Ross Douthat writes something that strikes me as very right (well, he often does that.) Romney’s speech last night was extremely vague on policy. If you went into the night not knowing what Romney wanted to do, you left the night not having learned much of anything. It was all personality (Romney’s) and pretty vague appeals to business class technocracy. Aside from the economy is lousy (which everyone already knows) and “I’m a businessman” (which everyone already knows) we only learned that he some stuff about his parents and children. It is pretty much a nonmessage.
That must sound like a smart (if cynical) play. If you don’t talk about anything real, they can’t attack you for the things you don’t say. The problem is that this is totally wrong. Romney has already laid out a bold policy agenda on Medicare, Social Security, and taxes. The Democrats and their allies are going to get the message out about the content of this agenda. Their spin on Romney’s agenda will of course be hostile, distorted, and in some cases based on outright lies. But if they don’t hear about Romney’s agenda from Romney’s team, then all they will know is what they from the other side. You aren’t avoiding any risks by not talking about your agenda. You can’t control the other side talking. You can help shape what the public thinks about your agenda by talking about it. The personal stuff doesn’t help that much if people think your policies are a bad idea. No persuadable voter will care about your dad giving your mom roses if they think you are going to raise their taxes and make them pay more for Medicare coverage so that you can cut taxes for high earners. The media dynamics are also problematic. If you have a real message then the norms of the “mainstream” media is that they will somewhat cover what you have to say. If you don’t have a message (and I’m the man from Business” isn’t a message) then the other side will define who you are. When the Romney campaign wasn’t talking about anything real, the public debate was a losing fight about Bain and whatever other nonsense of the day the Obama campaign threw out. When Romney picked Ryan and went on the offensive on Medicare, the Obama team (including the media) was on the defensive even though it is usually favorable ground for the Democrats. There is a lesson there. Either be for something or the Democrats will make you into whatever they want you to be.
Maybe the most disturbing this is the thought that Romney really is for nothing (yeah, I know he loves his kids.) Maybe making the campaign about nothing, then for reformism, then nothing again is just a sign that it is all just whatever hustle he thinks will get him through the day and into office.
August 31st, 2012 | 4:37 pm
I had read the Douthat piece and disagreed. Now I have to disagree with you, too, Pete. That gives me pause, but given years of listening to such speeches, I don’t think that’s where policy points make the candidate any points.
Presidential convention speeches are primarily for those who have been listening to you for months and already know what you say you will do if elected. They already know your policy. They just want to cheer. The secondary point is to get people to like you enough to listen for the next couple of months. That’s when you’ll tell the people who weren’t listening before what you are going to do. That’s when policy counts.
August 31st, 2012 | 6:14 pm
Kate, somewhat more than 20 million watched Romney’s speech yesterday. Of those, how many know that Romney’s Medicare plan contains a defined benefit and preserves Medicare Fee For Service as an option? I would say less than 50% and probably even less among persuadables. The Democrats will hit details of the Romney plan next week. So of those details won’t be true (and they will sound scary), but people will hear them. And for many, that will be all they heard on Medicare policy (which is important stuff) this week. It doesn’t hurt Romney’s likeability rankings if people think seniors will be paying a lot more for health care relative to Obama’s plan.
He could have made an argument about his energy plan and its impact on energy prices and jobs in both the energy and industrial sectors. He could have worked in the new Harvard study about how spending cut-centered deficit cutting is a lot better for jobs and economic growth than tax increase-centered plans.
It wouldn’t have taken much space. All the vague stuff about his awesome business Kung Fu could have been condensed leaving space to say something real. Maybe people would like him more (and more enduringly) if he demonstrated more specific ideas for how public policy could make their lives better.
