To exist is to change,
to change is to mature,
to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
Henri Louis Bergson
Romney Needs a Game Plan--Fast
I have a sinking feeling about the coming election. I have been sharply critical of Romney's campaign during the past several weeks, and I toned down my criticism during the convention; I've tried to provide constructive criticism over the past several weeks. Now, granted, it looks like Romney is going into the fall campaign with a better war chest than McCain had; he's a better debater than McCain, and Obama is holding a weak hand in terms of the economy and the party faithful disillusioned given his failure to deliver on promises (e.g., immigration) and has a personal approval rating ranging from the lower to upper 40's, with an official unemployment rate all but certain to remain above 8%.
But I have an uneasy feeling this is starting to look like another 1996 when Clinton, after losing control of the House to the GOP and on the ropes, managed to stave off Dole and Kemp. Incumbency is a powerful advantage.
I keep hoping that the Romney campaign is holding some cards on opposition research that I'm not seeing, There's part of me that refuses to believe that the American people would actually reelect someone that I truly believe, under any polygraph, is the worst President in American history. I can't believe that ANY rational person could possibly believe that Obama can do in a second term what he couldn't deliver in a first term. America, here's a fact of life: if Obama would win a second term, he would likely face a GOP-controlled Congress, at minimum a Senate far above the 41 votes to filibuster any initiative Obama has. Are you really going to reelect a man whom has done nothing on deficit or debt reduction (not even going with a bipartisan-supported plan from his own commission), with our debt already downgraded? Do you honestly believe that foreign investors are going to continue to buy Treasury bonds knowing there's no way we'll ever pay off the debt and the only answer will be to depreciate the currency? (The likely result will be a mutually destructive global trade war and recession or depression of a scope we can't even begin to contemplate.) Why would voters vote in Obama, whom is term-limited and hence has no incentive (unlike Romney) to deliver on promises of an improved economy?
But even for this armchair political strategist, the Romney campaign has seemed amateurish from the start. Romney had problems putting away a pathetically weak opposition in the primaries: another former CEO and supporter, this one with no public sector executive experience; a former Speaker of the House whom was rebuked by a GOP-controlled House and had a lucrative contract with one of the GSE's, a primary beneficiary of unpopular TARP legislation; a former GOP incumbent Senator whom lost reelection in a blowout? The biggest lesson for Romney coming out of his failed 2008 bid should have been a PERCEPTION that he lacked strong political convictions and would be willing to say whatever he thought the electorate wanted to hear to get elected.
It's easy for me to say what I'm about to say, because it reflects my own political migration, but if I had been Romney, I would have noted that Ron Paul had a relatively small but almost fanatical backing of at least 15% or so of the party. I would have noticed Obama basically carrying on Bush's policies (only putting them on steroids), seeing the Tea Party revolution and having had success in the private sector (not as a crony banker), I would have come out reinventing myself as born-again fusion Tea Party candidate, distancing myself from nation building and Bush/Obama anemic economic growth and unsustainable federal deficits. Instead we see a grab bag of policies (e.g., China-bashing (even with strengthening American exports there) and illegal immigration--even with evidence of reverse migration since the economic tsunami) against free market/free trade principles. In the meanwhile, as the US has become weary of a decade of expensive, high-casualty nation building exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan, Romney, instead of trying to identify with a growing plurality or majority of people weary with the Bush/Obama policies, has inexplicably staked out an even more aggressive stance, to the right of Obama, even hinting of widening our involvement (i.e., Iran). Just as a matter of pure political strategy, there was a clump of 3 or 4 candidates basically with the same positions (and the fickle partisan base shifting to whatever candidate had the best recent sound bite), and Ron Paul was standing all alone on the other side--someone who was Tea Party before there was a Tea Party. It seems obvious that there was a way of positioning myself as a fusion candidate.
But it's not immediately obvious to me what in Romney's candidacy changed as a result of the Tea Party revolution; basically he's simply focusing on the relevance his private sector executive experience in a challenging economic environment. Of course, the failure of Romney to reinvent his candidacy is spilled milk, and Romney did get the nomination. The problem is that Romney is running primarily on his resume and his personal success--not some consistent philosophy or vision; this is why the Democrats have been running a nasty campaign against him personally. The good news, if any, is that Romney has weathered the storm in a virtual tie with the President, which is not good for Obama. Romney has shown his ability to take punches and remain standing; the problem now is--does he have the ability to land a knockout punch or at least stagger Obama with a number of body shots?
