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If it wasn’t for the great health care debate of ‘09, I bet Romney would be the GOP frontrunner for 2012 (however dubious a title that may be in 2009). But since we have been debating health care “reform”, it’s inevitable to look at what Massachusetts did a few years ago under then-Gov. Romney.
So now, if Obamacare passes, Romney will be left telling angry primary voters that the only real difference between the two plans is that he implemented his policies at the state level, while Obama did it through the federal government. Sure, it’s clearly worse if the federal government is implementing bad policies, but it’s hard to see how such an argument would pass muster with anybody but those who are already ardent Romney supporters. It’s sort of like saying, “As governor, I raised state income taxes, but the thought of raising federal income taxes — that’s an outrage!”
There are some similarities. For instance, the concept of the “exchange” where people can shop for affordable health plans was pioneered in Massachachusetts. But Mitt’s Romney’s health care reforms are different in several important respects. First, the bill signed by Governor Romney did not raise taxes. Second, its focus was on strengthening the private insurance market, and I don’t think anyone believes that Democrats have given up on their dream of a public option. And finally, Governor Romney believes states should be free to come up with their own approach instead of having Washington create a “one-size-fits-all” solution for the entire country.
I think Romney gets unfairly blamed for some aspects that were done by the legislature or his successor. But when its become known as RomneyCare, that’s how politics rolls.
Regardless how HCR ends in Congress, it’s a debate that’s going to stick around for quite a while.
“I also think it’s important for us to nod to the president when he’s right,” Romney said, after chiding the president’s budget. “He will not always be wrong, and he’s done some things I agree with.”
Romney, who spoke at a dinner for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he’s pleased with the president’s plans to “finish the job” in Iraq and Afghanistan — lines that drew applause from the partisan audience. He also applauded the president for standing up to the auto industry.
This strikes me as not only smart politics but the right thing to do. No pretending to be civil with snarky back-handed compliments, but sincere praise when it’s called for. The GOP needs to be the loyal opposition but also needs voices to tamp down any signs of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
On Tuesday, he’s in Chicago to speak at a fundraiser for a prospective state treasurer candidate. On Wednesday, he’s in Washington to headline a fundraiser for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. On Thursday, he’s again the keynote speaker at a fundraising dinner for Republicans in New York City.
After that, he’s heading back to his oceanfront home in La Jolla, Calif., to continue writing newspaper columns and a political book.
Sounds like a busy guy for someone without a job. And how many multi-millionaires move out of his “ski home” and drive across country in a U-Haul?
It’s early, of course – ridiculously early – for anyone except potential candidates to be thinking about the next presidential race. But there’s been plenty of positioning going on in the now-leaderless GOP, including a head-scratching debut by one promising contender, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and a parade of speeches by some others at the Conservative Political Action Conference late last month.
And while much of the CPAC spotlight went to someone who isn’t a candidate for president – radio personality Rush Limbaugh, who came off as either boorish or straight-talking, depending on your political temperature – it was Romney who walked away with the best reviews and victory in the convention’s presidential straw poll.
President-elect Obama was for gay marriage before he wasn’t. Not terribly surprising as his cautious hedging on the issue sought to have it both ways without convincing anyone.
P.E. Obama won the election and deserves a nice inauguration next week. But I can’t stop wondering that if you told Mitt Romney a year ago that the candidate who was the biggest flip-flopper, with the closest ties to polygamy, and a member of a radical church was going to win, he would have been elated.
Looking back on 2008, the Church certainly had its share of major and controversial news stories. Overall, the Church made great strides to define itself despite a sometimes adversarial, not always accurate media.
Many (mostly us conservative nutjobs) have described 2008 as the year that “journalism died” in the aftermath of the presidential campaign coverage. The unbalanced coverage of the religions of Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama did not help.
While Gov. Romney was relentlessly asked about his personal beliefs and expected to answer for his Church’s long-abandoned practices of polygamy and excluding blacks from the priesthood, there was virtually no scrutiny of the religious beliefs taught at Sen. Obama’s church. I’m not even sure how much a candidate’s personal religious beliefs should be questioned. But a media that seemed so concerned with a candidate’s “lack of curiosity” showed zero interest in the theology of Trinity United Church of Christ. Even putting religion aside, Sen. Obama was never held to account for the radical anti-American, racist, and conspiracy-mongering politics preached there by his self-described spiritual mentor.
Following the news, you would not be faulted for believing that Romney’’s Mormon Church was exactly the same as it was 120 years ago while Obama hadn’t been a member of Rev. Wright’s church for the last 20 years.
