N. RICHARD GREENFIELD: AND THERE GOES ELECTABILITY…..SEE NOTE
And there goes Electability by N. Richard Greenfield
THE GOP DEBATES ARE MORE AKIN TO MUD WRESTLING THAN TO SERIOUS DISCOURSE. HERE IS RICHARD GREENFIELD’S TAKE SO FAR….THE GOP WILL BE SINGING “GLOOMY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN”….RSK
N. Richard Greenfield owns Ledger Publications in Hartford, Connecticut, which publishes weekly and monthly newspapers in Connecticut and Massachusetts. He has been active in politics for many years and has worked on a number of campaigns around the country.
It was at the CPAC conference a few weeks ago that former governor Mitt Romney threw out the comment that his time in office in Massachusetts was “severely conservative.”(1) Richard Viguerie(2), the lion of the conservative right, immediately countered that no serious observer of the governor’s tenure ever used the word conservative in describing it.
No doubt, Republicans who gain high office in very liberal states like Massachusetts have a great deal of difficulty governing, but Governors Kasich in Ohio and Walker in Wisconsin(3) are rising to the task as they enunciate core principles and work hard to move their states in the right direction. Governor Romney showed no such initiative. He got along with the legislature, did deals and ended up with a record that boasted Romneycare(4) as its crowning achievement.
If Governor Romney’s campaign for the presidency can’t gain traction from his record as governor, the positions he took while running for various other offices don’t serve him well either. As John Kerry(5) found out during his failed run for higher office. changing positions on major issues, while not a problem in Massachusetts, doesn’t go over well elsewhere. Governor Romney is foundering on the same truth and here is how former Bush speechwriter, Michael Gerson(6), describes his dilemma. “Romney’s main political vulnerability is a serious one. Running for Massachusetts’s governor in 2002, he was a pro-choice, economically centrist, culturally liberal, business-oriented Republican. Running for president in 2008, he was a thoroughly pro-life, orthodox supply-side, culturally conservative, Fox News Republican. Romney’s shape-shifting 2008 campaign only reinforced the impression of a consultant-driven candidate.”
George Will(7) also piles on talking about Romney’s stance on ethanol subsidies where he was for it in Iowa, but less enthusiastic while campaigning elsewhere. Will uncharitably calls this a ‘straddle’ which he describes as follows: “[A] straddle,” Will pointed out, “is not a political philosophy: it is what you do when you don’t have one.”
The Governor’s resume and his administrative competence has also been a cornerstone of his campaign, but if Mike Dukakis’(8) campaign was instructive, it taught that the competence argument won’t carry the day outside of Massachusetts either. That leaves the governor with one thing to run on: his electability. But what elected him governor of Massachusetts, was not competence, or issues, or business experience, it was what one might call, other stuff.
Mitt’s election victory in 2002 in Massachusetts was not about him as much as it was about the context he ran in. While arguing for his electability the media often cites his win there as an achievement for a Republican in a Democrat state. What they leave out is that Mitt’s three predecessors(10) in that office were also Republicans, and his win was in a divided field in which he came in under 50% of the vote(11). The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a quirky state, and a number of things elect people there.
Governors Weld, Cellucci, and Swift,(12) liberals all, preceded Mitt. In a state where Republican registration(13) hovers close to single digits and all statewide and congressional offices were held by Democrats until Scott Browns(13A) recent upset win, it just might be that Massachusetts’s voters prefer a Republican governor to offset the absolute dominance of the Democrat Party. Keep in mind the spectacle of the three recent Democrat Speakers in the Massachusetts legislature are convicted felons(14). Two went to jail, while the other escaped jail but not conviction.(14A)
It is inconceivable that Mitt, with his 33% favorability(15) rating in his last year in office, could have left the Republican Party in a state like Massachusetts in worse shape than he found it. Yet he did exactly that. The number of state legislators who were Republicans was at an historic low when Mitt came into office and the number dropped(16) between then and when he left. Unlike his predecessors, he did little to help the state elect a Republican successor. Even with his extensive travel that found him outside of the Commonwealth over 200 days(17) in his last year in office, he was loath to give her the trappings of office lest she deflect attention from him.
