Category Archives: Political Analysis

Give an Inch, They’ll Take a Mile: Why Slippery Slopes Lead to Political Gridlock

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We love to celebrate men and women of principle–even more, maybe, than men of action. We engage in rhetorical wars in defense of our principles and values, and we die for them too. Being principled means not caving in. It means being an absolutist. Any concession or even hint of compromise is to be resisted. Even the smallest limitation that Congress might impose is an infringement on our freedom. It will chip away, dilute, and eventually destroy our liberties. The world will basically come to an end.

Slippery slope arguments are being employed in the Fiscal Cliff standoff, and are commonly used as an intellectual basis for opposing gun-control laws, tax increases, and a host of other issues.

The problem with the slippery slope and other absolutist positions is that they are anything but intellectual. They shut down dialogue and make compromise nearly impossible. How can we ever gain consensus if neither party is willing to give an inch? Being an Ayn Rand absolutist may give you street cred with the think-tanks, but the world of politics is messier. It’s hard to be an absolutist and also be a doer.

I am not advocating that either side of the aisle surrender deeply held convictions and principles. But principles should be guidelines for behavior, not holy commandments. Sometimes, in the name of getting things done, you may have to veer off the beaten path; you may, that is, have to repackage, reinvent, and recast your principles for a changing world. If you want to be a conservative activist or align with a liberal advocacy group, then absolutism will serve you well. Just don’t run for congress. Because that’s an institution that requires people from different regions and walks of life to come together and, well, make shit happen. We need leaders who know when to put action ahead of principles, leaders who are guided by big ideas but not slave to them.

As the late William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote in 1974, “Intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism.”

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Hardly the Grinch: Mitt Romney Gave the Gift of Pork

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Romney wants us to believe that Obama won by playing Santa Claus.

And yet, Romney was among the most generous gift-givers as governor, meting out pork to his constituents and interest groups with zest and zeal. Indeed, Romney was the turnaround specialist he portrays. Initially, according to Mother Jones, his administration bemoaned “its low ranking in an annual ‘pork list’ detailing which states brought home the most federal bacon.” But Romney and his team were not deterred. We shall overcome! The administration devised a plan to increase its share of pork, a goal that it would ultimately achieve. “Between 2003, when Romney took office, and 2006, Massachusetts climbed as high as nine spots in the pork rankings.”

Political Advice From the Grave

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As Republicans pick up the pieces and begin to repair the damage done to their brand, they might recall the difference between principled politics and dogmatic politics. GOP leaders would be wise to avoid knee-jerk conservatism, where their programmed response is to invariably resist change. They might heed the advice of conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr., who, in 1974, nailed it in the pages of National Review:

“Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But    intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great.”

Denial is a River…Running Through the Republican Party

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Read more on DENIAL:

Life Inside the Bubble: Dude, Where’d My Facts Go?

Republican Dysfunction: When Message and Product Conflict

Karl Rove and the Politics of Victimization

The Erosion of the Republican Brand: Dude, where’d my core competencies go?  

Republican Dysfunction: When Message and Product Conflict

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Are you excited at the thought of hearing Republicans’ “Big Ideas” on how to grow their shrinking market? I can’t wait. It’s not just a matter of re-positioning and repackaging their brand, or is it?

A strong brand creates an emotional bond with its constituents. When politicians say one thing, but do something else entirely, they undermine their brand credibility and risk severing their bond with voters. Republican IMPROPERGANDISTS may think it’s a game, but their disregard for facts and empty rhetoric is killing them. As Frank Rich writes in New York Magazine, Republicans are still deluding themselves, and stubbornly so.

I speak from experience. Once I announced that I “love” doing dishes, and then proceeded to let them pile up. Let me tell you, I faced one pissed off constituent.  My brand, at least for a day, was destroyed. My term for it: Brand dysfunction. If Republicans listen to Laura Ingraham, who recommends Republicans change “the language of dealing with Latinos,” they will face not only the prospect of brand dysfunction, but brand erosion. Their problems are bigger than their message or messenger.  You don’t become a more inclusive party by saying you’re a more inclusive party, and you don’t become a national party by saying you’re a national party. You have to change your product first.  Change never comes easy, especially for a Party passionately devoted to resisting it.

