Posted on 04/16/2007 9:23:04 AM PDT by areafiftyone
That is the sad story of Mitt Romney, the movie-star handsome former governor of Massachusetts. Romney registers a dismal fourth in Republican opinion polls. Yesterday's LAT/Bloomberg poll put him at 8% approval among Republicans.
A year ago, Romney looked like an emerging Republic star. He had rescued Massachusetts from a large budget deficit without raising taxes. And he had engineered a state-wide health insurance plan that delivered universal health insurance coverage to all of Massachusetts' residents--again without raising taxes. A hugely successful businessman, he had rescued the 2002 Olympic games from a corruption scandal.
In small-group sessions in 2005 and 2006, Romney dazzled elite audiences with his command of fact and easy, humorous speaking style.
He would begin by talking about the importance of data--of checking your assumptions--and of keeping the discussion open to dissenters. He was talking about state governance of course. But everybody heard the implied criticism of President Bush's management style. And after he left, his audiences would nod their heads over their coffee cups and say, "If only somebody like that had been running this war ? "
But sometime in the summer or fall of 2006, Romney reached a strategic decision. He would not run as a pragmatic problem solver. He would run as the conservative in the race: the tax-cutting, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional-marriage heir to George W. Bush.
He even dropped hints that if nominated, he would choose Florida governor Jeb Bush as his running mate.
And this past week, he chose the George H. W. Bush presidential library as the site of his first major foreign policy address.
At the same time, he has given short shrift to his breakthrough health-care achievement. In fact, he rarely refers to it in his speeches, apparently fearing that one ingredient of his plan--a requirement that every non-poor state resident buy a health insurance policy or face a tax penalty--will offend the antigovernment sensibilities of Republican primary voters. None of this is working.
In part, Romney's difficulty in gaining early traction can be traced to his own vulnerabilities: He has become more conservative since his first political race, and (as I noted in last week's column) YouTube is now crowded with clips of him saying one thing in 1994 and very different things in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
But it seems to me that something bigger is going on.
Had you asked a shrewd Republican observer in, say, 2004 to guess who the party's next nominee would be, he or she would probably have named George Allen, the senator from Virginia--a popular former governor, son of a legendary football coach, famous for his cowboy boots and chewing tobacco. Allen was a solid, down-the-line conservative on everything from taxes to guns to abortion. He was hiring all the top consultants, raising money, making friends and seemingly cruising to an easy re-election win in 2006.
Instead, he lost. Lost in Virginia, where Bush had beat Kerry by nine points! If Allen could lose in Virginia, then no conservative was safe anywhere.
In some shrewd instinctive way, the Republican party is sensing that the United States has changed. And just as the Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Grant eventually ran out of Civil War generals to nominate to the presidency, so perhaps time has run out for the old Nixon-Reagan coalition that came together to vote against the social upheavals of the 1960s and the 1970s. The 1960s and 1970s were, after all, a very, very long time ago.
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In some shrewd instinctive way, the Republican party is sensing that the United States has changed. |
Romney seized on Allen's defeat as an opportunity to position himself as the authentic Reagan conservative in the race--in a year when the Republican party may for the first time in a generation be looking for something other than a Reagan conservative.
Rudy Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner, is not exactly a moderate, of course. But he's not a traditional conservative either. He appeals to Republicans, not by running against government but precisely because of his record in making government work. Above all, his success in fighting crime recommends him. Under Mayor Giuliani, the number of murders in New York declined from over 2,000 per year to under 700. With government again providing safety to the people, the city recovered its economic strength.
Mitt Romney had an equally compelling story of executive leadership to tell. He chose not to. He chose to run as Bush's heir in a year when even Republicans are looking for Bush's opposite. That choice is looking more and more misguided. It may soon look fatal.
David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.
It also never would have worked had the country not been in such disastrous shape - the hostages in Iran, the Soviets on the march, stagflation at home. Reaganism was a doctrine that people were willing to listen to only when times got desperate. We can be thankful they are not now, but that means that significant numbers of people shift back to default mode, to the politics of getting stuff from the government.
Iraq is the reason for 2006. Despite what many want to believe.
This is bull.
Romney is consistently emphasizing his managerial and business acumen, as he should.
Romney is going for the social conservative vote, as any candidate needs to in order to win the nomination, but he's not promising to be Bush III.
It was over when the GOP lead congress wiped their bums with the “Contract with America”.
The problem is that Romney "evolved" only when it was in his own self-interest to do so. Suspicious, no?
Correct. Mitt is a great guy but somehow does not click with the BASE and the BASE, like me, wants a winner. We need a leader with policies which are Reaganesque but we know that the Reagan years are over. Tax cuts, strong national defense, good choice for SCOTUS that is the ticket we want. Now many want a purist. As a pastor, I know no one is pure not even conservative Christians like myself. I want a winner. I do not think the USA can stand a Quisling socialist pacifist as Dems are to lead this nation against Islamofascism. If Rudy G, Fred T, or even Mitt are perceived by the voters in our primaries as a leader who can beat the Dems, he will get my vote. So far, Rudy G has that vote though he is not’pure’.
