you.
Raven “Smitty” over at “the other Mccain” is @smitty_one_each is Chris Smith.
He tweeted “I don’t understand all the negative attitude about Mitt Romney right now. He hasn’t even nominated Lindsey Graham for VP yet. @rsmccain”
After 2010 Jim Demint’s SCF was put on notice to NOT field a candidate against any incumbent Senators.
I took his tweet as a humorous sarcasm against Romney.
Career Conservatives are in their own interests, If the Official Romney Campaign literally told me personally “I need to vote for HIM …Or Else…the bird would probably be forthcoming.
Neither they nor the RNC are doing that, and nobody on this blog has an official position on the Romney Campaign.
In 2008 there were people detailing what was going to happen given an Obama Presidency including Alinsky “Rules For Radicals” tactics. Today there are establishment people who think it’s the greatest discovery since sliced bread.
Romney will be at a severe money disadvantage when he goes against Obama, and he’s had repeated difficulty accepting false premise logic arguments by the Media branch of the Obama Campaign.
It Ain’t Over Till it’s over, but as you tour through the zoo, remember to “Don’t Feed The Bears”.
Kobe
@kobayashifh – [very] recent Post-@Limbaugh twitter newbie
Romney needs to run on a simple notion: Against Government Centered Society.
Sheesh. I wince when he gets involved in convoluted issues.
Keep it simple Mitt.
Wisdom from Dune: The best way of avoiding a trap is knowing of its existance.
with respect, absolutely not. Obama is not popular. The untrustworthy polls do not convince me otherwise. I believe it would be a mistake not to run squarely against obama, specifically on taxes and economic issues.
This is not the time for mandates, this is the time to do whatever it takes to win to stop obama, he *is* afterall, the incumbent. Romney (or whomever) succeeded (or failed) to establish his plank during the primary fight, it’s time to move on and defeat obama.
A simple, positive message is required from Romney.
His surrogates can run the negative counters to Obamic attacks.
“America is, by design, a place of liberty and growth. We will, together, turn away from decline, and resume the march toward a better life that our parents gave us.”
It’s because Romney is an “idea man”, as in demagoguing, misrepresenting, or otherwise attacking someone else’s ideas. Original ideas are for suckers. If we’ve learned anything in this campaign, we’ve learned that.
Well, putting your dog on the roof for a 12-hour trip on the freeway was definitely out-of-the-box thinking. You do have to give him that much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64S9Iws7j2w
Please. This is Political Judo 101. Turn your opponent’s strengths to weaknesses. Use their (current) leverage and (actual) weight and words against them. “Women” are where they want to put their crowbars right now and the “war” is what they want to spend their money on. Fair enough. Game on.
Rather than wait until the Democratic narrative has hardened, the Republicans are creating a counter narrative that erodes, deflects and blunts the liberal messaging machine. Go to where the enemy is. Beat them on their own ground. That is Warfighting 101. If the stakes for this most recent messaging attempt were anything less than all women everywhere, if this were the only message Team Romney was putting out right now against Obama (it’s not) I might concede that Jacobson and Marshall might have a point.
They don’t. Not here. This constituency is too valuable to lose to a lack of operative tempo. Countering the current offensive, and simultaneously placing the Democrats in “check” while doing so serves multiple purposes. Recent indicators have shown we are currently losing women. We can either do nothing, do something new or use the model they have built against them. IMO, that last option makes the most sense here.
Wow, who could have seen this coming?
The milquetoast moderate who unleashed his PACs on an orgy of conservative headhunting goes duck and crouch against Obama?
Shocking. Almost as shocking as finding out that Obama wasn’t really a moderate uniter.
The SuperPACs had the money to demolish Gingrich and Santorum … let’s hope the keep feeding the kitty and demolish Obama … which should be easier.
But Romney needs to be above that fray with big ideas. He probably needs to keep touting his business experience, especially his ability to successfully trim bloated companies, and make them work, much like he will need to trim fat from a bloated government. A strong majority want smaller, less intrusive government.
Obama has given him plenty of material to work with…
* Solyndra and the other subsidized (campaign donor) failures
*Obama’s half trillion to Fannie Freddie, but no fix
*GE paying no taxes, while Obama condemns oil companies that do pay
*Obamacare requiring everyone buy the Cadillac insurance plans (or go on Medicaid, burdening the states)
Shutting down what works, subsidizing what doesn’t, only “works” when you are government and don’t mind charging trillion a year deficits to the children. Romney needs to explain funding doesn’t come by using lobbyists to bribe a no limits government. The “Chicago Mob” doesn’t get to take over the country. We need to deal with a crisis, not “never let a crisis go to waste”. Government is not a sugar daddy for the connected.
Whatever strong message Romney chooses, he needs to establish it, and let the Democrats be the ankle biters.
Wonderful ideas, but it is all totally unpossible.
Thinking outside of the Obama box is simply not something that Team Romney is capable of, how could they be – they are not remotely conservative.
We asked for a choice, instead we got an echo.
A pale Taxachussets echo of Obama.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Sheesh, talk about your nattering nabobs of negativism. Say what you will about Romney, but I didn’t see any stalwarts of conservatism laying the groundwork to defeat Barack Obama the day after he won in 2008. Moreover, I don’t believe Romney spent these last years preparing to run only to offer himself as a virgin sacrifice to appease the Dem volcano gods.