Karl Rove and the Politics of Victimization

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Karl Rove says Obama won because he went negative. His ads had the effect of “suppressing the vote.” It’s not minorities whose voting rights were being suppressed — white people were the real victims. Don’t you love it when Republicans play the victim card.

Told that the American way of life was at stake, voters responded by staying home on Election Day. Rather than fight the encroachment of socialism, they ordered Papa John’s?

 

The Erosion of the Republican Brand: Dude, where’d my core competencies go?

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Tarnishing Democrats as “weak on defense” is no longer the walk in the park for Republicans that it used to be. That’s because Republicans lost more than an election — they lost ownership of a core issue that is essential to the GOP’s brand identity.

Barack Obama has been as an effective Commander-in-Chief who, in spite of criticism from the left, has maintained a strong defense and security posture—so effective, in fact, that the Republican Party might consider suing for infringement of their—dare I say—“intellectual property.” Dr. Shanto Iyengar, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and director of Stanford’s Political Communication Laboratory, told Improperganda: “Obama’s record as Commander-in-Chief and the killing of bin Laden have probably contributed to a whittling away of the Republican advantage.”

The“weak on defense” charge, as political weapon, grew out of the Vietnam War. This narrative, I would wager, is lost on most voters under 40, who don’t reflexively regard Democrats as an anti-war party, which is how Republicans quite effectively branded them from roughly 1968 to 2008. Republicans have viciously mocked Michael Dukakis, attacked Bill Clinton for being a bearded “draft dodger,” assailed John Kerry’s character and massacred his military service.

That was then. Over the past 12 years, voters’ perceptions of the Party’s respective strengths–those “core competencies” for which they have reputed expertise and credibility–have been changing. A recent ABC/Washington Post poll gauged the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney brands, evaluating their “reputational” competencies. (For a company, an equivalent inquiry would be, do we compete on price, service, quality, or distribution?) The poll showed that Romney scored higher in handling the deficit, and that voters were more trusting of Obama to protect Medicare. Most telling, voters were significantly more trusting of Obama to handle a major crisis; said another way, they preferred that Obama be the guy in the White House to answer the storied 3 a.m. phone call.Voters were also more trusting of Obama to manage international affairs. Obama’s encroaching on Republicans’ turf. He’s in their grill.

What’s at work here? In short, eight long years of Bush, during which he squandered Clinton’s surplus in favor of unnecessary wars and, in the process, also squandered his Commander-in-Chief credibility. The IMPROPERGANDA campaign waged by the Bush Administration tarnished the Republican brand, and chipped away at the Party’s ownership of the “strong on defense” message.

In the 2008 election, voters responded by electing a black “community organizer” to keep them safe instead of former POW John McCain.

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They trusted Barack Obama, one-time editor of the Harvard Law Review, to manage our obligations in Afghanistan and Iraq over Pentagon insider John McCain.

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For Commander in Chief, they trusted a guy who never served over a guy whose family had Admirals growing out of its ass.

This summer, Republicans predictably tried to make hay out of Obama’s defense budget, claiming that it put the country at risk. What was unusual about the fearmongering was, well, that this time it didn’t work, didn’t resonate, didn’t stick.   We see a similar phenomenon with Benghazi. Sean Hannity was beside himself, convinced it was a homer when it was just a deep fly-out to center field. You could hear the disappointment in his voice, his exasperation over the scandal that refuses to stick. Whatever voters may think of Obama, the majority don’t assign evil motives to his actions or decisions. He’s not trying to pull a fast one, or at least they don’t perceive him that way.  In order to work, a smear narrative must, at some level, reinforce voters’ preconceptions about said smear subject. Voters, it turns out, largely trust Obama in international affairs and are more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt. Therefore: no scandal. Sorry Sean.

A few words of caution: I don’t want to suggest that Republican operatives are done playing the “weak on defense” card. Wishful thinking, right? They will still taunt Democrats, but at least for the time being, the “weak on defense” charge will continue to see diminishing returns. It is too early to know if Democrats have neutralized the Republican advantage on this issue, temporarily hijacked it or indeed own it.  My preference is for a term coined by the University of Missouri’s John R. Petrocik, who argues that political parties can “lease” an issue from the other party.