September 1st, 2012 | 9:47 am
Sure, he could have repeated policy arguments that he and Ryan have been making. Today’s WSJ has a Review and Outlook editorial similar to yours. “His platform is brimming with ideas, most of them good and many excellent. He simply didn’t talk about them. No doubt this was a strategic political calculation—perhaps a judgment, based on polling, that Mr. Romney’s main challenge is to reassure undecided voters that he’s not heartless, scary or extreme.”
I suppose it was a gamble, but it is important to lay down the “vision thing” first, because that’s really what people respond to. It’s the president, who ran on the vision thing, who has to defend his vision for America now. Of course his supporters will have to go into high petty gear to counter vision, but who listens? Just direct complainers to the candidates’ websites for policy details. That’s becoming my favorite political suggestion in argument. Folks say, “I didn’t know Obama was going to do that. I wouldn’t have voted for him if I’d known.” I say, “Didn’t you read what was on his website? All of what he was planning was laid out there.” It was. I looked. People don’t. They should.
The attacks of the last months have been on him and what he has done. He had to settle that to get on with the substance of the campaign. If the Democrats want to go after him on the policy stuff, that’s great. It’s what they have been diverting attention away from for the last months with personal attacks. Now maybe they’ll have to get serious about substance.
September 1st, 2012 | 11:09 am
I’m with Pete on this one. One of the twenty-seven or so most scandalous things about President Obama is the way he talks to the American people like children. Romney ought to rise decisively above that, particularly since doing so would go with his Ryan pick.
September 1st, 2012 | 11:53 am
If Romney backs off discussing the problems the country faces and his proposals for fixing those problems during the rest of his campaign, I’ll be mighty upset. There’s a time and place for everything. The wedding night is not when you talk about how to raise the kids or who will scrub the bathtub or any of the practical things about marriage. It is when you celebrate each other and in the same way the night a party’s candidate is formally nominated, especially when he accepts the nomination, is the time to celebrate candidate, party and nation. That’s what happened and as a member of the congregation, I pronounce it good.
September 1st, 2012 | 12:51 pm
I’m trending toward Pete on this. I don’t think Mitt even said anything about what kind of judges he would speak. Most “persuadables” I know were really put off by the condescending character of the speech. So I’m now at least in the opportunity wasted camp. The prevent defense is for those who are in the lead, which Romney isn’t at this point.
September 1st, 2012 | 7:01 pm
Kate, several points,
“I suppose it was a gamble, but it is important to lay down the “vision thing” first”
A vision thing was what the speech didn’t have. It had the usual complaints about the state of the economy and the usual we need a businessman for the business of business stuff. Beyond that it was characterized by a 1970s television android’s idea of what it means to humanize a person. “People like their families bzzt. Talk about liking your family, bidi, bidi, bidi.” Look at how Ryan talked about his mom and grandmother. He was making points about public policy (if only in terms of general approach to policy.) Where did the rose story go? Absent a public purpose, how it is our business as something other than a way to manipulate us?
“It’s the president, who ran on the vision thing, who has to defend his vision for America now.”
More like the reverse of that is true. Obama has a record. 47%-48% (using the RCP average)approve of his job as president. Some fraction of the non-approvers also like him personally but are presumably willing to trade up. Obama’s best chance at winning is convincing voters that Romney’s agenda is a scary step down that isn’t in their interest. That’s why it is important that Romney give these voters a clear idea of how his major policies will work. If Romney’s doesn’t define his policies, then Obama will define Romney’s policies. And Romney just missed a great chance to do so at great length to millions and millions of voters. I doubt Obama will miss a chance to describe Romney’s policies next week.
“Just direct complainers to the candidates’ websites for policy details.” That is a lot better a fillip than a strategy. The people Romney needs won’t complain they don’t know his policies. They’ll assume what they’ve heard. If Romney can’t be bothered to explain, why should they do original research. Why should they take Romney’s agenda more seriously than Romney?
“The attacks of the last months have been on him and what he has done. He had to settle that to get on with the substance of the campaign. If the Democrats want to go after him on the policy stuff, that’s great.”