I don't think the game is over. For example, Romney could and should criticize Obama for choosing the riskiest option of an Afghanistan surge strategy and suggest the possibility of a quicker, unspecified withdrawal. I've been arguing that Romney needs to be casting doubt about the decades of misguided underfunded progressive Democratic policies. We have overbuilt government with middling performance and bills and responsibility passed on to the next Congress, President, or generation. The popular government programs (in particular, senior citizen entitlements) are chronically underfunded, and it's not as if we didn't realize over the last 3 decades the likely impact of the largest generation in US history retiring over the coming 2 decades.
What we have is a day of reckoning coming, just like the European countries now beginning to feel the issues of an aging population and unsustainable government policies. We are headed down the same road unless Romney gives America a heads up and points out that we are seeing a preview of our future unless we reverse course and restore economic liberty and traditional virtues, including self-reliance, instead of a growing dependence on the federal teat and Big Government Knows Best. As we see next year's centennial of the Federal Reserve, the national bank regulator, how is it nobody has noticed an extraordinarily debased currency and loss of purchasing power, manic economic cycles, waves of bank failures in the 1930's, the S&L debacle, and massive bubbles everywhere: the 1920's, 1987, Nasdaq, credit, real estate, college costs, etc.? Time and time again, progressive policies and patchworks have failed, and then these progressive politicians want to blame "free market failures" in one of the most regulated industries (banking) in American history? Why isn't Romney addressing generations of Democratic policy failures? With nearly $2T in annual regulatory costs hanging around the necks of American business, displacing money that could go into expanding businesses and new hires, why isn't Romney launching an attack on progressive policy failures and smoke and mirrors accounting that would even embarrass Bernie Madoff?
It's time for the Romney campaign to "get real". Romney has repeated McCain's mistake of letting the Obama campaign define him and vastly outspend him in battleground states; this was entirely predictable. Instead of taking the offense, he has found himself playing defense and whining about the personal attacks. Romney picked as his VP selection Paul Ryan, whom had the highest unfavorables since Dan Quayle. The GOP convention was a disappointment. Chris Christie gave probably the weakest keynote address since Bill Clinton's abysmal 1988 performance, and a speech Romney has had months to prepare got a tepid response from delegates and viewers and mixed reviews: Politico reports that according to Gallup, Romney got the weakest net impact (+2 more likely vs. less likely voter) of any nominee in almost 30 years and the lowest percentage of the speech being rated good or excellent (38%) since Dole's in 1996. Given the fact that Romney isn't known by a number of independents and moderates, I expected more of a bump from the convention, but Gallup's daily polls barely budged with Obama still nursing a 1-point lead, effectively a tie.
I have not seen a single electoral vote projection to date showing Romney winning the election. I have not seen Romney appear with over 50% in a single nationwide poll. Intrade shows odds of Romney winning the election at about 42%, which hasn't budged in weeks. Paul Ryan's biggest impact to date has been putting Wisconsin's electoral votes into play.
It's always possible that polls are showing a social desirability impact, that some past supporters of Obama have changed their minds but are not ready to admit it yet--but Romney can't depend on that. But right now, Romney is entering the fourth quarter, and Obama has the lead. Romney needs a near sweep of battleground states, which is unlikely based on what I see now. All Obama needs is to retain a plurality of them with his blue state coalition.
Romney, it's time to start taking risks and open up an attack, preferably a surprise attack that puts the Obama campaign on the defensive; clever anti-Obama ads aren't enough. You need more Roanoke moments. You have to put at least some blue states in play. (I've suggested starting with New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania.) An Obama campaign on the defensive will create more Roanoke moments. Romney only has 2 months and can't count on Obama making a Ford gaffe in the Presidential debates. Right now Obama is in the fourth quarter and relying on his ground game to run minutes off the clock and keeping the ball out of Romney's hands. Romney is not going to win this game relying on his ground game.