If that’s what Obama and the Democrats are up to, I hope they have an option to own it.

Election 2012: Chris Christie Bromance + Confessions of a Flip-Flopper

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For Election Day, IMPROPERGANDA had a big zinger planned:  Chris Christie’s head superimposed on an image of a very large female opera singer, with the headline: The Fat Lady’s Singing.

That was before Barack Obama seduced the governor of New Jersey, setting off a Laurel and Hardy bromance. Suddenly Christie is now the best friend of liberals, who earlier dismissed the Bruce Springsteen fanatic as an opportunistic blowhard. And IMPROPERGANDA is no better than anyone else: After jeering Christie, we cheered him. And today, when my fiancé and writing partner tapped me on the shoulder, I realized the ramifications of said flip-flop. “Looks like we better scrap the Pavarotti-Christie thing,” she said. And she was right. How could we mock this guy now!?

It got me thinking. Why did I dislike Chris Christie so much to begin with? Am I just a
flip-flopper devoid of any cohesive intellectual framework, like Mitt Romney?

Remind me, what were my policy gripes with Christie, and why are they no longer compelling? Or maybe my turnaround is simply a case of hyper partisanship. We’re told repeatedly that voters yearn for issues-based campaigns. Yet many of us can’t cope with intellectual disagreement, because our emotional attachment to our respective partisan teams gets in the way.  Allegiance to team and turf trumps issues; emotion trumps reason.

We like to think that we are separate from or above animals, and that our ability to think differentiates us. Perhaps with the stock market, that is true. But when it comes to politics, we behave like territorial, instinctual animals. Campaign operatives are masters at using emotional wedge issues to define us and divide us into either of two camps. Campaign messages are designed not to intellectually engage voters, but to emotionally activate them, to rile them up. Campaigns are not, at their core, about issues; they are an exercise in group identity politics, in the manufacture and manipulation of group resentments. Political party affiliation is like membership in other groups, gangs, or Bubbles: it gives our lives a sense of connectedness, purpose, and common identity.

That, I’m afraid, is what’s at the center of Democrats’ love affair with Chris Christie.  It’s not that he saw the light; it’s that he saw our light. We identify with people who agree with us, who see the world like we do. When they cease to agree with us, the Bubble’s IMPROPERGANDISTS like Limbaugh or Maddow are brought in to assault their character and question their commitment to “the cause.” This, of course, is happening to Christie now. It’s the price he pays for going against the herd, for taking one for the wrong team, and for having the audacity to laud the president on Fox  News’ dime.

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Obama/Romney Election: TGIF

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Happy Friday! Time to take a deep breath, smile big, and kick back!

Now is the time to enjoy your weekend respite, but if the relaxing gets too much to bear, and the election calls your name, you can FOLLOW us at TWITTER: @improper_ganda. :)

From your friends at Improperganda.com

2012 Election: Mitt Romney and the Erosion of Truth

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There is no God higher than Truth - Mahatma Gandhi

“A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality.”

Ya think?

That statement is attributed to the 13th century philosopher/theologian Thomas Aquinas.  Tommy, you are so old school! Get out of here, dude, with that kind of talk — it belongs in the middle ages. In the 21st century, our notions of truth are much more enlightened.

As Annie Ball writes in The Atlantic: “The auto rescue may or may not have been good policy. But Ohioans seem to think it worked, and they give Obama credit for it. Having cycled through so many arguments against it, all of them unsuccessful, Romney appears to have concluded the only way to win on the issue is to mislead voters about its effects.”

Read more on the erosion of truth:

http://improperganda.com/2012/10/01/life-inside-the-bubble-dude-whered-my-facts-go/

http://improperganda.com/2012/10/02/life-inside-the-bubble-a-glossary/

The Politics of Sucking Up: From Sandy to Soup Kitchens

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Paul Ryan Soup Kitchen Fail

First Paul Ryan cleans a perfectly clean dish at a soup kitchen, for which he is rebuked by the charity president.  Ouch! Now Mitt Romney makes a plea for donations to the Red Cross in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, even though its website states explicitly:

“…the Red Cross does not accept or solicit individual donations or collections of items. Items such as collected food, used clothing and shoes must be sorted, cleaned, repackaged and transported which impedes the valuable resources of money, time, and personnel.”

