Judgment of Romney's Top Strategist (Stewart Stevens) Questioned

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.........

It is shallow thinking, but it’s not as anybody in the MSM is savy enough to correct him. To most people Pubs are the party of the Rich and Dens of the Little Guy. And that’s the way this “scandal” is thoughtlessly being spinner: Romney caught in rich guy lovenest complaining about those pesky poors. If they knew what they were doing they’d say he’s right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons, or whatever.

Anyway, Obama says gaspingly ignorant things about our basic system of government, let alone economic minutiae, every day. And while both stir up class warfare, Obama does it flagrantly in front of Greek columns on prime time tv, as opposed to Mitt’s small talk behind closed doors. This shouldn’t be a one day story, let alone a campaign shaking scandal.

And no, he is not shallow for a guy who’s been running for 20 years. Who do you think gets to be president? Not philosophers, or at least not since Jefferson. Wilson was a professor and wrote political science, but no one reads it anymore. Obama is nade out to be a constitutional law scholar, but I’ve heard him from the old days. I can tell why he became a community organizer. They’re politicians, not thinkers.

I’ve read Reagan the Great’s old radio addresses, and they show remarkable insight for someone in his position. You know, actor, union rep, GM pr guy, radio announcer. Not an intellectual. Shows he took the time to think things through, but next to the luminaries of our movement, some of whom he met and was informed by, he deserved at most an “attar boy, now go upstairs while the big boys talk.”

They record video, too, which includes audio. But if my paparazzi example doesn’t work, consider what news reporters do when they do those “undercover stings”.

What you may be talking about is if the audio/video can be presented to a jury in a trial.

Or maybe since a speech is a performance of sorts, can it be recorded by a 3rd party and be presented for sale (such as bootlegging a concert).

But I’m pretty sure that it’s not a crime to simply record a speech, or anything else of the nature, without permission. What you do with that recording may have civil repercussions, but not criminal.

Just my $.02

Maybe he just wants to be able to say "I told you so" when Obama wins.

Maybe that's why there we no really good candidates running in the Republican primary.

The only reason Clinton became president was because he had no real competition. Folks like Cuomo stayed out because they thought Bush was a lock, but not after Perot stayed in.

The Republicans with name recognition stayed out for the same reason: they believe Obama is a lock.

Should we believe differently?

Thank God for the electoral college and the fact I live in California. I don't have to vote for Obama or Willard.

Reagan was a deep and complex thinker, and an avid reader , a brilliant man, a man who earned his college degree in economics, and he brought that depth and intelligence to everything that he did, that is why people kept seeking him, even in Hollywood to settle union disputes, it is why he could breeze through 4 Soviet leaders and change the world and has an historical record of a life spent always prevailing, always winning, and appearing effortless when doing it, although we learn from his SS details that as soon as the public or visitors went away, that Reagan went directly to study or to work, or reading.

No one sent Reagan away with an atta boy.

Romney on the other hand is a shallow man, out of touch, an untalented politician, with no complex thinking and no seeming knowledge of or interest in life outside of his little world, that is why he is always caught flat-footed, is awkward and seems to be speaking with difficulty or memorization when addressing conservative issues, or global issues, or again, anything out of his tiny personal experience in life.

Romney has little to show for his 20 years of running for office, and always spending record breaking amounts of money on his campaigns, he has a single term, won by less than 50%, and left that office with no chance of reelection, and being forced out with a 34% approval rating.

Romney better turn this campaign over to someone with leadership skills and know how, who can instruct and guide Romney, someone who can create an image that Romney has a reason for running for president, because so far, no one really knows what his campaign is about or his politics, or why he even wants the job so bad.

I didn’t hear anything on the tape that sounded conservative. He stated a fact that is true. He did not offer any solutions or claims that he would change it. His point was that these people would not vote for him. He mentioned people expecting free health care but he is proud of RomneyCare which provides free health care. How can he give people free health care than complain that they have free health care.

You noticed that too? They’re falling for the media spin. The sole purpose of all of these hit pieces is to demoralize the enemy (us). People have already decided who they’re going vote for. The only way to skew the vote is to convince the other side that their vote is an exercise in futility, that other guy winning is inevitable. And people fall for it every damn time, including people on FR.

from the article: ‘It is bloodlessly non-ideological.’

And therein lies the man's problem.

