So Jim is right that Romney was viewed as a superior LEADER to Obama after the debate. Leadership overcomes partisanship. Leadership gets results.
That plays to Romney’s REAL strengths: He’ll be all about mending–not ending–our entitlements, through market-based reforms that will be optional at first (or until we’re sure they work). His alternative to Obamacare will deal with that prickly pre-existing condition issue, which is one big problem with our present pre-ObamaCare system. He doesn’t want to cut revenues but cut the tax rates–so that the rich actually pay more in a way they can believe in. President Romney will get all this done in a way that brings in genuine leaders from both parties. He isn’t animated by the ideological hostility of Tea Partiers and libertarians to the welfare state as such. He’s a fairly confident supply-sider nonetheless.
But I’m surprised Jim didn’t add that Romney’s highest rating on the approval-meter lurking beneath the candidates on the CNN screen was over his riff on the Constitution, the Declaration, rights, and such stuff. It’s easy to see how his branders could improve this message with the phrase “limited government” and a little (not too much) more specificity on the rights to life and (religious) liberty.
So Romney is winning to the extent he can combine the post-partisanship of a leader (a quality formerly attributed to the president) with a kind of constitutionalism that’s not an attack on our safety nets as soft despotism.
For the record, I actually admired the president embracing ObamaCare as his own, intertwining its fate with his fate.
October 7th, 2012 | 10:25 am
Right you are. I had a paragraph on that and cut it because of the needle threading bit. The point was, in a debate filled with discussion of role of government and economics, Romney took the occasion to jump outside the box and relate it all to foundations and the constitution nd to the deity. He brought all this in, showing it connected to his approach to government. It was the finest moment in a remarkable performance. I should have kept the paragraph… But read below and see how it would have led away to a “big think” inquiry…
Of course, on the downside, it is almost impossible to imagine that Romney could ever do as we’ll or Obama as poorly. If Obama is the expert at leading from behind he ought to be able to come from behind on debate expectations.
Finally, I have a big question for Peter. In the answer of Romney’s to which you refer, he gave a new twist to the meaning of “pursuit of happiness”…he included in it a kind of obligation to those in need. he de-lockeanized it a bit..
Is this a stretched interpretation but good politics?
Is Mitt the first to have read the phrase in this way..This is right down the alley of Peter and other pomoconers…Please, speak on this
October 7th, 2012 | 10:32 am
“He isn’t animated by the ideological hostility of Tea Partiers and libertarians to the welfare state as such.”
It may be that the TPers recognize the gross error in defining contemporary ‘Welfare’, entitlements, and the re-distribution of wealth as either un-American functions or functions that belong, not in the general gummint, but with the state gummint. Failure to address these gross errors will only exacerbate the problem and result in the inevitable collapse.
October 7th, 2012 | 10:35 am
On embracing the term Obamacare see the article in the comments of Ceaser’s post below. Peter’s right, Obama wants to own the term. The article (from last March) says:
“Embracing the term ‘Obamacare’ is a recognition that the president owns the law politically-speaking no matter what the court decides. That reality means he must re-define ‘Obamacare’ in the eyes (or, more accurately, ears) of the public. ‘Obamacare’ currently stands for everything people don’t like about the law. The White House has to make it stand for all the good things in the law.”
October 7th, 2012 | 10:40 am
I meant well not we’ll in message above. I was done in by the auto spell corrector. In addition, think I should have said pomoconarians in lieu of pomoconers, which leaves the impression that we are swindlers or intellectual sophists…
October 7th, 2012 | 11:29 am
He doesn’t want to cut revenues but cut the tax rates–so that the rich actually pay more in a way they can believe in.
Obama is correct to note that based on the most recent estimates there is approx. 1.2 trillion dollars of revenue to be gained from the removal of ALL deductions.
Also, the sequester should not be undone and the military should take a huge hit. That way they can reorganize and prioritize. In so doing, they can facilitate the perpetuation of the greatest military in the world.
October 7th, 2012 | 3:29 pm
On the matter of a post-partisan President Romney, I feel obligated to remind everyone that the last two administrations won the presidency on this premise only to “discover” that DC is far too polarized to reconcile parties having no common ground. A Democratic party under a President Romney scenario would be particularly motivated to undermine any such effort. I fear a President Romney may not fully appreciate that once he is in office media and politicians alike will come after him hammer and tong as they did Bush. He better be prepared for a for a perpetual media insurgency under his watch or he’ll get Bushified like his Republican predecessor.
October 12th, 2012 | 10:53 pm
[...] this blog. Once in a blue moon I’ll “like” a post here, such as Peter’s “Mender Not an Ender” one, but that’s [...]
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