It ain't over, no matter what the Republican establishment may wish. Newt is not finished, but it's safe to say, the handwriting is on the wall.
On the one hand, the new energetic Romney is funded, strategically sound, and climbing. On the other hand he is one gaff, one revelation, away from collapse. The majority of Republican primary voters remain deeply uncomfortable with him. That discomfort is cultural, ideological, theological and personal and it won't go away. If either Paul or Santorum pulls out, that Silent Majority will find its way to Gingrich. So, long shot as he may be, Newt's still out there.
Romney comes out of Florida both strengthened and weakened. He's a better, more aggressive candidate to be sure. But the labeling process that all candidates go through has left him beaten up. Thanks to Newt's Occupy-Mitt attack on his Bain Capital shenanigans, Romney has been painted as the rich kid with good hair who is the candidate of the 1 %ers (not far from the truth). That is the precise and only narrative that works for Obama. It remains to be seen if that label will stick as the campaign progresses, but it could be the gift that keeps on giving.
Leading up to Florida, Romney was running a terrible, out-of-touch campaign. It was tinged by a kind of genial and self-congratulatory arrogance that is the kiss of death for any candidate. It's a sign of how bad it was that it took a major defeat in South Carolina to open Romney's eyes. Yet he learned the lesson and did what he had to do. It's not as easy a feat as he made it look.
Obama is perched in the wings, ready to... who knows? For a genuinely smart guy, you wonder how the president managed to lose the political high ground so completely. He inherited an economic mess well beyond anyone's expectations, and a Republican crew of wreckers who would rather the country tank than do anything that Obama can claim as a victory. But that doesn't explain away some fundamental political miscalculations. As important as it was for the nation to address its dysfunctional health care system, the American people were infinitely more focused on economic recovery. The decision to take on health care reform first seems strangely out of touch in retrospect. Just as Romney suffers from the creation of an image as out-of-touch, so does Obama. And just as Romney pivoted at the last minute and seemed to save his candidacy, Obama has tried to do the same.
Obama figured out that if the conversation in 2012 was about him, there was no path to re-election. He started with the Kansas speech, resurrecting the populist Teddy Roosevelt attack on the rich, and doubled-down in a State of the Union speech seemingly written in a tent in Zucotti Park. It wasn't an ideological reach for him. Rather it was a reminder of the tone and ideas that got him elected in the first place. It partially re-energized his base and partially gave him the same argument against Mitt that Newt had perfected in South Carolina.
So, as Groundhog Day approaches, the shadowy outlines of the campaign emerge. The ideas that will dominate become clear, and the two likely candidates try to recover from similar self-inflicted wounds. It's worth remembering that presidential campaigns are never straight lines, and that outside events will have much to do with the outcome. Just imagine the political impact of an Iranian oil blockade, or a European debt meltdown, or a dramatic drop in the jobless rate.
The stakes in this election are huge. The Republican Party is the vehicle for a combination of social reactionaries and economic royalists. In power, they will move the country in exactly the direction they say they will. It's enough to keep you up at night.
Follow Richard Brodsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/richardbrodsky
President Obama does care and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a monument to that care.
Romney and his stated disregard for the poor demonstrates for all to see and hear that he does not care.
Too bad you couldn't have waited a couple of days before writing your column as Romney's statement on the poor shows absolutely NO pivoting. Romney is what he is yesterday, today and tomorrow and cannot change simply by a tweek in campaign strategy.
Nope. When it comes to Romney, sir, you are deluding yourself.
And when it comes to President Obama, you simply don't know.
But, hey, it makes a nice little column, better forgotten, of course.
C'mon.
Not fixing healthcare, means not being competative when our private cost(excluding the much lower medicare/medicaid) are 3 times higher to insure just 60% of the population as with our competitors.We pay 5 times more for the same drus, almost all made oustide the u.S. anayway, while U.S. taxpayers fund 50% of all drug research.