I would be heavily promoting the fact that a reelected, term-limited Obama will almost surely mean his second term will be on the left, not center, as his unscripted Putin moment indicates, that Obama and his Congressional allies are following the same path as Greece and harsher austerity measures down the line if we don't act soon than later. We've had one of the weakest economic recoveries ever, even though Obama and his Congressional allies controlled the government and could have enacted almost anything they wanted; if he did have an answer, why hasn't he already done it? Isn't it time that the American people give Republicans the same chance Democrats were given in 2008? Reelection of Obama guarantees gridlock as usual, no accountability, unsustainable deficits and underfunded entitlements, none of which Obama dealt with in his first term?. Obama decided to push on a string with financial and health care reforms instead of lowering barriers for business to compete. We've lost 12 years of low economic and job growth, 12 years of spending way over our means with little to show for it, except for adding to the government bubble. Sooner or later, the government bubble will pop. Obama won't fix it--his idea of spending cuts is in budget increases, not baseline budgets. We already know the government is on track for a $20T national debt if Obama is reelected. We've already reached our credit limit, but Obama and the Democrats' version of Ponzi scheme economics will have a day of reckoning sooner rather than later.
Cato / Grover Norquist: Budget Hawks or Military Hawks?
Thumbs UP!
There have been a couple of themes I've been pressing over the past few weeks which puts me into opposition with certain groups of conservatives: military and law and order. As a consistent fiscal hawk, I must object to excess spending across the board, including the Defense Department and the prison system. We have bureaucrats like Defense Department Panetta dutifully playing the role of Chicken Little during the Panic of Sequester. The basic takeaways here are a couple of points I've explored or at least implied in prior commentaries: capping budgets (the budgetary equivalent of fixed-bid versus cost-plus contracts, i.e., force managers to prioritize program must-have's vs. nice-to-have's), and just as staunch anti-Communist Richard Nixon took the unlikely first steps in resuming diplomatic ties with China, traditionally strong defense/law-and-order conservatives will need to take the lead in applying the same degree of fiscal responsibility from our military and prison systems that we need for other domestic priorities.
The UBL Killing and "No Easy Day":
Unpopular Comments
There are suggestions that the Pentagon and the Obama Administration are furious about the publication of No Easy Day, a first-hand account of what happened on the day that UBL was killed by Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan, penned by former SEAL Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen. First of all, I seriously doubt that the Obama Administration would go after one of the people responsible for killing the man ultimately responsible for the murder of nearly 3000 civilians on 9/11, a crime against humanity. The UBL operation has been the only accomplishment of the Obama Administration that has bipartisan support. Going after one of the Navy SEAL's in the operation would be perhaps the most unpopular thing the Obama Administration has thought of doing since the idea of a trial of KSM in New York City.
I do take the idea of national security seriously. But there's a legitimate moral justification for whistleblowing when the government deliberately lies to the American people. What I've read is that the SEAL's shot an unarmed UBL:
‘BOP. BOP. The point man had seen a man peeking out of the door on the right side of the hallway about ten feet in front of him. I couldn’t tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room.’According to No Easy Day, the fallen man, wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt, tan trousers and a tan tunic, had been shot in the right side of his head. ‘Blood and brains spilled out of the side of his skull,’ writes Owen. ‘In his death throes, he was still twitching and convulsing.’ Owen and another Seal shot more rounds into his chest until he was motionless.This account materially deviates from what we had been told about the circumstances; as I recall, the story was that the SEAL's intended to capture UBL but he was reaching for a weapon and hence was killed.
It may well be the case that revelation of the real circumstances of the UBL death would have been provocative, but the revelation they kept shooting an incapacitated man until motionless makes it clear that the SEAL's never had an intention of capturing UBL. I'm sure that the capture of UBL would also have been provocative to sympathizers and may have resulted in related attacks (e.g., intended to force his release).
A couple of points: (1) the Obama Administration misled the American people about the circumstances of UBL's death and must be held accountable; (2) the Obama Administration must be held responsible for the failure to capture (vs. kill) UBL: his knowledge of any ongoing operations or plans would have been invaluable, and an execution of an unarmed man without trial is a violation of due process.
Let me be clear here: I believe that UBL should have been punished for his crimes against humanity, and I do not regret his passing. But a policy of 'act now, apologize later' has no place in a country that acknowledges the rule of law.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Cheap Trick, "Ain't That a Shame?"