It's not that big a deal to me whether Rudy or Hillary rams more socialism down my throat. If the conservative cause has lost it is time to start over and rebuild. Like Goldwater and Reagan did. Nixon won the Presidency. Was that good for Conservatives? The Republican party is a vehicle to move some agendas forward. If they are unable or unwilling to do so then I don't see the particular importance of them "winning".
Do you?
Fred’s the only Republican I would vote for in 2008.
If you are correct, then the US is lost. We cannot recover from another era of government activism and surrender. The late sixties and early seventies was, imho, America's last shot.
I totally agree. I’d rather have a candidate who’s honest about his “issues” than one who flip flops or tries to be something he thinks is what people want him to be, just to get elected.
There are many things that are taking place now that should concern each and every one of us. First, due to the hysteria surrounding the Liberal Don Imus, there will be a steady drumbeat in the MSM for the Fairness Doctrine to be reinstated. Second, the feckless leadership in the Republican party—refusing to stand up against the lies of the Left and MSM. I love Hunter and Tancredo, but they cannot be elected president.....who else is there? It speaks volumes that we NEED an ex-senator/actor to unite and LEAD our party.
The 2006 election showed the disgust for Bush
Big spending
Amnesty
Didn’t sell the war.
Not liberalism.
“2006 was a repudiation of the leftward drift of the GOP”
Exactly. Rudy will wipe out the party for only God knows how long.
The Republican Party has lost this conservative’s vote.
The character of this party all the way down has become no better than the democrat party.
I do not, and will not feel at all bad for not voting for Rudy, I have already and will continue to speak to everyone I know, and to pass it on, how pathetic and degenerate this party has become.
But of course, they don’t need conservative vote. If that doesn’t say it all.
Sit 2008 out, you bettcha, live with it, unless the party comes to it’s senses.
The 2006 election was an off year elction with a President in his second term. When you consider all the things that could be held against the GOP, i.e. Iraq, Katrina, out of control spending, corruption, the Foley scandal, banning online gambling, etc., the GOP losses were relatively modest.
Smackdown! By Independents & Moderates
"Why? Because exit polls show there's a large chunk of the electorate that is moderate, independent-minded and turned off by partisanship. In exit polls, 47 percent of voters described their views as moderate, 21 percent liberal and 32 percent conservative. And 61 percent of the moderates voted Democratic this year.
"On party identification, 26 percent said they're Independent, which is in line with recent elections. But this year, Independents went Democratic by a 57-39 margin. That's what gave the day to Democrats. In the 2002 midterm, by contrast, Independents went Republican in a 48-45 split."
The independents & moderates roughly split 3 dems to 2 pubbies.
Small 'l' libertarians and Libertarian Party members are, depending who you read, somewhere about 10 - 13 percent of the electorate. I remember reading about the gamblers organizing to defeat the GOP because of the online gamblng amendment. The number of votes for the Libertarian candidates in Montana and Virginia for the U.S. Senate was greater than the margin of victory of the dems over the GOP in those states.
They exploited ignorance in the debate about stem cells to get that Senate seat in Missouri.
Reading 2006 as a watershed election is really a stretch.
Folks, be suspicious of anything written by David From.
Kyle Hampton, a contributor at MyManMitt.com, offers the following rebuttal and commentary for this article by David Frum:
Is the Reagan Revolution over?The American Enterprise Institute has an article written by David Frum. He says that the Reagan Revolution is over. Why? He explains:
In some shrewd instinctive way, the Republican party is sensing that the United States has changed. And just as the Grand Old Party of Lincoln and Grant eventually ran out of Civil War generals to nominate to the presidency, so perhaps time has run out for the old Nixon-Reagan coalition that came together to vote against the social upheavals of the 1960s and the 1970s.So what does this have to do with Mitt Romney? Frum explains after extolling the virtues of Rudy Giuliani:
Mitt Romney had an equally compelling story of executive leadership to tell. He chose not to. He chose to run as Bush's heir in a year when even Republicans are looking for Bush's opposite. That choice is looking more and more misguided. It may soon look fatal.Frum’s complaint is essentially that, in spite of Romney’s executive leadership abilities, Romney is a social conservative. He laments that Romney “has given short shrift to his breakthrough health-care achievement,” that he “chose the George H. W. Bush presidential library as the site of his first major foreign policy address,” and that Romney “dropped hints that if nominated, he would choose Florida governor Jeb Bush as his running mate” (although he mentioned at least 4 other names in that same conversation). For these unforgivables Frum declares the end of the Reagan movement.
