Commentor Pfeng writes:
"Romney was able to win (and actually do a relatively ok job) in
Massachusetts by being very moderate. Frankly, he doesn't need to be
hard-core conservative to get the vote of ultra right-wingers, since
they will vote for Anybody Who Isn't Obama, so moderate and
reasonable-sounding is his best strategy.
Although I could just be missing something, it's hard to see out of this binder."
Interesting question! Why aren't the right-wingers pissed off? Romney was clearly scared of them for months. There was no convention pivot. The conventional wisdom for a while, or the big question, was whether conservatives would allow Romney to pivot to the center enough to appeal to moderates and other swing voters and have a better chance to win. He seemed terrified to do so for a long time.
I guess he changed his mind--likely after the two conventions showed him he couldn't win in his current stance. So far, though, his moderation has come with a remarkable lack of specifics, in contrast to a rather large number of promises he's made to the right on policy. The right seems to be willing to tolerate this because the month of sitting 3-7 points down in the polls scared them, too, and now the moderate switch seems to be working for everyone on the right (though it must give at least some thinking people on the right pause that this is the only way they can win...). But if Mitt's really going to govern as a moderate, I demand specifics: on the economy (his 'five point plan' seems nothing more than a dishonest collection of bullet points focusing on goals to be reached by magic, not policies), on regulation of Wall Street (which he seemed, in the second debate, to be in favor of), and on the necessary public investment in our economy's future, i.e. on technology, on high-tech manufacturing (something Obama actually mentioned at the last debate, much to his credit, but which he has not pursued nearly vigorously enough in his first term, much to his discredit), and in education: the next generation of engineers, designers, scientists and business operations managers (as opposed to business finance specialists like...uh...Romney). How are we going to do these things?
Hmm, if it's magic, maybe the five-point plan is a pentagram...
ReplyDeleteI think Romney had to swing very far right (or, more accurately, I believe he talked up his underlying right-ness far more than usual) in order to defeat Santorum, the darling of social conservatives. Now that's over with, he's swinging back to being all "let's work together"; the general Republican strategy of blocking any Democrat proposals has handed him a beautiful talking point of Obama's "inability" to compromise and get anything done.
But as you note, any closer reading of his stances shows it's more like "let's work together, oh YOU have priorities and opinions? haha fuck that" -- which, as you've heard, I dislike :D
Relatedly, you might like the Salt Lake Tribune endorsement -- which states, in part:
ReplyDelete"In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust."
Yeah, is a good op-ed, well-stated.
DeleteRe: your earlier comment, yeah, I'm getting a little tired of the post-2000 position of the center and right that we all just need to come together to give the Republicans what they want.