At the very least, Mitt’s re-election was no sure thing, and this raises the question of how he’d do in Massachusetts in a general election for the presidency. Polls in Massachusetts last summer(19) showed Mitt behind President Obama in double-digits, and in the same polling, he was behind President Obama in Michigan (19), his other self-claimed home state, by similar margins. Current polling shows him trailing in the primary vote there which will take place next week after having been in the lead there for quite some time.
Mitt Romney is a candidate without a geographical base. He ran for this office in 2008, and he’s been running ever since, so there should be a bastion of strength someplace — but there’s not. What could be the problem then? Maybe it’s his policies. Maybe it’s Mitt himself. Maybe it’s both.
Mark Melcher (20) writes in his superb publication, Political Forum LLC: “The problem with Romney’s policies is not that they are too moderate or that they’re not conservative enough. It’s that they reflect a deep and abiding faith in Mitt Romney and not in the American people. Romney believes that he is a capable manager. And indeed, that is his selling point against Obama: … He is in so many ways, interchangeable with Obama, only more experienced, more socially traditionalist … combine [this] with the fact that he is hard to connect with, that he just doesn’t seem like regular people, and now you’re on to something[.] … [W]hatever assets he may bring to the GOP ticket, he is nonetheless a charter member of the American ruling class[.]”
To do well on super Tuesday and move on to the convention, Romney needs the electability argument to work, but instead, it is fading.
As recent elections, caucuses, and polling results have shown, there’s nothing inevitable about Romney as the Republican nominee. In fact, as the race moves forward, RomneyCare, his record as governor, and the loss of his aura of electability make his inevitability a shaky proposition.
20 February 2012
1 and 2
Richard Viguerie Says Mitt Romney is a Severe Conservative Impersonator
www.sacbee.com/2012/02/11/4256286’richard-viguerie-says-mitt-romney.html
3
Competitive Conservative Governors Reshaping Political Landscape
Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/railing-against-big-government_522142.html
I have several other things on this, but this one will work best
4
Governor Mitt Romney: Balancing the Massachusetts budget
myclob.pbworks.com/w/page/21958545/Massachusetts%20budget
and
Deval Patrick’s new budget
bostonherald.com/bews/politics/view/20120125deval_Patrick-unveils_232_billion_spending_plan
5
Kerry’s Top Ten Flip-Flops
CBS News
www.cbsnews.com2102-250_162-646435.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
6
Conservatives should look closely at Mitt Romney’s ‘swwet spots’
Michael Gerson, Washington Post
7
Romney could damage the chances of the GOP
George Will
Jewish World Review.com/cols/will103011.php3
8
Mike Dukakis Wikipedia Page
(these don’t work at all, but here it is)
en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/United-States_presidential_election,_1988
9
Wikipedia Mass Elections 2002
www.en/eikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_
gubernatorial_election_2002
10
Three prior governors
Wikipedia again…doesn’t work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of Massachusetts
11(same as 9)
Wikipedia Mass Elections 2002
www.en/eikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_
gubernatorial_election_2002
12 (same as 10)
Wikipedia again…doesn’t work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of Massachusetts
13
Party Strength
http://en.wikipedia.org’wiki/Massachusetts_Republican_Paraty#Mopdern_era_.281980-t
13A
www.boston.com/news/politics/2010/senate_race/Similar
14
Three Felons American Spectator
Spectator.org/archives/2009/06/05/three-times-a-felon
14A
List of Convictions of public officials. Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_state_a
nd_local_politicians_convicted_of_crimes
15
Approval ratings
En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of Mitt_ Romney#Approval_ratings_as_governor
16
2006 election results (I have original print copies of all Ma elections including this one–and can derive those numbers by matching years)
www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2006_elections/general_results/Cached – Similar
17
200 days out of state
www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/24/rp,mney_left_mass_on_212_days_in_06/
18
Polls in Ma and Michigan last summer
http:tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/poll-romney-losing-massachusets-to-obama-by-20-points.php
19
same as 18
20
Political Forum
LLC
Mark Melcher
October 18, 2011
Page 6
Not available on line
No URL- I have physical copy of full issue
I get as a pdf from a friend—
Governorship of Mitt Romney
At Wikipedia
Was also helpful throughout.
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