The hero is the one
who kindles a great light in the world,
who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by.
The saint is the man
who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
Felix Adler
On Conservative Post-Mortems of the Romney Loss
I have not written my own analysis yet, but I've previewed some of my criticisms in past posts:
- Romney needed to more sharply contrast himself from the Bush/Obama record, especially on the economy (anemic economic.job growth}, government intervention, nation building, etc.. He had missed opportunities to tap into the still hugely unpopular ObamaCare law (given his inability to distance himself from his biggest bipartisan accomplishment, RomneyCare) or natio- building/foreign interventions. etc..
- Romney allowed himself to be defined by his opponent, was out-organized in swing states, ran a conservative (cautious, not Conservative) race, and had no strategy to deal with a predictable negative campaign: attack on his wealth and his notorious flip-flops since his Massachusetts campaigns.
- In one of the most ludicrous developments, the Demagogue-in-Chief and Panderer-in-Chief accused Romney of saying anything to be elected. This was coming from a hypocrite whom has disingenuously campaigned as a centrist and fiscal conservative but has governed as a spendthrift radical progressive, likely the most anti-business in American history.
- Romney, like McCain, ran mostly on the basis on his resume, not ideas. They made mistakes in picking running mates. Recognizing there was a gender gap, I recommended the popular retiring senior US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX). I emailed the campaign a link to my post, one of the 5 most popular posts over the past year or so. Don't get me wrong--Paul Ryan is a good conservative with constructive solutions and his youthful leadership goes a long way to showing this is not your grandfather's GOP. But his record undermined Romney's experience argument and running a Washington outsider campaign, Ryan is arguably one of the most polarizing Congressional Republicans--and the choice unnecessarily introduced Mediscare into the campaign. By choosing someone whom is tied to bipartisan gridlock--and whom notably dissented from Simpson-Bowles--Romney also undermined his bipartisan appeal.
I'm not going to play woulda, coulda, shoulda here. One clear problem is the fact that Romney ran too much to the Angry Right on immigration. As a result he ran much worse among Latinos than Bush and McCain, both pro-immigration reform. As an aside, I find it ludicrous some people were saying Romney was running as a free-market capitalist--this is a guy whom in his famous anti-auto bailout column called for federal guarantees of settlements and defended an insurance mandate to enforce people to act responsibly, a freeloader problem caused by existing dysfunctional public policy (the answer is to reform policy, not to use force to impose purchase of a product made expensive by special-interest benefit or unaccountable "expert" mandates and dysfunctional policies not vesting the consumer in purchase decisions; almost all the links in my blogroll were highly critical of Romney as not a free market guy. They noted, among other things, that spending cuts were easily said than done. I thought attacking Big Bird was a mistake--for one thing, it would be easy for Sesame Street to attract commercial sponsors and do a syndicated or cable deal. I would have focused on government redundancy and waste, elimination of automatic budget increases, all spending--including DoD, on the table, and across-the-board spending cuts. Romney alienated most of us by his China and anti-immigration rhetoric and his neo-con foreign policy; that's why I felt a need to write a post defending a pro-liberty endorsement of Romney.
But I want to specifically want to criticize some conservative talking points:
- "This was because Romney was not a true conservative; he was an establishment Republican-in-Name-Only forced on us". Let us be clear: this is purely delusional crap. Let's remind the Reagan worshipers that Reagan signed onto a payroll tax increase and an immigration deal. The whole early nomination season was anyone but Romney--Bachmann, Trump, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum...none of whom would have come as close as Romney (Bachmann barely won reelection to Congress and Santorum lost in a 2006 purple state landslide to a pedestrian Democrat with zero charisma.) I'm not making excuses for Romney; he was running against a personally popular incumbent President. I think if the election was held right after the first debate or a couple of weeks later this month Romney would have won-- he was beginning to attract huge rallies; polls showed him closing in in some blue states (and he barely lost Virginia, Florida and Ohio despite being out-organized). But a final couple of points: McCain in 2008 in an effort to appeal to Bush conservatives stressed his favorable voting record to a deeply unpopular President, which hurt him in the general campaign. Similarly Romney was hobbled by playing to the right on immigration. It is highly likely the same things would have hurt any nominee. Polls suggest that about 35% of voters classified themselves as conservative--with a plurality moderate. Even granting a bad economy, remember Carter had other problems--e.g, the Iran hostage crisis.
- "It was Hurricane Sandy and the disloyal Chris Christie." PLEASE. Romney had failed to achieve a statistically significant lead in any battleground state. At best he was tied. Yes, the Congress (not Obama) funds emergency relief, for which Obama milked to his full political advantage. I don't like the way Christie went out of his way to praise Santa Obama or present a cameo facade of bipartisanship for the mainstream media--and I think if Christie had national aspirations, conservatives will remember this in 2016. Still, Christie was on the record opposing the reelection of Obama.
- "Romney didn't hit Obama on the Benghazi coverup hard enough in the last debate." Talking heads like Bill O'Reilly promote such nonsense. Let me make myself clear: I thought Romney screwed up by taking a softball strike from moderator Schieffer. But any reasonably informed citizen knew the Obama Administration was knowingly misleading the American people; I would have differed from Romney by raising the issue of the expansion of regional meddling and drone attacks, kill lists (including unconvicted Americans), etc.
There have been other facts that have emerged since I last opined. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, although one theory I suggested (perhaps the affair surfaced as part of a sweep on government leaks) seems to be unsupported. As anyone who has followed the story knows, Petraeus's biographer allegedly had an affair with him (which he has indirectly confirmed); she apparently got jealous of some casual acquaintance of Petraeus and started harassing her. I don't know the details of the emails, but apparently they were serious enough that the target went to the FBI, which started the investigation.
There's something paradoxical about a CIA chief being undone by emails (presumably using government infrastructure). I'm still not sure what led to the resignation in that the harassment/threats seemed to be from the mistress and not the retired general. I saw Drudge link to a story suggesting Petraeus could be charged with some kind of wrongdoing
I also suggested that perhaps Obama was throwing Petraeus under the bus perhaps over Benghazi. I still think the nomination of Petraeus was politically motivated, but I don't think Obama wanted this on his watch, which could raise questions about Petraeus' selection in the first place.
As to conservative theorists suggesting Obama was trying to bury the Libyan story: I never bought that resignations could block a Congressional investigation. And I've seen one story that House Leader Cantor was briefed before the election.
And 2016 Is Already Underway
Politico reports that Rand Paul, whom I've mentioned as a likely successor to his dad's Presidential ambitions, is looking to carve out pragmatic pro-liberty stands on certain drug decriminalization, immigration, and scaled back military deployments. The devil is in the details, and who else is likely to emerge in a change election year, but Rand Paul is someone I could see myself supporting.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Carpenters, "I Won't Last a Day Without You". The Carpenters had great success covering Paul Williams' songs--"We've Only Just Begun", "Rainy Days and Mondays', and "Let Me Be the One". Almost Top 10 and another #1 adult contemporary.