Mitt Romney, you are not president of the United States, at least not yet. You have not won the election.  If you try to usurp, compete with, or otherwise one-up the president for personal gain during a natural disaster, you look like the also-ran that you are.

Read More:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/10/29/romney-botched-hurricane-sandy/

Speak of the Devil: Palin’s Radioactive Racism

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Sarah Palin crawls out of the Mystery Box. Paging Lee Atwater! Read about it HERE.

Garry Wills said it best: “Romney, of course, does not cultivate these voters. He does not have to. He does not denounce them, either…Under all the other hidden things, the Mystery Box is hiding a lethal level of radioactive racism.“

Election 2012: Romney’s Race & Revulsion Tour

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Again we turn to the great American political writer, Garry Wills, whose elegant essay on the election is featured in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. In it he argues that Romney is operating at two levels. The economy is his main focus, but that’s just on the surface. Wills suggests there’s something else, something scarier and more worrisome, brewing and bubbling beneath the political ground on which Romney walks.

In Wills’ own Words

Romney could explicitly voice only one aspect of this revulsion, Obama’s economic performance. But under the vague general feelings about Obama—reports to pollsters that he is not quite one of us, perhaps not a citizen, not a Christian—there were radioactive centers too hot for a candidate to handle directly. He could, nonetheless, profit from their broader toxic waves, an unconfessed (sometimes, perhaps unconscious) force. It was rightly said that a historic boundary had been crossed when a black man was elected president. That breakthrough partly escaped but did not cancel a long sad record of historic American racism…

…a lot of people are digging in their heels even more firmly against where the nation is going. As I say, there is no open racism in the Romney campaign. But it has to be fiercely concentrated on other things (like the economy) to turn its eyes from what sizzles below the surface, and sometimes not very far below…

…Romney, of course, does not cultivate these voters. He does not have to. He does not denounce them, either. He needs them…He cannot disown a third of his party—and those are only the hard-core Obama revulsionists. Who knows how far the penumbra of soft-core revulsionism has spread among the less candid or more cautious harborers of it…Under all the other hidden things, the Mystery Box is hiding a lethal level of radioactive racism.

Our Analysis

On which level does Romney operate? In the post-Atwater world, overtly racist appeals are no longer part of the Republicans’ propaganda arsenal. Romney’s challenge is to maintain the appearance that he is a man of substance and civility while his boys work behind the scenes to emotionally activate their base’s most base instincts.

Romney would prefer to put a lid on the Tea Party activists, but if pressed by aides, he will open the lid, just a crack, so the fanatics can be paraded about before they’re returned to their container. Romney needs the hard-core activists, but he prefers to keep “the help” at arm’s length; in a similar way, George Bush senior, like a good northern aristocrat, acted on the counsel of Lee Atwater as long as he didn’t have to share the same air with him.

NOW IT”S YOUR TURN

  • If Mitt Romney believed his campaign operatives were exploiting race for political advantage, would he put a stop to it?

  • Did you see Boogie Man, the documentary about Southern bad boy Lee Atwater? He, of course, was employed by the elder George Bush as his campaign’s Master of Wedge Issues and Supreme Race-Baiter.
  • Do you find Atwater despicable or merely tragic?
  • Would his tactics be successful today?

2012 Election – Stealth Politics: What’s Inside Mitt’s Mystery Box?

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Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills, whom I read in college many years ago, has a great piece in the current issue of the New York Review of Books.

Following are key excerpts:

All the things Romney treated as “distractions”—women’s rights, gay rights, citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the 47% percent of moochers—Obama treated as if they were indeed distractions…When Romney gave the right wing its preference for his running mate, there was an expectation that Ryan would pop out
like a jack-in-the-box, filling the air with numbers like confetti. He was the party’s great thinker; he would make the campaign serious and nerdy. He would blind with sheer intellect his Elmer Fudd vice-presidential rival. He would turn his Ayn Rand death ray on him and Biden would evaporate. But as soon as Ryan was asked for his great specific plans, he was told that he could not violate his master’s secrecy campaign, and Jack was stuffed back into the box.