Frum’s complaint seems overly dramatic. Does Romney’s social conservatism REALLY mean the end of the Reagan revolution? It hardly seems to be the case, since EVERY GOP candidate (including his beloved Rudy) has invoked Reagan and is attempting to follow in the footsteps of the Great Communicator. Rather it seems that Compassionate Conservatism has experienced an untimely demise. There is little doubt that conservatives feel burned by the Bush administration, but it is not because of Bush’s social conservatism. Indeed, one of the high points of his administration has been Bush’s nomination of Justices Roberts and Alito. The frustration with Bush is because he has failed to follow Reagan’s lead to shrink government and competently fight our enemies abroad. Had Bush been able to accomplish these goals, he would be universally praised. However, Bush has not competently pursued these goals, allowing government to bloat and our enemies to fester.
Thus, Romney’s social conservatism hardly connotes the end of the Reagan Revolution. Moreover it indicates the return to conservative principles across the board. Romney would be a return to Reagan’s principles where Bush deviated. Rudy’s candidacy would patently discard an important part of Reagan’s legacy. Romney, however, accepts all of Reagan’s principles: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and, yes, social conservatism.
Time for a history lesson. The media and the Democrats want you to believe that somehow the 2006 election was different, something special. No, the losses the GOP suffered WERE to be expected. Let us review, shall we?
President / Mid-term / Senate / House
Grant (R) 1870 -4 -31
Grant (R) 1874 -8 -96
Hayes (R) 1878 -6 -9
Arthur (R) 1882 +3 -33
Cleveland (D) 1886 +3 -12
Harrison (R) 1890 0 -85
Cleveland (D) 1894 -5 -116
McKinley (R) 1898 +7 -21
TR (R) 1902 +2 +9
TR (R) 1906 +3 -28
Taft (R) 1910 -10 -57
Wilson (D) 1914 +5 -59
Wilson (D) 1918 -6 -19
Harding (R) 1922 -8 -75
Coolidge (R) 1926 -6 -10
Hoover (R) 1930 -8 -49
FDR (D) 1934 +10 +9
FDR (D) 1938 -6 -71
FDR (D) 1942 -9 -45
Truman (D) 1946 -12 -55
Truman (D) 1950 -6 -59
Ike (R) 1954 -1 -18
Ike (R) 1958 -13 -48
JFK (D) 1962 +3 -4
LBJ (D) 1966 -4 -47
Nixon (R) 1970 +2 -12
Nixon (R) 1974 -5 -48
Carter (D) 1978 -3 -15
Reagan (R) 1982 +1 -26
Reagan (R) 1986 -8 -5
Bush ‘41 (R) 1990 -1 -8
Clinton (D) 1994 -9 -54
Clinton (D) 1998 0 +4
Bush ‘43 (R) 2002 +2 +6
Bush ‘43 (R) 2006 -6 -28
(1) With only four exceptions, EVERY single President since Lincoln has lost seats in the House in the midterm elections. The only ones to buck the trend were the Roosevelts (TR because he was the mostly popular President EVER his first term, FDR because of the Depression), Clinton (because of Republican miscues during the Impeachment) and Bush ‘43 (because of 9/11). GW was bound to lose this one.
(2) Midterm years that are the dreaded “six year itch” are 1874, 1894, 1906, 1918, 1938, 1950, 1958, 1966, 1974, 1986, 1998 and 2006 . I have marked 1966 as one in that LBJ was finishing out what would have been JFK’s second term. GW is his sixth year. Losses in the midterm were almost certain.
(3) Wilson (1918), FDR (1942), Truman (1950) and LBJ (1966) all lost seats both in the House and Senate when the country was at war. McKinley (1898) gained Senate seats, but lost seats in the House. Guess the country had mixed feelings about thumping Spain. Bush ‘41 can also be considered in this group as the country was gearing up for Gulf War I. Another category that the 2006 election fits into.
(4) In terms of serious setbacks in the midterms this one doesn’t even come close. 1894 ranks as the all-time thumping with an astounding 116 House seats and 5 Senate seats changing hands. 1994, 1974, 1966, 1958 (I thought everyone liked Ike), 1938 (so much for the New Deal being popular), 1946, 1930 or 1874 were much, much worse.
(5) Voters don’t like scandals and take it out on the party in power. Foley, et al doomed the Republicans at the start.
(6) Voters don’t like excess spending. The thumping the Republicans received in 1890 was a voter rebellion against the “Billion Dollar Congress”. The same can be said about FDR’s spanking in 1938 (New Deal overreach) and Clinton’s in 1994 (attempted takeover of the health care system). With bridges to nowhere is it any wonder the GOP lost seats?
(7)The historical average is a loss of 3 Senate seats and 34 House seats for the President’s party in the midterms. For the “six year curse” the averge is 6 Senate seats and 39 House seats. The 2006 losses fit the historical norms.
8) The margin of victory in three of the six lost Senate seats were razor thin. A swing of a couple thousand votes in one of those races and Republicans would have retained control in the Senate.
Given the political history of our nation and add in the fact that most of the races were decided by very thin margins all the hand wringing over the elections is unjustified. This little history lesson should remind you that in our Republic the political fortunes of the parties ebb and flow.
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