We lose MFG jobs, not to just low wage countries, but to countries with higher wages, but with much cheaper helathcare such as the EU, Canada and etc, cost that is not in the cost of the goods made, thats a 20% pricing advantage(and add to that 18% export reabtes, interest free mfg loans, anti outsourcing regs, and China's 25% import tarrifs, and you see a non existant free market, a reality that we/Repubs/Paulettes ignore).
It is along time time to fix 50 years of going the wrong way on helathcare and 30 years of deindustrialization, they are not separatable.
As a person who has started 6 small businesses, the number one problem that always persisted and grew was healthcare insurance(never federal regulations, often local/state).. with our small businesses getting 300% increases over the Bush years. And as medical providers this increase occured as insurance reimbursment rates dropped by 30% or more.. does not compute.
Regards
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...and then we'll look back at electing Bush Jr...Twice...and say...yeah...we, as a nation, are pretty stupid, so it wouldn't be that hard to outsmart us.
So until we can bring back real private industry, thats is self funding, with a much higher multipler effect than defense, we can only slowly reduce defense spending. SADLY!
In 1980 Industry was 40% of our economy, now private industry is just 5%. Wallstreet/insurance went from 5%, fair for nothing more than middlemen, to 44%, while private industry went to just 5%. A completely upside down economy, with 60,000 factories closing just under Bush.
How fast, with a repub anchor around our necks, can you undo 30 years of building a wallstreet phoney economy thats 445 of the economy, while having to bailout a sinking ship cuased by thats same dumb shift, while Wallstreet and repubs continue to pour water into the boat, they had just punched holes in.
Its a 30 year problem,.myth of free trade, business self regulation nonsense and failed trickle down supply side, that repubs still want more of..while the ountries beating us are more socialsistic, with more government involvement creating demand economies...laughing at free trade.
In retrospect, it seems like genius. When else would he have done it? He was riding a wave of crazy progressive support. The Republican party was a wreck. People knew the economy was bad, but it really hadn't sunk into the general population yet. He knew that even if he got two terms, they would be consumed by the economy.
President Obama did what so many others had failed to do. He put the final piece of the social safety net in place. But Mr. Brodsky is going to pretend like it was a failure.
And to say that the "image" of both of these men is the same is ridiculous. The "image" that President Obama is out of touch is a fabrication of the right wing and media people like you, Mr. Brodsky, who think it makes a good story. The "image" of Mitt Romney being out of touch is, well, his image. It's his image on television saying really out of touch things.
And I didn't say the media was out of touch. The media is out to turn a profit, like any other business. Some businesses do it fairly and legally. Some are willing to cheat or pollute to make a buck. Conflict makes the media money. Reporting on someone at a town hall screaming at a legislator about Obamacare and death panels will make more money than a boring wonky policy discussion about the benefits and problems with the law. So which is the media more likely to choose?
But if you suggest to progressives they vote third party, they shout you down, explaining that third parties never have any effect. With the Tea Party and the Occupy movements dominating the political scene, this seems a bit obtuse.
But come the fall, there will be the same attacks, honed, focus grouped, and unforgetable Romney lines to put in every video. And Romney can't even complain if there are context issues, because every time he bring up context, that ad that he signed off on leaving off the "McCain said" of "Obama said that McCain said" quote.
Romney's strategy, whenever someone brings up an attack on him, is to counter with an attack on Gingrich or Ron Paul or whoever. But that means in the fall, he and his supporters can't respond with "but Gingrich did this" to the attack. His supporters simply aren't being prepared, rehearsed, with the arguments that will work in the fall.
"Romney has been painted as the rich kid with good hair who is the candidate of the 1 %ers (not far from the truth)." That's like saying "water is wet (not far from the truth)." You'd have to be either (a) a sucker-born-every-minute Republican voter or (b) seriously not paying attention to believe that Romney is "just a regular guy like you and me."
MSNBC told us so.
Only on your planet... Uranus.