The Dems lost focus on the Bain stuff when Romney picked Ryan and the conversation shifted to Medicare. And it turned out the Republican do better when they have something real to say! Now we’re back to the nothing again. Media dynamics being what they are, when the Republicans aren’t talking about nothing, the conversation becomes whatever the Democrats and their allies want it to be.
September 1st, 2012 | 9:56 pm
If you are correct, then we are done. However, I have to hope that you are wrong. I have to hope that something real before last week, something real next week and going forward, but just not very real at the convention (where lots of “real” happened behind the scenes on platform committees, etc.) is going to work well in the long run and that Romney & Co. know it, have the intelligence and acumen to know it. Otherwise, the good news will have to be Republican gains in the House and Senate opposing the president’s agenda for as long as possible.
September 1st, 2012 | 10:16 pm
Kate, there are still lots of ways it could work out or go badly wrong. Many of those involve things that neither Obama nor Romney control. I would like to see Romney make the most of the things he can control. He was actually doing pretty good there for a couple of weeks.
September 2nd, 2012 | 7:55 am
I’ve been thinking about what I heard at the convention, about lasting impressions. I heard a paean to traditional family and a more traditional kind of government. In contrast with the other side’s talk about family, which is that you can make family in any way you like and government will support it morally, legally and financially, the Republican/republican form of family is offering a vision of what America should be that is different. However, they are also saying, “We will get you jobs!”, which is not really something they should promise because it is not something government can do. I mean unless it is making the jobs within itself and putting everyone on the payroll. I don’t think they mean that. What they do mean is not clear, but what we could hear if we wanted to is that government will get out of the way of the economy and allow businesses to bloom and grow. That’s the echo on that which I hear from my conservative friends and they are happy about that.
I think you will see the Republican convention strategy differently after watching the Democrat’s one. I am now more interested in how the Democrats will attempt to adjust their imagery to fit or foul the Republicans. I wonder how much they can speak to the specifics of what they mean to do. I suspect they will focus on reacting. I wonder what they are telling their delegates about self-expression. Steve Hayward is suggesting that they get Betty White as their counter to Clint Eastwood and that’s a funny picture. I wonder what they will do.
The first student paper I graded this week was instructive. I hope I instructed through it because the grammar and syntax were awful; community college writing at its worst. However, the thesis was clear. Government owes me a handout so that I can stand on my own and that handout should be easier to get, without strings, because I cannot do anything on my own as neither can anyone else. A side theme was that when times are hard, government should give everyone assistance with the necessities to ease the pain. Additionally, government should consolidate all of these programs of assistance to make for (sort of) one stop shopping for government money. People who need help have to apply to so many programs and then they find there are programs that will help them that no one tells them about. How can anyone get all the government help coming to them when the process is so difficult? And there should be drug-testing because you don’t want government giving money to junkies. Except for the last bit (heck, junkies need help, too) once we get the grammar sorted out, it will be a spot-on argument for the growing segment of the population on government assistance. That’s not the Republicans’ constituency, I don’t think the R’s want them and have no argument to counter their support for Obama. No amount of policy talk will win those voters.
September 2nd, 2012 | 9:43 am
“I heard a paean to traditional family and a more traditional kind of government.” It wasn’t a bit more traditional than the one made by the president and his wife as far as I can tell. And I doubt most left Romney’s speech with ay impression of Romney governance. Something about energy? I think he is for it.
“That’s not the Republicans’ constituency, I don’t think the R’s want them and have no argument to counter their support for Obama.” Well, I agree that Romney shouldn’t have focused on winning over that particular voter. The problem was he gave no clear explanation about how government policy would have a postivie impact (not the same as handouts) and how Romney policies would change government to make it sustainable and effective under currrent conditions.