For a little objective evidence, consider a study released by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life on media coverage of religion during the primary campaigns. It’s difficult to compare the two directly as the focus on Romney’s religion was relentless, starting two years before he announced his candidacy, while the Obama religious coverage spiked for a few weeks in March and April.
But here are some interesting tidbits from the Pew study:
While only 2% of all the campaign stories directly focused on religion, “more than one-third (35%) of all religion-related campaign stories focused on Romney, a Mormon.”
“when Obama gave a speech to quell concerns over the controversial statements of his former pastor, both the campaign and the press steered the emphasis toward the race angle of the story. . . For about every 50 news stories that primarily focused on race, only one took a distinctively religious angle.”
“Nearly one-third (30%) of Romney’s media coverage in 2007 focused on his Mormon faith. No other candidate even came close to receiving the same amount of attention to their faith that year.”
Interestingly, they did both give highly-touted speeches in response to controversies about their churches. However, while Obama’s speech was well-received and was able to brush off further questioning by resigning from the church, Romney’s speech did little to stop the questioning about his, and may have even fueled more.
Of course, a serious Mormon candidate running for national office is a novelty that should be expected to garner media attention. But the relentless coverage turned the question of how Romney’s faith would affect his campaign into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
From the day he entered the race on Feb. 13, 2007, Romney’s affiliation with the Mormon church dominated his media image more than anything else. On Feb. 18, 2007, during a Florida campaign event, Romney was heckled by an attendee who announced, “You do not know the Lord … you are a Mormon.” The moment was captured on video and replayed frequently over the course of the next 24 hours, gaining a thorough treatment on cable news shows.
Media analysis of the heckling incident kicked off what would become a pattern over the course of Romney’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign: Journalists often expressed sympathy for a candidate subject to anti-Mormon sentiment while simultaneously fueling the fire by suggesting his religion could be an impediment to his electability. For instance, on the Feb. 19, 2007, edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, correspondent Carol Costello noted that Romney’s courteous response to the heckler earned him a standing ovation, but she also predicted that “Romney’s faith will dog him.”
Nothing Romney said seemed to satisfy the pondering whether his religion would hurt him. The media kept asking him but never seemed to listen.
In contrast, much of the media seemed painfully hesitant to touch Obama’s faith and church while eager to clarify any mischaracterizations, even by the candidate himself. I’m sure there are various reasons for this but unfortunately I think it will be a long time until a Mormon candidate will get the kid-gloves treatment like this:
Don’t they have enough polls to screw up do already? I like the guy but come on, it’s too soon:
A Newsweek poll out this past weekend found Romney leading among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters for the GOP nomination next time around. In that national survey, Romney bested GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee.
This is an amazing race. The incumbent president has approval ratings somewhere between Robert Mugabe and the ebola virus. The economy is supposedly on the brink of global Armageddon. McCain has only $80 million to spend, while Obama’s burning through $600 mil as fast as he can, and he doesn’t really need to spend a dime given the wall-to-wall media adoration. . .
And yet an old cranky broke loser is within two or three points of the King of the World. Strange.
Don’t worry, I’m not getting my hopes up, but still . . .
The map also compares the newspapers’ previous endorsements. While I thought it was silly to make a big deal that the ever-reliable liberal Salt Lake Tribune endorsed Obama as and take it as a sign that even the Mormons are going for him, I was shocked to be reminded that the paper did endorse Pres. Bush in 2004.
“I was appalled by the way Romney was treated by the press,” said Stack, senior religion writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, “I do not believe every adherent should be responsible for his pastor’s or church’s belief. I wish the questions posed [by the media] were more directly related to the job, especially in this time of national urgency.”
After his speech, Romney told reporters he planned to continue campaigning for the GOP even after November. But he said “no thanks” to another run for the White House, even though he said his own campaign was a good experience despite some mistakes — which he declined to elaborate.
“I do not anticipate doing it again. It’s hard to imagine something like that,” Romney said.
The same goes for a spot in a McCain Cabinet, he said, because of what he saw when his father, the late George Romney, served as President Nixon’s secretary of housing and urban development.
“I really would not enjoy being in the Cabinet,” Romney said.
We’ll see, but I’m surprised to hear him so down on both prospects. And if so, why the heck is still subjecting himself to this:
Romney Hearts Huckabee
Poltics is truly the most christian of professions. After being defeated in the primaries by a guy who hates you, strung along as his loyal surrogate to not be picked as VP, keep stumping for the guy but then, to make nice with Mike Huckabee?!
To quote Homer Simpson, “This man has turned every cheek on his body.”
Tom Tancredo may not be many people’s cup of tea (as his campaign performance showed) but his take on the GOP primary results are interesting.