We have seen this kind of mystery election before. In the elections of 2010, we were told that the Tea Party candidates arriving on the scene would eliminate the deficit and shrink the government, somehow. Other issues were set aside. Abortion, gay rights, religion in politics—those were all part of the old religious right, now supplanted by the deficit purists. But in a great bait and switch, the first things the new people in Congress, the state houses, and state legislatures did was introduce a flood of bills to limit, stigmatize, or eliminate abortions, and the flood has not abated—944 provisions on abortion or contraception were still being introduced into state legislatures during the first three months of 2012.

The mass of voters did not choose that. There was no way it could. No one knew what was in the 2010 version of the Mystery Box. In the same way, if we vote for “the economy only” Republicans, the old causes will again race to the top of their agenda—challenge’s to women’s rights, gay rights, global warming, religious education, and Supreme Court nominees. All of a sudden, other things will not be distractions from the bad economy.

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Is Barack Obama the Most Interesting Man in the World? Beer and Booze on the Campaign Trail

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Imagine the conference room at Dos Equis headquarters in 2006. Around the table sit marketing execs typing away on their laptops, pausing only to sip their French Roast (read: Lager). Ad consultants stand in front of a flip chart outlining the new marketing strategy:

Grow share of market by increasing consumption of D.E. among occasional beer drinkers.

They announce the new ad campaign to advance this strategy: The Most Interesting Man in the World with the now ubiquitous tagline, “I don’t drink beer very often, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.”

As far as marketers are concerned, there is no singular General Public or Body Politic — at least not after it has been sliced and diced into voter segments and interest groups. Whether appealing to beer drinkers or voters– marketing is all about target marketing and consumer segmentation.

President as Product

There are important lessons here for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Obama and Romney are both trying to peel off so-called independent voters. Rather than being thoughtfully independent, it turns out these voters are largely disinterested in politics — undecided or decidedly agnostic –and can be more likened to the “occasional beer drinker” segment personified by Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World.

Of his lackluster performance in the first debate, Obama said essentially that he was reluctant to engage in a bar room brawl with Romney, because — according to the conventional wisdom — it would turn off independents. That’s one of the pitfalls of target marketing — by elevating the importance of one segment over another, you risk alienating your broader constituencies. Can a candidate (or company) tell everyone what they want to hear and still have a cohesive brand message?

Dude, where’s my Scotch and Soda? 

It brings to mind a case study on Dewars. At issue was market research indicating that Scotch was increasingly perceived by younger generations as “your father’s or grandfather’s drink.” How do you appeal to an entirely different demographic, such as 20-something hipsters, without alienating your more traditional Scotch drinker?

All candidates are guilty of targeting certain groups over others–isn’t that what interest group politics is all about?–but we’re not used to hearing a candidate say in such an overt and unguarded manner that some Americans matter to him and others simply don’t. As Romney learned, when a presidential candidate puts on his marketing hat, he can get into trouble. When he slices and dices the electorate into target markets, the question becomes, who is he NOT targeting? Romney’s 47% comment came across like he was writing off a big chunk of Americans, as though they were just data points in a marketing spreadsheet. In the process he alienated low income and middle income voters by reinforcing the idea that the Republican Party is a privileged club for the wealthiest Americans.

Obama, by contrast, seems to do a better job of being President of ALL the people and maintaining a broad-based coalition that includes women, blacks, labor, Latinos, Catholics, Jews, environmentalists, poor and middle class voters, along with upper-income, highly educated voters.

I don’t vote very often, but when I do, I prefer Barack Obama

At issue is whether Obama or Romney will fare better at targeting the independent-undecided-occasional voters without alienating their loyal base. They need to borrow a page from the Most Interesting Man in the World, a persona beloved by consumer segments such as occasional beer drinkers…and just about everyone else too. That’s the way to build brands. And win elections.

Town Hall Debates: Style over Substance?

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The Town Hall format, in which candidates respond to questions from audience members, careful to look each undecided voter straight in the eye–it must go! It requires the modern presidential candidate to master the showman’s ability to connect with an audience—not only on issues but on personality too. Problem is, not everyone’s Dr. Phil. Yes, we need a president who can foster constructive relations with legislators and world leaders, but must he be Eddie Haskel? The Town Hall format elevates presentation, delivery, and style above substance and favors one personality type over another. That said, many viewers enjoy the intimacy and drama that this format may promote on the best of occasions.

