The 2012 Speculatron Weekly Roundup For April 13, 2012

This week, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum decided that the time to quit his upset bid had finally come. He shuttered a campaign that had risen from the depths to become a surprising success and, for a time, a real burr in former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's side. But with the heavy risk of flaming out for a second time in his home state, Santorum opted to go out on as high a note as possible, and in so doing, he officially made the primary season a secondary concern.

Yes, Texas Rep. Ron Paul still has some leverage to wield, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has some shout left in him, but this race has ended up where we mostly thought it would, with Romney as the GOP standardbearer and President Barack Obama as the incumbent hoping to hold forth. Neither man is unprepared for this matchup. Romney has, almost from the beginning, spent more time looking past his fellow GOP contenders and kept his eyes on his eventual general election opponent. And the Obama campaign never indulged too heavily in the speculation that one of Romney's competitors was going to end up tripping Mitt at the finish line. Each has anticipated the other, and by and large, so have we all.

Now, the question that gets raised is what sort of race we should expect from here. On that regard, Politico's John Harris predicts that the coming campaign will be a model of "self-restraint in an age of rage."

The general election will pit one exceptionally self-contained, self-disciplined, self-motivated man against another with precisely the same traits.

Voters have a choice between two men whose minds gravitate to rationality and logic — both of whom have expressed disdain for the disorder and surliness that pervade modern governance.

There may be more than coincidence at work with this seeming paradox. During a time when politics is defined by media saturation and relentless attacks, there is a premium on politicians who live by an ethic of constant self-control.

It sure is pretty to think that this is what's likely to happen. But this week's "Rosengate" flap suggests otherwise. This is a matter we've already opined at length about, so we won't repeat ourselves. But the whole incident demonstrated that civility can go out the window entirely when the right buttons get pressed. In this case, we had Romney's yawning gender gap, and the vulnerability that poses for him, intersecting with the traditional "leave the spouses out of it" rule of decorum.

The result: a silly vendetta. The Romney team went full-teeth after someone who's got nothing at all to do with the campaign. The Obama team ordered its allies to go out with a baseball bat and not return until they'd managed to get a Hilary Rosen-shaped dent embedded in the wood. Whatever value there was to be had in a discussion about women or moms or the economy got lost. The only thing Romney gained was an opportunity to push the assassination joke by his new backer, Foster Friess -- and the sixth birthday of "Romneycare" -- out of the headlines. The only benefit to Obama was a cheap scoring of a "Sista Soulja moment." And in the end, the entire contretemps only really had salience with the cosseted elites of the Beltway and the media by which it is served.

But one of your Speculatroners' regular readers emailed in with a good point: If Hilary Rosen had made the same comments two months ago, no one would have said a blessed word about it. And that's the difference between the primary season and what we're on to now. We're no longer in the part of the process where Romney gets shot at and he has to abide by Reagan's 11th Commandment and stay his hand. It's open season on everybody now.

We'd like to believe in the fantasy that Harris is describing, but we don't. (In fact, we think that all Harris is doing is setting up the "I'm so disappointed in the direction the election has taken" article that he already plans to write.) This week's sharp turn into rage was predictable, considering last week's kerfuffle between Reince Priebus and Democratic rapid-responders, who bypassed arguing a substantive point and went straight to trying to score cheap points arguing Priebus' metaphor.

But here's all you need to remember. Obama is happy to wage a negative campaign. Romney has already calculated that lying will need to be a key feature of his campaign (and his surrogates have actually admitted this). And both of these guys will be backed by stacked super PACs, that only really exist to allow someone affiliated with the campaign to get elbow-deep in the dank.

So we're at a crossroads here, and the candidates have choices. They could wage a high-minded campaign, rooted in substance, and wage a valuable debate that edifies and empowers voters. Or they could choose a nasty, brutish, interminable slog to November. We'd love to see the former, but we predict the latter.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, the smooth road for Gary Johnson's quest for the Libertarian Party nomination hit a roadblock, Newt Gingrich expanded his fight with Romney to a fight with a former employer, Ron Paul's campaign waged an unseen battle in Missouri that could presage his future, Obama's campaign battled ts own sense of cockiness, and Rick Santorum had a surprisingly potent bid for respectability. For all of this and the rest of the news from the rapidly receding campaign trail, please feel free to enter the Speculatron for the week of April 13, 2012.

