Posted on 09/18/2012 9:00:52 PM PDT by Steelfish
Par for the Course Jonah Goldberg September 18, 2012
But what bothers me more about Romney’s statement isn’t the faulty analysis — though it is faulty — but the reliance on “analysis” like this at all. What I mean is, Romney comes across as a guy who thinks elections are simply a numbers game (and for a numbers guy, it’s pretty infuriating he botched the numbers).
According to his analysis, the folks in Obama’s camp are just write-offs, except for a few silly, “emotional” people in the middle who he hopes to sway with appeals that are less than wholly rational. I understand that Romney is speaking in shorthand, and for all we know he was just keying off premises laid out by the questioner. But even so, Romney’s remarks reinforce the overriding problem with his campaign: It is bloodlessly non-ideological. And that is by design. Stewart Stevens, Romney’s top strategist has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t much care about ideas or philosophy. That showed in his convention strategy and in Romney’s speech, which he apparently wrote.
Responding to complaints about his stewardship, Stevens told Politico: “Politics is like sports. A lot of people have ideas, and there’s no right or wrong. You just have to chart a course, and stay on that course.” Not only is that not true of politics, as best I can tell it’s not even true of sports either.
Even the campaign’s ostensibly ideological ads and soundbites seem offered not as statements of conviction but as carefully — and sometimes not so carefully — crafted slogans aimed at telling the silly swing-voters what they most want to hear. I’m not naive; focus groups and poll data are part of politics, like it or not. But when conviction politicians use such tools it’s often.........
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I’ve seen way too many hit pieces against Romney from Jonah Goldberg lately.
He must be angling for a job at CNN.
Also some of us liked Romney’s comment. We and learned Romney is a pretty darn convincing conservative behind closed doors. If he does that during the debates he’s going to win this election.
Hey Jonah, screw you!
I’ve seen way too many hit pieces from so called ‘conservatives’ in general.
Here’s an interesting piece in the WSJ that throws a dig at Romney’s Chief Strategist at the end of the article.
That was a very good read.
1) According to polls this is true.
What Romney did not say was these are the same 47% who currently pay no income taxes.
Romney was making a different although similar point. The media, who for years have failed to report the numbers concerning who pays income tax and connected the dots on a point that Romney was not making.
If only he would. The point is this exchange shows two things:
1) That 47% of the nation profit from the fruit of another man'd labor; 2) Thr media normally hides this fact but will bring it out if they thank they thank it will hurt the GOP.
Romney was NOT giving a speech in public or for public consumption. He was speaking to a group of PRIVATE donors. It is against the law to tape record anyone without their consent. But law breaking which favors the lefty liberals is never questioned by the MSM.
Agree. Romney needs to sack his chief strategist. We can’t have our candidate campaign in this anodyne style. Romney needs to go for blood. Run no-stop a video in all battleground states of the Rats booing God at their convention, ads where Obama says that if he doesn’t get the unemployment down he deserves to be thrown out, ads in PA calling rural folk as being bitter who cling to their guns and religion and are suspicious of immigrants. Run ads on Obama’s attack on Catholic core beliefs. “You didn’t build that” ads. Where the ads showing the middle-east in flames interspersed with excerpts from his Cairo speech?
This is what we need. Romney won’t succeed running a McCain-type campaign.
Including here at FR.
Romney did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. He has to assume his speech may be recorded. That said, we shouldn’t condemn him for what he said. It was partially true.
“It is against the law to tape record anyone without their consent.”
No. If this were true, there would be no paparazzi.
Our country is very close to “takers” becoming a majority. When those voters figure out they can vote in power those politicians who will keep giving them more free goodies, that is the beginning of end of any democracy.
Greece is where democracy originated. Look at Greece now!
Paparazzi do not tape record speeches. They snap pictures.
The thing is, that there is no such thing as that 47% that Romney claimed, that are Obama voters because either they don’t owe taxes in a given year, or because they receive a government check.
That is not how Obama voters can be defined.
Obama easily won the $200,000 income and above, by a 52 to 46 margin!
Obama lost the $50,000-$75,000 income group by a single point!
Obama won the $75,000 to $100,000 income group by a solid 51 to 48 margin.
Obama lost hugely from those 65 and older all of them collecting SS, and tons of them not owing taxes. They were the ONLY age group that voted against Obama.
There is no neat little package of 47% of Americans for a President to write off because they don’t vote for him.
Besides, Presidents don’t even speak in those terms, that is why no republican president will denigrate the Catholic vote, or the Jewish vote, or the black vote, or the female vote, or the Hispanic vote, (sadly Mitt did that also).
This is a bad insight into the political inadequacies and shallow political thinking of a candidate who has been running for office for 20 years, and for president for seven years.
This campaign needs someone to take it over and lead it.
I agree. Scarey stuff..
“No. If this were true, there would be no paparazzi”
Paparazzi act illegally often, and their trade is illegal altogether some places. I don’t really care in this instance. Romney ought to act like he’s being taped any time he’s in public. Of course he should be free to speak differently depending on the venue. Obama isn’t chastised for dropping hus usually needy delivery for the Barak from the Block act he pulls out in front of the NAACP.
I for one think Romney’s words were barely notable, accurate or not. He confuses the share of income tax consuming citizens with Obama voters. It isn’t the same group. For instance, Wall Street broke for Obama last time and many will stick with him. But this is no reason to treat it as a “gaffe,” or to report it much at all.
What Romney was, in a way, talking about is the Alinsky formulation that Obama adhered to and still does. Make middle class people think they’re victims of “the rich” if you want to bring about socialist revolution, because there aren’t enough poor people in the U.S. to do it.
Notice that Romney didn’t say they really are victims, but that they have been made to feel as if they are.
Bottomline: Obama needs to answer questions about why so many people are so poor in his economy that they can’t pay income taxes.
Agree. You begin by sacking the campaign strategist. This is what Bush pere failed to do and how Clinton won via Stephanapoulos and his young turks. Get rid of the old Bush crowd that’s running the Romney campaign.
I don’t know, Jonah. Seems to me a lot of people are praying for an Obama victory. I don’t know how anyone can hang in there, working as hard as Romney does, shooting as straight as he does, and have his own constantly nipping at his heels. That goes for Mark Levin too...but of course Mark just does it on a daily basis to make Mitt a better candidate....even though he’s flawed and all. It stinks. Ronald Reagan would not have approved of speaking ill of your fellow Republican. Whatever, if we lose, we can just crank up that patriotic music, write stinging articles and sell books.
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