As far as Romney’s push back on Obama’s bogus “war on women” bulls*!t, I am at a loss how this is somehow a duck and crouch against Obama. Remember how well Bush’s plan to leave unanswered charges he “lied us into war” worked for him? I actually thought turning the tables on Obama’s bogus war was quite brilliant. You should have seen Andrea Mitchell stammer around the statistics on women’s job losses.
I have to agree Romney needs positive campaign themes but even the biased ABC/WaPo poll shows Romney succeeding on the most important points in this election. With a D+11 sample Romney led Obama on the issues of handling the economy and the federal budget deficit. Perhaps these numbers reflect Romney as the beneficiary of being the “not Obama” in general election match up. Nevertheless, there are plenty of avenues for Romney to put forth a positive pro-growth theme to stand in stark contrast against Obama’s tired “grim warrior” shtick.
Personally I might have preferred to be heading into this election with someone like Paul Ryan. He didn’t run, however. A gal can still hold out some hope for a Ryan on the ticket. 🙂 In the mean time, I am going to war with the army we have.
Very well said.
1. I wouldn’t ignore Josh Marshall, but I wouldn’t take campaign advice from him either.
2. Apparently Romney is doing what I suggested yesterday: point out that Obama’s economy has created the very victims Obama claims to be helping.
I did not claim that that should be Romney’s primary message. I said it should be a “response” to the Left’s race and gender cards: a response that ties these issues to Obama’s weakness.
Of course Romney has to give an affirmative message. Of course that message should come first. But he also has to rebut his opponent’s attacks. My point is that the rebuttal should draw on the economic part of Romney’s affirmative message, thereby not just rebutting but counterattacking.
3. I haven’t seen the full Fox video that Marshall mentions, and just now I don’t have time to look for or at it.
Afaic it is possible that Marshall takes Romney out of context, or that the Fox video from the interview is itself out of context. I am more inclined to see Murdoch as an amoral businessman than as a principled conservative.
How about:
“Obama’s a nice guy. But, I’m a really nice guy”
(if any Romney operatives are reading this–I’M JUST KIDDING!)
snort!
Severely a nice guy.
🙂
Professor, let’s take your premise as a starting point. Given that just about everyone on planet Republican and a good percentage of folks on planet Conservative have been repeating “it’s about Obama’s economic policies” as though the statement is a meditation mantram, let’s have you provide 5 positions you recommend to the Romney campaign now that it’s Romney versus Obama.
Just 5 to start with, none of which must have anything to do with the economy or with Obama’s economic policies.
Go:
But, Inevitable…???
“I think Josh Marshall has it exactly right”
Much too long for a road sign. Try “STUPIDITY AHEAD” instead.
Could someone please explain to me how the primary is over? Romney doesn’t yet have enough delegates — or does he? Where do all Santorum’s delegates go? I’m confused.
I’ve received multiple emails from the Gingrich campaign in the past two days, e.g. “…We know the odds are great, but Newt has overcome the odds time after time during this campaign and his entire career. With your support, he can do it again.“
Long answer short: A percentage of Rick’s delegates were never “his” in the first place. (CO, IA, MN, WA, ND and… ?? were non-binding) Those delegates will continue to be free to go wherever they like.
I believe he has a couple super delegates in there somewhere, I could be wrong, but if so, same thing. Free agents.
The rest are bound to him and will have to vote for him in Tampa *if* Santorum does not release them.
Gee, I always had this worry about Romney going against Obama.
But, as janitor said, the primaries aren’t over yet.
TPM is a leftwing rag website. But with being said, they are correct concerning Romney.. This is what we Reagan Tea Party Conservatives, and specifically myself, have been saying all along. Romney is the worst possible choice of all choices as the Republican Party Nominee, because he is not a real conservative at all, let alone a person of conservative Reagan values and principles, let alone of opposite ideology and political policies.. He is a replica facsimile of Obama, just Obama lite.
Obama will eat Romney alive in his own world of Socialist programs and policies, that Romney supported and implemented himself as Gov.
For all intents and purposes, Romney should be Obama’s running mate.
What will they debate, how much each of them loves inferior substandard force mandated State Socialized Medicine programs like Obamacare and Romneycare.. How they both love Global warming cap and trade policies and programs.. How they both love crony capitalism to prop up govt, and stifle the Free Market economy.. How much they both love social welfare programs.. How much they both love to spend and borrow and tax.. How much they both support abortion rights, and how much they both lie about everything they say and do, and use blame game excuses for political plausible deniability, etc, etc, etc..
The Truth speaks for itself, and all the Romney GOP Progressive Republican RINO propaganda and delusional denial by all the Romney-ites in the world cannot hide it, let alone makes taste any better.
This is the problem we also now face, when the electorate in the mass populace are apathetic to the real issue at hand concerning the politician either being Reagan conservative, or a GOP progressive Republican liberal from Mass.. Thus this is now about the people’s ability to discern the differences, problems, and issues at hand, facing what we are now faced with, and then adequately make the right decisions at the ballot box.
But if the mass populace is determined to go into a state of constant delusional denial, and keep running into the same brick wall of stupidity, apathy, and indifference, then just like their choosing of Obama in 2008, a radical progressive liberal, they now choose instead a moderate progressive liberal, aka GOP Republican establishment RINO elitist..
That’s their choice, and in so doing, will continue the same old liberal dead end brick wall policies of the past.. ie; meet the new boss, same as the old boss..
[…] Here’s the problem. All of these absurd attacks, annoying and infuriating as they may be, are distractions made effective because Romney is playing along to Obama’s narrative. It is up to Romney to challenge the narrative but he simply won’t. Birds of a feather think together. Tea pots fighting tea kettles. […]