1 of 8

Mitt Romney

1 of 9

First Slide

Previous Slide

@

Even before Rick Santorum made his decision to abandon his pursuit of the nomination, Romney had essentially established his inevitability. And once Santorum dropped out, it was all over but for the shouting. And while Santorum's departure brought with it a slew of endorsements that were hardly courageous ones, being within sight of the summit nevertheless came with big benefits: Big Oil's getting all in with the Romney campaign, and he'll be taking home a larger share of former Santorum Super PACker Foster Friess' money as well. Nonetheless, Romney still starts the general election in a position that few would envy. He's a pretty generic Republican figure -- an intense beige that only gets colorful when one considers his historically unprecedented favorability problems and the fact that he's best known for designing a health care innovation that has, in the four years since his last run, gone from being holy writ to anathema. But Romney has more time to make up this ground than most pundits seem to want to give him credit for having, and that hard work is now well underway. The "fence mending" has begun, and the great "pivot" is on. In a good sign, pro-life activists seem to have resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to have to support the candidate they liked the least. The GOP's top gay donors, on the other hand, haven't quite gotten there yet. But the more pressing problem for Romney is the canyon sized gender gap that's opened up as a result of the primary season and its attendant foolishness. Here, Romney's working to turn his liability into a weapon, in an attempt to make the case that the actual "war on women" has been the job losses their cohort has suffered because of the Obama administration's policies. This is going to be a tough charge to make stick, if only because the massive job loss that transpired over the past years came during the time between the autumn of 2008, when Obama wasn't president, and the period up until the stimulus plan took effect and aid started getting out to vulnerable job-holders. It also doesn't help that Romney's claim is predicated on a willfully myopic interpretation of available labor statistics. It also doesn't help that the Romney campaign didn't seem to understand that at some point, they'd be asked for their position on the Lily Ledbetter Act. Our own Sam Stein, who put the query to Romney surrogates expecting a simple answer, was fairly surprised when the campaign was unprepared to talk about it, and needed some time to think it over. It is perhaps unsurprising, however, when you consider that the women Romney enlisted to argue on his behalf are more-or-less exclusively opposed to equal pay protections for women, and that while the campaign eventually promised to continue the law established by the Act, antipathy for pay equity is plainly just a part of Romney's DNA. But if this week's flap with Hilary Rosen proved anything, it demonstrated that on the gender-gap issue, the Romney campaign is a cornered, rabid animal, and as such, they're willing to fight back with an insane frenzy if anyone gets too close. Even if that means having to tell a lot of "whoppers" about Rosen being intimately involved in the Obama White House and campaign. (Those who have decided that they're willing to die on this hill seem to want to point to the fact that people named "Hilary Rosen" have visited the White House 35 times, whilst disregarding the rather obvious fact that Presidential advisers are expected to show up for work with much greater regularity. This is the point at which "Rosengate" breeds its own version of Birther loonies.) But none of this means that Romney's women and jobs argument can't be made to work. Let's recall that this month's jobs report didn't exactly contain the champagne-and-fireworks numbers that previous months had offered. Economic fundamentals still largely mirror electoral fundamentals, and if recovery stagnates or reverses, Romney will likely find that this argument will gain traction. In fact, he'll have the opportunity to make all sorts of different arguments. Romney won't have to pivot much, if the world around him goes for a spin.

Ted Nugent's Most Outlandish Statements

Conservatives Pointing Fingers

Most Iconic Photos Of Obama's First Term

100 Years Of Election Night Winners

Ten Offensive Tea Party Signs

CPAC 2013 Memorable Moments

Even before Rick Santorum made his decision to abandon his pursuit of the nomination, Romney had essentially established his inevitability. And once Santorum dropped out, it was all over but for the shouting. And while Santorum's departure brought with it a slew of endorsements that were hardly courageous ones, being within sight of the summit nevertheless came with big benefits: Big Oil's getting all in with the Romney campaign, and he'll be taking home a larger share of former Santorum Super PACker Foster Friess' money as well.

Nonetheless, Romney still starts the general election in a position that few would envy. He's a pretty generic Republican figure -- an intense beige that only gets colorful when one considers his historically unprecedented favorability problems and the fact that he's best known for designing a health care innovation that has, in the four years since his last run, gone from being holy writ to anathema.

But Romney has more time to make up this ground than most pundits seem to want to give him credit for having, and that hard work is now well underway. The "fence mending" has begun, and the great "pivot" is on. In a good sign, pro-life activists seem to have resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to have to support the candidate they liked the least. The GOP's top gay... more

comments(813)

featured comment

Reply | Share

Albert Jenkin said on 14 Saturday 2012 pm30 3:58 pm: Please explain - how an exception? What manner of exception? He isn't saying so openly, but some of his Mormon backers are talking about his being "foreordained" to be President - a vote against our Willard is a vote against God. Sorry.but I don't quite follow your comment. I rather fear that HE doesn't believe in the Wall of Separation. I've lived among these people and they can make me a bit nervous. He won't move the US capital to Salt Lake City. More probably, the effort will be made to move it to the vicinity of St. Louis, MO, the New Jerusalem in their theology.

Total comments: 813 | Post a Comment

1 of 9

Rate This Slide

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Fading Fast In It To Win It

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
• 
  7
• 
  8
• 
  9
• 
  10

Current Top 5 Slides

loading...