September 2nd, 2012 | 11:20 am
Enjoying this thread greatly. And, as a bystander, let me just say I think Kate understands intuitively what I think most of us conservative types forget. I highly recommend Arthur Brooks’ talk at AEI which you can find here:
http://www.aei.org/events/2012/05/16/the-road-to-freedom-how-to-win-the-fight-for-free-enterprise/
wherein he talks about how an argument based on disembodied facts will always fall before the emotional anecdote. I realize how this aggravates the majority of us wonky conservative types, but lets be honest, articulating policy doesn’t win elections, compelling narrative does, and if you go back as far as Jimmy Carter in 76′ and you really think about it, every candidate that won the presidency since Carter, won because he had the more compelling narrative. And last weeks RNC was all about narrative and introducing characters.
For those of us who find this frustrating, because of course we actually go to the trouble of informing ourselves about healthcare policy, etc. you can take comfort in this fact: Obama’s greatest strength in 2008, his transformational messianic narrative, has been taken away from him by the mugging of domestic and geopolitical realities his narrative has suffered during his 3 1/2 years as president. Romney has an opportunity to explain, with the right narrative and supporting characters, that Obama’s narrative was never about what was good for the individual American, but about his own delusions of grandeur, that Romney is the right man, with the right history and right narrative to offer American’s what’s good for Americans, as opposed to Obama’s narrative which in the end was always about what’s good for Obama’s next autobiographical endeavor.
September 2nd, 2012 | 11:50 am
Pseudoplotinus, I think that the problem is that the narrative in Romney’s speech doesn’t hold together. He likes his family and is a businessman who knows businesss and will help business in ways that aren’t clear from his remarks. Obama is going to have a narrative about how Romney’s plans will raise health care costs for the elderly and taxes for the middle-class and talk about reports from third parties about how this is the case. I don’t think the rose story is going to deflect attention from the assertion that that Romney’s Medicare plan will cost the average senior $6,400 (not true, but if that is all they know…) .That makes him the wrong man at any time.
Obama doesn’t have enough approvers to win a postive victory. He might well be able to convince the marginal voters that what Romney wants is a step down. If people think Romney’s policies are bad, then it won’t matter that Romney gave a speech in August where he talked about missing his kids. Obama likes his kids too. This entire approach sells voters short and misunderstands how the personal and political connect. Romney isn’t going to be leaving roses on our pillows – or at least I hope not. Nevermind how Reagan was a good speaker, compare the text of his 1980 convention speech with Romney’s. Who has a stronger “narrative”?
http://www.nationalcenter.org/ReaganConvention1980.html
September 2nd, 2012 | 12:30 pm
An example of how the “personal” interacts with a general approach to public policy:
“I don’t know what the differences might be, because I don’t know what Mr. Carter’s policies are. I do know what he has said about mine. And I’m only here to tell you that I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security. Now, I believe, also, that this meeting this mission, this responsibility for preserving the peace, which I believe is a responsibility peculiar to our country, and that we cannot shirk our responsibility as a leader of the free world because we’re the only ones that can do it. Therefore, the burden of maintaining the peace falls on us. And to maintain that peace requires strength. America has never gotten in a war because we were too strong. We can get into a war by letting events get out of hand, as they have in the last three and a half years under the foreign policies of this Administration of Mr. Carter’s, until we’re faced each time with a crisis. And good management in preserving the peace requires that we control the events and try to intercept before they become a crisis. I have seen four wars in my lifetime. I’m a father of sons; I have a grandson. I don’t ever want to see another generation of young Americans bleed their lives into sandy beachheads in the Pacific, or rice paddies and jungles in the in Asia or the muddy battlefields of Europe.”
September 2nd, 2012 | 12:52 pm
Pete, to answer your original question, the verdict is still out. But I would argue Romney’s narrative does hold together if you’re willing to see it. Specifically, speeches given by Martinez, Ryan and Rubio all included mention of the virtues of free enterprise and it’s importance in their own biographies. And the appearance of the Olympic athletes were vivid examples of the benefits of executive competence that Romney brings. All of these put together speak to the idea of the importance of enterprise and having someone as president who understands it and how to tap into it. I admit this particular thread was obscured by the emotional appeals to Romney as a good person, but then that was just introducing Romney as the virtuous protagonist in the larger narrative.