What are your thoughts on the Town Hall format? And, generally, what do you think of the debates so far?

Tourism Tip: Visit the Museum of Moderate Republicans

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The passing of Arlen Specter was a tremendous loss for his friends, family, and constituents, but it was also a loss for the Republican Party, as its few moderate voices continue to vanish from our political landscape without being replaced–or, in Specter’s case, are compelled to flee the Party. It’s a reminder that the moderate Republican is becoming a relic, a near extinct species that future generations of school children will study in The Museum of Moderate Republicans.

In that museum you would also find the likes of, well, George W. Romney and Prescott Bush, along with a long forgotten Senator, jurist, and diplomat from Kentucky who IMPROPERGANDA has uncovered: John Sherman Cooper, who passed in 1991.

A few highlights from this moderate Republican’s storied life:

  • His father’s parents – staunch Baptists – were active in the anti-slavery movement in the nineteenth century, and the elder John Sherman Cooper (called “Sherman”) was named after the Apostle John and William Tecumseh Sherman, a hero of the Union in the Civil War.
  • Cooper earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale in 1923 and enrolled at Harvard Law School later that year.
  • During his first term in the Senate, Cooper voted with the majority of his party just 51% of the time. Ohio Republican Robert A. Taft once snapped at him: “Are you a Republican or a Democrat? When are you going to start voting with us?” Cooper responded, “If you’ll pardon me, I was sent here to represent my constituents, and I intend to vote as I think best.”
  • He accepted an appointment by President Harry S. Truman as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and served as a special assistant to Secretary of State Dean Acheson during the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
  • Cooper soon became an outspoken opponent of Johnson’s decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, consistently advocating negotiation with the North Vietnamese instead. After Cooper’s re-election in 1966, he worked with Idaho Democrat Frank Church on a series of amendments designed to de-fund further U.S. military operations in the region.

And, get this, when current Senate minority leader Addison Mitchell McConnell was out of college, who gave him his internship? That’s right, moderate Republican — and Kentucky’s shining star — John Sherman Cooper. Mitch, of course, is the same guy who single-handedly and unilaterally destroyed any hopes of bipartisanship when he declared in 2010 that the overriding goal of Senate Republicans would be to make Obama a one-term President.

Read more on Senator John Sherman Cooper:

More on Arlen Specter:

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Paul Ryan’s Unseen Hand – The Ghost of Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand provided the intellectual fuel for the political ascendancy of Paul Ryan.  Her ideas are also echoed in Mitt Romney’s dystopian vision for America, where you’re either a producer or a parasite, firing people is celebrated as an exercise of individual rights, and a company is a person.

Those poor rich people — according to Rand, they’re being manipulated and unfairly “guilted” into helping others. In Rand’s world, altruism is at odds with individual rights and the pursuit of happiness. They are very sensitive, those Masters of the Universe and One-Percenters, whom Rand calls Prime Movers. In Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, when the producers are demonized and punished for their accomplishments, society slows to a near halt. (Think Romney/Ryan in their insistence that Obama is “punishing wealth creators.”)

Atlas Shrugged provides the conservatives’ answer to Hillary’s It Takes a Village. Asking individuals to sacrifice for the common good turns producers into victims, another interest group whose rights have been trampled on. Don’t you feel their pain? When Atlas shrugs, it means he has liberated himself from the burden of carrying the world–and caring about the world. Now he is free to doggedly pursue his self-interest, as he is naturally programmed to do. It is morally, according to Rand’s view, the right way to organize a society.

Talk about contrasting visions. Ayn Rand should be the Democrats’ Saul Alinsky. Let’s put Rand on trial the way Sean Hannity demonized little known Alinsky and tried to link him to Obama as if they were joined at the hip. Here’s quintessential Hannity:

 “…then-State Senator Barack Obama agreed to appear at a play called, “The Love Song of Saul Alinsky,” honoring the life and times of left-wing radical Saul Alinsky.  The post-game show included a real panel discussion featuring Senator Barack Obama as well as some of Alinsky’s closest friends and even yes, a handful of communist sympathizers.”