It was the Huckabee factor. [Former Arkansas] Governor [Mike] Huckabee decided to stay in even though he could not have won. He absolutely made a difference, and he knew it, and that difference was he was able to keep Mitt Romney out of the play by draining off conservative votes. And I think he did it to a large extent because Mitt is a Mormon. It was really to ruin Romney’s chances. So that created the pathway for Senator McCain.
I am certainly annoyed. I believe that Romney would have made a great candidate and a great president. John McCain is a better choice than Barack Obama, but I just hate the idea of voting for the lesser of two evils. But that’s what it boils down to.
Huckabee was still campaigning against Romney until last week just to make sure he didn’t get the VP nod. Was he merely reminding McCain that Romney’s Mormonism would have hurt him in the South?
McCain’s advisers conducted interviews with a number of the prospective choices, but McCain did not. Most he knew well enough to have a sense of their personalities, policy positions and character. Among those who never met personally with McCain was Romney. The two men had waged a bitter and often-personal battle for the Republican nomination and when the primaries ended, Romney seemed an unlikely choice because of their distant personal relationship. . .
Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney harbors no ill feelings toward McCain, having never believed he would be the running mate. “It never seemed likely to us because they disagreed on some issues during the primaries, and there were so many other good Republicans to choose from, including Sarah Palin,” he said. But some close associates said that Romney’s advisers were angry about having been strung along until the last minute.
Reid said Romney would “be a tremendous drag” on the ticket everywhere except in Nevada, where he would likely earn significant support from the Mormon community.
“I think that they like his wearing his religion on his sleeve,” Reid, also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said of Nevada Mormons. “Apparently they love his flip-flopping. He was for abortion, he’s against it. He’s for gay marriage, he’s against it. He’s for global warming, he’s against it.”
Huh!?! I seem to recall that the last thing Romney wanted to discuss was his religion but had his hand forced. And Reid’s co-religionist constituents love religious pandering and “flip-flopping”? Maybe they’ll remember that in the 2010 elections.
Well for those who already didn’t know it, following the daily political gossip is about as useful as speculating on who’s going to win next year’s Super Bowl. Now the rumor du jour has it that McCain has made his decision for VP and it’s not Mitt.
While I’m not sure Romney would be the best political pick for VP, I would be disappointed because I do believe he would be the best as Vice-President. But I have been wary because I have noticed that like many GOP thought the Biden pick would make for great campaign fodder, so do many Democrats I have talked to relish a Romney choice.
However, unlike the Biden pick, on the party level it appears that the Democrats would actually prefer that he was passed over. Democrats have been campaigning (alongside Mike Huckabee’s PUMA-like antics) against a Romney pick. Which leads one to believe that they (like Huckabee) actually don’t want him on the ticket. Why?
For the general election, the West, especially the Southwest, rises in strategic significance for both candidates, and Mormons are gaining more attention given their wide dispersion across the region. Although church members are heavily concentrated in Utah, where they make up more than 70 percent of the population, according to church figures, they also top 7 percent of Nevada’s population and 2 percent of Colorado’s, enough to tilt a tight race.
Not surprisingly, Utah Democrats are also hoping to avoid a Romney ticket, which would energize Utah Republicans to vote in what otherwise may be a lackluster year.
If McCain gives Romney the No. 2 spot on his ticket that “would energize what seems to be rather lethargic and unenthusiastic Republicans,” said state Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake. “It gives them a reason to turn out.”
And that may make it difficult for Democrats to win what would otherwise be tight local races, especially if those excited Romney supporters vote straight party Republican.
Who knows? Perhaps the latest slew of rumors are a headfake to add a little surprise to what may be the inevitable choice when its revealed Friday. After all, why are those men with earpieces following Mitt?
RUSH: Thank you. So are you, sir. Now let’s get right to the chase here. I said something a couple weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, about you and Governor Romney that you strenuously objected to. What was it that I said that was incorrect?
HUCKABEE: Well, that I had made an issue out of his religion and had sort of poisoned him with evangelicals and that’s simply not true. You know, one of the things that I’ve been very adamant about is that I don’t think his religion has one thing to do with whether people should support him. Some of my favorite public servants in America happen to be the same religion he is, the Morman religion. That would be people like Mike Leavitt, Orrin Hatch, Jon Huntsman, the current governor of Utah. Great people. It has nothing to do with it.
RUSH: Yeah, but they’re not running for president nor running against you for the nomination. I guess I track this back to at one point you talking about what Romney believes, that Christ and Lucifer were brothers.