You’re argument about Obama having the narrative advantage overlooks one very important detail. If you were to distill the essence of Obama’s narrative success in 2008, it was this: Obama convinced people that he was a new kind of post-partisan president. I agree in the upcoming DNC, he and his party will take the hammer to Romney, but in doing so, he will have publicly relinquished the claim as post-partisan. Which presents the question that won’t be answered until after the election. Can Obama win without his trump card as the one who is above partisan bickering?
In my opinion it will come down to the debates. If Romney can get Obama flustered, and it will be easier in 2012 with 3 1/2 years of policy mistakes to draw from, then 2012 may end up looking more like 2010 than 2008.
Finally, as to selling the American people short, I would argue I am not selling them short, but acknowledging an unfortunate reality of our hyper post-modern socially networked political environment. For every position, for every word uttered by Romney and Obama, each party will have its own list of carefully chosen facts, and the media will have its own spin, and all this information and mis-information will be churning and churning on cable, the internet, and at the water cooler. What ever the policy realities are, the typical American does not have the time or archeological tools to dig it out, beneath the layers of refutations and counter-refutations. Which leaves the typical American with only one thing to rely on, how credible are these two men? Can I trust them? Romney’s advantage is that he has 3 1/2 years of Obama to draw from.
If it makes you feel better, try reading this article from the SF Chronicle to appreciate how Romney may have been more effective than one might give him credit for at the RNC:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/09/01/dirty_harry_meets_clean_mitt_115293.html
September 2nd, 2012 | 2:12 pm
Pseudoplotinus,
“You’re argument about Obama having the narrative advantage…”
I don’t think Obama has a narrative advantage. I think he has a job. That job is to make Romney politics unacceptable. Romney will make old people’s health care cost more expensive and raise middle-class tacticsand… Romney’s job is to make his policies seem pretty reasonable and unthreatening to the 6%-8% of the public that is in play. In his speech he chose to go with the idea that if he talks about how he loves (his) mom, dad, wife and kids, people won’t believe his policies will be bad for them.
“For every position, for every word uttered by Romney and Obama, each party will have its own list of carefully chosen facts” True, and that is good thing actually. But if Romney has explained his policies and how they work, how they will impact people and why he things they are good (that’s some real and relevant humanizing), then some fraction of persudables will be more likely to discount the accusations of the other side. It isn’t about layers and layers. It is about making a case for what you have proposed. Most people don’t know what that is. They (well, those who vote) will find out about it from somebody. If all they hear is what they other side says and what they remember from Romney is the rose stuff, it isn’t really a fair fight.
I wouldn’t count on a Romney knock out in the debates. I’m not sayinbg it couldn’t happen, but it isn’t something that is prudent as a linchpin for a strategy.
September 2nd, 2012 | 7:32 pm
Pete, nobody said that Romney was Reagan. He might like the idea, but he’s not. We might wish he was, but he’s not.
I don’t argue that Romney needs to articulate policy. I merely argue that not talking policy in the convention speeches is not a big deal and was probably calculated and a good idea. I suppose we will see as we get into fall. I don’t think anyone much remembers the specifics of those speeches. It sounds like you will, though.
In 1980 at the convention one thing Reagan had to prove was something anyone who had been listening to him didn’t think he had to prove, which was that he had the intellectual firepower to be president. It was an impression he had to make outside of media editing of his speeches. Besides, he wasn’t going to be able to count on his VP candidate to articulate policy; Bush didn’t agree with him on plenty of points and everyone knew it. That’s what he was in the race for, to bring the rest of the party along, the guys who thought Reagan was dumb hothead.