Choose your Top 5 Slides

UserName

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Top User Slides

← Prev|Next →

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Users who voted on this slide

← Prev|Next →

loading...

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]

Comments

[nothingchanges]

08:49 AM on 04/15/2012

IMPO

When someone is elected, whether that be local, state, or national. It becomes incumbent upon them to serve ALL of their constituents, not just those of their party.

Their job is to govern, not to play partisan politics.

The Republican party has been working against that for a number of years. Over 95% of Republicans in Congress have signed a pledge to Grover Norquist, a man who penned

"We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals -- and turn them toward bitter
nastiness and partisanship."

and

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

In 1959, when Nikita Krushchev said "We will bury you", Americans were outraged.

Where is that outrage today, when one of our own political parties wants to "drown our government in the bathtub"?

This country has serious problems, instead of trying to work together to resolve some of them the first things out of Republican leaderships mouth when Obama was elected was "YOU LIE", and "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president".

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln.

Seems to me we're witnessing that destructive process...........right now.

[bobcouchman]

10:29 AM on 04/15/2012

so yopu think obamas pledge to illegals to "reform " immigration to allow them to stay here is a service to all lawful american citizens.

[nothingchanges]

10:44 AM on 04/15/2012

I think that the illegal immigration issue is a "Pandora's Box" that never should have been opened.

A whole lot more illegals came to the U.S. during the Bush administration then under the Obama administration, because at that time they wanted all the cheap labor they could get.

Now there are no easy solutions to the problem. No matter what happens, a lot of innocent people have been and are going to be hurt.

All for greed.

[jaydeerdld]

03:53 AM on 04/15/2012

That is a terrific photograph of Santorum, sporting a "rats tail" hair-do. Should have happened earlier and he could have attracted millions of younger supporters

[ClassicalGas]

11:43 PM on 04/14/2012

This is all well and good, however...

The Presidential election, while very important, is overshadowing the State and Local elections.

Please pay serious attention to ALL of your local elections, right down to the school boards. This is the real battleground for setting policy decisions.

Be sure to get out the vote and inform your friends and neighbors of the importance of voting in people who actually represent you.

[Katrin55]

09:56 PM on 04/15/2012

Please do get out and vote. A friend of mine was a candidate for a local office, and she lost by 12 votes. During the recount, she saw that people who promised to vote, didn't get out to the polls at all.

[ClassicalGas]

11:52 PM on 04/15/2012

Excellent, co-signed! f/f

[rf dude]

11:33 PM on 04/14/2012

I expect both candidates themselves will be models of decorum for the most part.

The dirty work will be done by the Superpricks - er, Superpacs...

[TAMPA M]

08:52 PM on 04/14/2012

Obama likes 25,954,719.....
Romney likes 1,591,727......

[windstorm46]

08:46 PM on 04/14/2012

HuffP - can't you get a new picture of Mittens. It looks like his spaceship is hovering over his head - waiting to take him back to Uranus - his home planet !!

[OnceProudAmerican]

07:21 PM on 04/14/2012

Romney would treat, and has, the poor like something you'd step in. He's bragged about firing people and was against the Auto bailout but for the Bank bailout!
Anyone with a mind can see he's not for the 99% who make less than amillion per year!
He's also a flip-flopper of MAJOR proportions and a true Republican who hasent any time for the poor.
We've already had one poor little rich kid in office (W) and that was enough!

[Dewton Williams]

06:33 PM on 04/14/2012

When the report comes out that the opposing group raised 13m in one month, my interest in politics wanes. First off, where is all this money coming from in a fledgling economy? It must be that people are bypassing serious responsibility in their personal lives to contribute to their political cause. It is quite telling that contributions by volumes of people are down while contributions of amounts of money are up. It must be that the economy is good for some while bad for others. But how could that be when we equally live and breathe the same economy? How does the rich get richer and poor get poorer because of the same economy?

Second, the message in politics seems to be secondary to the money in politics. Some would say the more money collected the better the message gets circulated and articulated. Didn't Reagan and Clinton get their message out with much less dollars and won? I offer that inherent in the money is the message. Just by reporting huge sums raised, a psychological message is transmitted of superiority that overcomes a public that follows blindly the theme, "money talks..." The gross pursuit for money is not to be effective in messaging as it is to be commanding in stature. In this case political posturing which is crucial to wining.

Don't blame this all on SCOTUS. Citizens United or not, political campaigning is rife with money obsession
As I said before, to contribute is to vote. seriously.

[beauwulff]

06:25 PM on 04/14/2012

"Politico's John Harris predicts that the coming campaign will be a model of "self-restraint in an age of rage."

I truly hope both candidates step up to this challenge and actually debate their proposed remedies for the critical problems facing the US.