HUCKABEE: It was a question that I actually asked of the New York Times Magazine writer, because he knew a lot more about Mormonism than I did. It appeared as 11 words in about a 10,000-word story, and that got all the play. I personally apologized to Mitt because it did come across wrong and it’s simply not the way I feel and it isn’t, and I don’t think Mitt Romney’s religion has a thing to do with it. I think, you know, a record has to do with it, but not his religion. And frankly, my attitude is, the primary’s over, we need to get behind John McCain, support him, He’s our best chance, right now, our only chance to beat Barack Obama, and Barack Obama will destroy small business, his plans for higher taxes would be abominable, and his absolutely frankly deplorable view about when life begins is nothing short of frightening.
The Veepstakes has been such a merry go round this summer with a new favorite every week, it’s hard to take a breathless report citing “sources” seriously (sort of like geek journalists reporting on the latest Facebook buyout >ahem< ).
MORE: Now Halperin is hedging while citing a NY Times article that says its down to Romney and Pawlenty. Hot Air theorizes that Halperin’s sources were merely Romney partisans hoping to gin up some buzz. That and prey upon poor, gullible bloggers (couch! cough!) who should know better but are nearly exhausted with this election.
Either way, Gov. Huckabee sure hopes it’s not Romney. I can’t tell if he thinks he’s still running in the 2008 campaign or if he has already kicked off for 2012.
At least he’s emphatic that he’s not against Romney because of his religion. He spent the first 1:15 making sure we knew that Mormonism shouldn’t be the issue, then came back to it at 1:55 just to make it clear. It’s almost as if he wanted to make sure everyone knew Romney was Mormon.
It appears that Obama supporters are truly enthused by his candidacy and are opening their wallets to show it. Meanwhile, Utah Republicans may be suffering donation fatigue from their heavy contributions to favorite-son Mitt Romney — and have not been so free-flowing with cash to McCain after he beat Romney.
It now seems clear that the recent McCain VP buzz was just supposed to keep the senator on the front page rather than actually crash Obama’s world parade. However, as the Romney name keeps getting mentioned, some interesting people are starting to push back on a Romney VP pick.
What is he going to bring you? Utah? You have Utah already.
What Mitt Romney would do, as your vice presidential candidate, is weaken you in areas that you absolutely must carry: The South and the Bible Belt.
You cannot afford to underestimate the number of people who will never vote for a ticket that includes a Mormon. . .
When you consider that in the South, the black vote will — understandably! — be energized and turn out in record numbers, the last thing you need is for the Evangelical Christian vote to be unenthusiastic, with large numbers of them sitting it out.
And from Romney’s home state, Michigan Democrats have actually produced a web ad as a preemptive strike against Romney on his biggest strength, his business experience.
I think Romney would make the best VP, but he may not be the best political choice. So OSC’s point is legitimate and pragmatic but a total concession to the crudest of identity politics.
And if the Michigan Democrats really think Romney is such a bad pick, why are they running ads discouraging McCain to NOT pick him? Somehow I don’t think they have McCain’s best interests in mind.
Appeals to: Hugh Hewitt, the right-wing wonkosphere, Mormons, CEOs, McCain-wary Bush donors, millionaires with important hair
Last week, Mitt Romney forgave a $45 million loan to his campaign. Perhaps a multi-multi-millionaire fundraising for his failed campaign would have been futile, but it sure seems Romney must really want all GOP fundraising to be focused on helping his former rival, McCain.
Selfless gesture or getting all his ducks in a row (or both)?
I didn’t think it was seriously possible, as McCain seemed to especially dislike Romney during the Primaries and there has been the constant concern that a Mormon on the ticket would futher alienate McCain from Evangelicals with whom he’s always had a lukewarm relationship.
Despite the obvious Romney negatives, there has been some interesting speculation and chatter that make it sound not only possible, but a good idea:
Archuleta, meanwhile, is a 17-year-old fuddy-duddy from Utah who grew up singing show tunes and Elton John . . . I’ve always imagined him as home-schooled but I have no evidence, outside his large family and unyouthful musical tastes. A Los Angeles Times blog suspected he skipped the first verse of “Imagine” on Idol because he’s a Mormon and would take offense at the line about “no religion.” I think of him more as a Mitt Romney-type—weekly transmitting secret religious messages only his fellow conservative Christians would pick up. Every week I scrutinized his song choices and his outfit, and quizzed no one in particular: Why did he choose Neil Diamond’s patriotic song “Coming to America”? Why does he have a huge anchor sewn onto his jacket? Is there some Jesus parable about an anchor?
I haven’t watched AI but it sounds like a LOT of reading between the lines is going on here. Makes me wonder who really belongs to the reality-based community.
Looking back on 2008, the Church certainly had its share of major and controversial news stories. Overall, the Church made great strides to define itself despite a sometimes adversarial, not always accurate media.