Romney had to be humanized, which apparently no one who knows him seems to think he has to prove. That’s what the convention speeches were for, to get beyond the sound-bites and break a bad impression of him that people had. Sure, I’ll grant it, it would have been better to articulate policy and get that out there for people to discuss. He had an image problem going in. American politics outside of the academy and punditry is also about personality and how a person comes across on a TV, in a living room, heck, people even have TVs in their bedrooms, so he’ll be there. He had a warmth problem and he probably still does. Reagan never had that. So to complain that Romney is not Reagan — he’s not and he’s got other liabilities that have to be shored up than Reagan did. You go with what you’ve got.
I just hope Romney, Ryan & Co.can figure out quick ways to express big ideas. People don’t like long speeches, anymore.
September 2nd, 2012 | 7:53 pm
“Pete, nobody said that Romney was Reagan.” There was nothing especially Reaganite nor impossible to reproduce in the Reagan quote. Reagan connected the “personal” (his own experiences, being a father and grandfather) to his approach to foreign and military policy to show that a policy of firmness did not come from a warmongering, or thoughtless place. Ryan does the same thing when talking about Medicare in talking about his mother and grandmother. It isn’t that Ryan and Reagan are more articulate than Romney. Ryan probably has a lot less experience than Romney in giving set piece speeches in front of large crowds. Ryan seems like more of a town hall guy. It is just that Reagan and Romney don’t go out of their way to say nothing.
“Romney had to be humanized, which apparently no one who knows him seems to think he has to prove.”
I think that gets to the heart of the problem. Romney talking about how much mom and dad loved each other isn’t a defense against an accusation that he has a lousy tax and Medicare program. I think that the Reagan example is instructive here. The Carter campaign was trying to portray Reagan as a mad bomber. Reagan was able to connect his experiences to his public policy approach to help show he wasn’t bloodthirsty and that he did have a sense of consequences. Does the Romney rose story or Romney missing his kids get us anywhere? Is anyone going to want their parents to spend more on Medicare (if that is what they think Romney’s policy is) because of George Romney’s floral habits? That is what I mean about having an android’s idea of how human connections work.
” I merely argue that not talking policy in the convention speeches is not a big deal and was probably calculated and a good idea.”
I certainly agree that it was calculated, but I think they are misunderstanding how “humanizing” works in this context and leaving themselves vulnerable to attacks on policy areas that people care deeply about. At best it was a missed opportunity and Romney may not have a similar chance to make his case at similar length to a similarly sized audience without interruption or cross-examination. And his failure to explain now makes it harder to explain later. Five or six minutes talking about Medicare this week makes it easier to talk about the policy later since more people (though of course not all people) are more familiar with the details.
September 2nd, 2012 | 8:44 pm
Gee whiz, there was more than the rose story offered up at the convention. Still, I definitely understand that last as the main troubling thing. Candidates never get much time to talk about the important points when anyone is listening. I mean, live audiences get to hear, but do many people not already interested go to hear a candidate speak?
Maybe those folks weren’t listening the other night, either. God knows there is a reason that the only place we could listen to the convention on the radio was on NPR. Conventions are not popular viewing.
They’ll just have to find a way to get policy points across. New media is opportunity for that. Set Paul Ryan up on YouTube explaining the Romney/Ryan proposals for everything important. Try 10-20 minute segments and see how the time works. Get people to pass those around by email or on Facebook or other social media. People are becoming accustomed to being educated on the Internet. Why not use the fact?
September 2nd, 2012 | 10:27 pm
Kate, eyeballing the TV ratings it looked like about 23 million people saw Romney talk for 40 minutes. That is what I mean by a missed opportunity. Presumably many of them were already strongly right-leaning but some weren’t. I harp on the rose thing not only because I thought it was manipulative in an ineffective way given Romney’s challenges.
September 3rd, 2012 | 6:42 am
Here, Pete. May it be a comfort to you.
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