What would inspire a majority to vote for him and turn from Obama, would make his “citizens of the world” financial backers and the National socialists scream bloody murder. It's too American. He'd be embarrassed. It's something Reagan believed in and could convey. Liberals used to call it America's civil religion. Romney rejected Reagan.

Seeing himself as an international business man cutting deals, he's lacking an anchor in America's founding and Western cultural ideals because he's not interested in all that. He does what he has to do socially operate within his little Mormon church leadership and globalist limo liberal business circle to cut the deals.

His peers are into global warming (huge “investment” money from governments and power), population control, no standards of character - politically correct liberalism, and global economic power and gain. They look at the “masses” as widgets to ignore, manipulate and get around. Ann probably is the human being of the two and I'm not sure she steps outside the circle's international and social ideology.

It appears that they are a stable couple and family and that has been conveyed pretty well.

I don't see how that could be fixed. He's just doesn't believe in all that podunk “nationalistic” freedom ideology crap. He's so much more worldly, bigger and progressive than that. All who are going to screech now that I want Dear Reader to stay in power, screw you ahead of time. This is the problem we face with Romney and I don't pretend real well.

My bringing up Reagan was based on the assumption that people here at least would immediately perceive his superiority to Romney. Which is to say of course politicians aren’t intellectuals. We don’t expect them to be. Reagan certainly wasn’t.

As for your ecomium, show a little restraint, please. I’m not comparing him to Joe Biden. Reagan is a politician. There have been smarter and dumber, lazier and more dedicated. But come on; he was just a politician. We don’t expect them to be philosophers, because they can’t be. That takes genius, but beyond that time and almost fanatical devotion. It is exceptionally rare among politicians, and that goes double for politicians in democratic times.

Pretty much the only president who rise to that level are Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. Wilson was an actual political scientist/historian/whatever, and actually was influential way back when. That’s about it. Because, and this is my main point: we don’t expect that from politicians.

You just don’t know Reagan.

You seem to lack the depth to see where he stands in history, and in winning the disastrously unfinished WWII which was heading to our eventual defeat, and which would eventually end in our final suicidal spasm of resistance called WWIII, he is our greatest war time president, and he barely fired a shot, the man was a genius, far superior to the lesser minds that you think superior to his.

Before Reagan we knew the world was doomed, that communism was eating the world, and that at some unknown point, total global, thermonuclear war would end what we knew was a forever stalemate, that could only end in Communism’s victory, or in mutual destruction, a total reset of the human race.

Reagan knew better, he knew that he could undo the Gordian knot, if only he could make himself the most powerful man on earth. Thankfully Reagan knew how to out smart and defeat everyone who ever stood in his path.

Romney, and Team Romney (which may or may not be the same thing) decided a LONG time ago that a frontal assault on Obama (character, origins, belief system) would lose those precious “independents” and that women would think he was “mean”.

They have pinned their hopes on “nice guy, swell dad, not up to the job”.

In order to win the right to deploy this strategy, they had to DESTROY Gingrich, Bachmann, Cain, and Santorum, and make sure Our Lady of Wasilla stayed out. OK, they won, they have the right to play their game their way.

We reviewed, endlessly, why this was a strategy of failure in the Winter and Spring. Nothing any of us said about this then matters now. After November 7, if the only strategy that could possibly lose this election in fact results in defeat, there will be time - four long years, in fact, if not (God forbid) more - to purge the GOP or crush it under the wheels of a legitimate party.

Now is not the time. My Romney signs are up. My donations are in. I’m selling as hard as I can, every time I get the chance.

Between now and November 6, with regard to Team Romney, give peace a chance.

Ugh. You don’t get. You can be a genius and never do anything with your life. To specifically be an intellectual, to understand and traffic in ideas, you have to be cultured. You have to devote an awful lot of time to “the best that has been thought and said.” Reagan had time to read and think and write, but not for that.

If he wad a genius, it was in practical politics and public relations. Not in higher culture. In transmitting the thoughts of others to the masses, not in thinking them up himself. If you don’t believe me try reading his stuff then reading something by a man of culture along similar lines, like “The Road to Serfdom.” It’s like going from preschool to law school.

Good luck with your crusade, but in time history will place Reagan among all of history’s greats, Reagan’s mind created that, his mind literally shaped a world, he was not the simple tool being sent upstairs with an atta boy when the smart people finished with him.

Or as you said it “”he deserved at most an “attar boy, now go upstairs while the big boys talk.”””

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