[threewarveteran]

05:46 PM on 04/14/2012

Let's help the po Mittwad shine a little light on his real plans.

A man dies and goes to heaven. Saint Peter meets him at the gates and takes him on a tour. They enter a long hall with doors lining either side of it.
Saint Peter opens the first door they come to they see the Hindus reading the Rigveda. The next door they open they see the Buddists reading the The Diamond Sutra. In the next room contains people of various Islamic faiths reading the Qur'an, and the next has Catholics reading the Bible.
Then they pass a door that Peter doesn't open. This rouses the man's curiosity and he asks, "Who is in that room, sir?"
"Well," Peter replies, "that is the room with the Mormons. Don't go in there; they think they are the only ones in heaven."

A catholic priest was put through to the Pope with a very imporant phone call.
Ring-Ring. Hello, this is the Pope speaking.
Priest: Your Holiness, I have found out some good news and bad news. Praise God, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior, has returned to earth.
Pope: My son, what possibly could be the bad news?" l.
Priest: Your Holiness, I am calling from Salt Lake City."

[OnceProudAmerican]

07:24 PM on 04/14/2012

Great!
Unfortunatly true, But still GREAT!

[TAMPA M]

08:58 PM on 04/14/2012

Well if Jesus does return to earth someday, somebody better remind them not to wear his robe with the hoodie

[callinguonit]

08:45 PM on 04/15/2012

LOL....too cute

[KsAPigButt]

05:15 PM on 04/14/2012

GREAT article.....

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8327-mitt-romney-the-salesman-trapped-in-the-gop-madhouse

[MarcDel]

05:10 PM on 04/14/2012

"The general election will pit one exceptionally self-contained, self-disciplined, self-motivated man against another with precisely the same traits." Same traits? One's been consistent in his policies and positions. The other has changed them so often he can't remember them. This is self-discipline? This is what kind of self-motivation......... win with no soul? Running 95% negative ads toward your opponent is being self-contained?

[gabufuda]

09:53 AM on 04/15/2012

I agree, I thought that article was ridiculous. We need a website that keeps track of when Mitt lies--and not the discredited Politifact.

[Earl King]

04:25 PM on 04/14/2012

WOW the pious authors of this article really show there color. LOL... They (the campaign and authors above) can't and won't talk about Obamas' record so they'll just trash Romney. Hillary's comment exposes the liberal eastern snobbery that inhabits the democratic party. It provides a window in to their thinking: stay at home mothers are worth less than working moms', they know less.Specifically, she was responding to whether Ann Romney knew anything about the American economy and therefore can speak to women's issues.
Women with children work hard, period. Some consider it a break or luxury to get away from the kids for awhile. Some do need to do both and do get a raw deal...but to say a "stay" at home mom knows nothing about paying bills, shopping, dealing with the plumber, the lawn guy...health care, to sy nothing of her own issues such as Breast Cancer, MS...Hillary exposes a fatal flaw in progressive thinking. They do not consider conservative women to be equals....they consider them to be flawed and therefore unworthy.

[OnceProudAmerican]

07:34 PM on 04/14/2012

I think you missed the point. Women with childern Do work hard- Some harder than others.
And IF you have domestic help,Then your not working as hard as ones who don't.
Also I don't think that Ann R.has ever had to work for a paycheck just to help make ends meet! She is not the first woman to get sick and raise a family and probably won't be the last!
Other women suffering the same fate daily and don't get up on TV and whine about it or look for sympathy either!

[ranchero42]

04:22 PM on 04/14/2012

"(Dick Cheney) said it's never been more important to defeat a sitting president and the Republican Party should unite behind Romney."
=======================================>>Ah, yes -- he's back! The sole defender of Iran-Contra -- the man who believed Nixon AND Saint Ronnie when they insisted "it's not illegal if the President does it." What a proud Moment for…what was this guy's name again?
=========================================
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/ronald-romney-forgets-iran-contra
>>"Speaking by satellite Tuesday (Mar. 06, 2012) to the AIPAC Policy Conference, Mitt again donned his Reagan mask (around the 8:40 mark above):
"I believe the right course is what Ronald Reagan called 'peace through strength.' There is a reason why the Iranians released the hostages on the same day and at the same hour that Reagan was sworn into office. As President, I will offer that kind of clarity, strength, and resolve."
Apparently, Mitt Romney wasn't paying attention to the rest of Reagan's performance. That would be the part when Ronald Reagan swapped arms for hostages with Ayatollah Khomeini."

[OnceProudAmerican]

07:37 PM on 04/14/2012

Or when Reagan told the Iranians to hold onto the hostages till after the election and he would give them a better deal!

[ranchero42]

04:27 PM on 04/14/2012

For a minute there I thought maybe you had your 'link' in hand -- imagine my disappointment that you'd already put it away and zipped up your pants before anybody could catch a glimpse...