GOP presidential campaign notes (10/27/2011)
Where is this increasingly zany GOP presidential nomination campaign?
Mitt Romney made an enormous flub the other day in Ohio, saying he had no comment on Republican Gov. John Kasich’s bid to limit the power of public service unions. Really? And he’s running for the nomination of the Republican party in 2012? But yesterday he made a correction, saying he favors it “110%” after all, and Romney being Romney, maybe that’s all it takes. He always sounds so darned sincere when he retracts or contradicts the thing he sounded so darned sincere saying the day before, or the year before, or the decade before.
Rick Perry hit a solid double this week, at least, with his flat tax plan, which seems to be attracting more solid support on the substance than Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, and appears more achievable (especially since it doesn’t include the terrifying national sales tax). It remains to be seen whether it’s too late for Perry to get to home plate. He obviously doesn’t think so. Perry is also said to be preparing a scorched-earth campaign against Mitt Romney, via television and radio ads. Some Republicans have expressed fear that this tactic will “jeopardize the general election,” but I don’t remember such worry about criticism of other candidates. I haven’t been a fan of Republicans attacking Republicans, in particular during the debates when there are more important things to be said and a candidate should personally project positivity. However, as Yogi Berra said, sometimes it gets late early around here. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little fed up with this senseless sense of inevitability around Mitt Romney. And attacking Romney is not necessarily the same as attacking a fellow Republican, after all. Romney has gotten away with a whole lot, and has all kinds of support and apologists in the Beltway. The prediction is that Perry’s ads against Romney will “make your television bleed and beg for mercy.” At this point, I say, bring it on. If Romney actually is the nominee, it’s not like the Obama campaign is going to hold back one iota. And if Republicans really want to make Romney the nominee, they should do so with eyes wide open, knowing that they are nominating someone who has been all over the map on basic issues, and about whom we can only really be sure of one thing: He really really wants to be president.
Herman Cain’s big news splash this week was that ad (at right), commonly characterized as bizarre, weird or insane, where the Cain campaign’s chief of staff, Mark Block, talks up the candidate and then looks meaningfully into the camera while smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke at the camera lens. It ends with Herman Cain posing in profile, with a little smile turning into a wicked grin. I find the ad funny, even hilarious. And I instinctively like someone who would put out such an ad, tweaking people right, left and center. HOWEVER: the blow-back that matters is along the lines of: “This is not something that someone does who seriously wants to win the presidency.” As much as I still believe that smoking is way cool, most people don’t, and when you’re running for the presidency you don’t want to do something that turns off most people. So what the heck is Cain doing, and where is his judgment? Nevertheless, I gladly give him a pass on something like this, as I’ve been happy to give him a pass on various flubs and hiccups along the way. There comes a point, however, when you wonder when a candidate has a responsibility to stop making flubs, issuing corrections and making clarifications. For me that point came with Herman Cain before this amusing little ad. It came with his unforgivably garbled answer on the question of abortion, when he told Piers Morgan that he was completely opposed to abortion … but that government had no role whatsoever in the issue. His clarification the following day made it worse.
I understood the thrust of the question to ask whether that I, as president, would simply “order” people to not seek an abortion.
My answer was focused on the role of the President. The President has no constitutional authority to order any such action by anyone. That was the point I was trying to convey.
That’s inane, and watching the segment with Piers Morgan, I don’t think anyone would think that the thrust of the question was whether Herman Cain would personally order someone from the Oval Office not to have an abortion. So Cain is here not only seeming to be confused, but also disingenuous, and that’s fatal for the “non-politician” in the race. After all of his words on the subject, I have to conclude that either he is not genuinely pro-life, or that he has an atrocious understanding of the issue, and how it bears on the election and on the presidency. Or both. That’s not good. Not good at all.
Sure: with the economy in the middle of a catastrophe like it is, abortion and other life issues are not going to get talked about a lot in this election cycle. But that doesn’t mean a substantial number of people aren’t nevertheless going to take note of the candidates’ positions and vote accordingly.
Cain has shot to the top of the polls because people like his life story and they like his personality. But it’s a mistake to be won over entirely by things of that nature. The wicked grin at the end of the ad is funny, and it’s great to see him taking on liberals like Lawrence O’Donnell fearlessly and beating them back, but he’s got to get the basic things right. Not everything is a joke.
The latest polls show a race where Romney is the effective front-runner, because he has leads in the early voting states. Cain is firmly occupying the position of the alternative to Romney. Gingrich sits sphinx-like in third with around 12% support, and poor Perry is languishing in fourth. Based on how things are shaking out, I am extremely dubious that Herman Cain can beat Romney in the early primaries. Perry’s new lease on life, with solid economic plans to promote, and a big-time attack strategy against Romney, may well make him again the “anti-Romney.” If not, maybe everyone will destroy one another and Gingrich will emerge as the unexpected and smirking survivor. That is, however, a very remote possibility.
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One more note: Some of what people are concerned about relative to a GOP nominee is whether that nominee will be able to debate Obama, that “great” and “eloquent” debater. I think this fear is way overblown. Obama in 2012 is not Obama in 2008. He can no longer pose as a blank slate and have people project upon him their deepest desires for a supremely rational, calm, pragmatic and post-partisan president. He now has a record of disaster exceeding any president in living memory. His promises on just about every score have turned to ashes. He has proven himself the opposite of what many people who voted for him believed him to be. Pretty words become counterproductive when they are so belied by reality. This can already be seen in how his poll numbers dip every time he makes another national address. The GOP nominee doesn’t need to be Socrates. He (or she: let’s be polite to Michele Bachmann) just needs to be right on the issues that matter.