Ayn Rand coined the term Objectivism to describe her brand of “philosophy,” though political ideology may be more accurate.  Her ideas have long been absorbed and adopted by Libertarians, but now her credo that selfishness is a virtue and her elevation of individual rights above the common good are dogma in the Republican Party.

Ryan wasn’t merely exposed to Rand. He had what might be called an intellectual love affair with her over many years, and he still hasn’t gotten over her. Her words inspired him to run for office. He even handed out copies of Ayn Rand’s treatises to his staff and made sure they read every word. Therefore, as Sean Hannity would say, the American people have a right to know what Ayn Rand stood for, what her core beliefs were, and how they shaped Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.  Here’s just a taste:

  • She called Christianity “the best kindergarten of communism possible.” An avid atheist, she saw religions’ support for the common good a violation of individual rights.
  • Rand believed “the essence of femininity is hero worship – the desire to look up to man” and that “an ideal woman is a man-worshipper, and an ideal man is the highest symbol of mankind.”
  • She supported abortion rights.
  • She opposed the Vietnam War.
  • She believed in UNRESTRAINED capitalism.
  • She sided with Israel during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, characterizing it as “civilized men fighting savages.”
  • Rand thought European colonists had the right to take land from American Indians.
  • She believed affirmative action is legal racism.
  • She not only supported the right of publishers to produce pornography, but she went farther, arguing for no age restrictions.
  • She deemed homosexuality immoral and disgusting.
  • She was a board member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. The group, comprised of Hollywood reactionary types like Ronald Reagan, was formed to provide testimony to Congress on suspected Communists in the film industry.
  • She believed a restaurant or any other business has the right to discriminate against gay people.
  • Rand had an “open marriage,” engaging in an affair with a younger man while she was married.

That’s quite a list, and it doesn’t make Rand seem like a nice person, does it? Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, on the other hand, seem very nice.

But their ideas are very mean.

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Flip-Flop…Rolling out the New Romney

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Robert Draper’s piece in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine provided a fascinating before-and-after assessment of Mitt Romney. His tilt to the right—“veer” might be more accurate–had its genesis in 2004 when political consultant Beth Myers assumed responsibility for managing and fulfilling Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations. Myers had been around the Republican block, working in Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign where, overseeing voter I.D. programs in rural Texas, she became a protege of Karl Rove.

Myers gets the credit, or blame, for constructing and rolling out the “new” Mitt Romney, and continues to serve as a key strategist. Reading the article, what struck me was the ease with which Mitt Romney reversed core beliefs, a process that he innocently refers to as changing his mind, which others term flip-flopping, and which I euphemistically call adopting Newly Cultivated Positions, or NCPs.

In 2004, the Romney Repositioning Campaign began in earnest, as Myers sought to transform him into a product more pleasing to the palate of conservative primary voters, activists, and donors — the Republican Party gatekeepers

Draper shows that Romney’s arc was not a thoughtful transformation but nakedly calculated, not the result of deep soul searching but transparently political.

Myer’s single-handedly squashed Romney’s alignment with the climate change movement, in which he was playing a leadership role. At Myer’s urging, Romney met with a number of opinion leaders in conservative circles, who helped him craft rationales and shape messages to explain his mounting list of policy and position reversals. Featured on his collection of Greatest Hits: the environment, abortion rights, stem cell research, gun control and, of course, healthcare reform.

Romney’s political transformation was conducted efficiently and routinely, not unlike a baseball player who shows up to work and is told he’s been traded. He packs his bags, catches the next flight, and by the time the first pitch is thrown, he’s already in the dugout, decked out in a new uniform and with new teammates.

These days players change teams so frequently that it no longer shocks the fans, the same way flip-flopping on core principals no longer shocks the voters. The ease with which players change teams and loyalties has contributed to cynicism among fans who are reluctant to grow attached to players they once considered heroes. Likewise, in American politics, flip-flopping–and the loss of credibility that goes with it –has contributed to a growing sense of alienation and indifference among many voters.

Draper leaves me with the feeling that Romney’s transformation was wholly and entirely political, as carefully calculated as it was flippantly fabricated. It was as if he were trying on a suit. If it didn’t quite fit, well then, he would simply make it fit…nothing that a little tailoring can’t fix.

The question remains:  Can voters tell the difference? And do they care?

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Mitch and Mitt

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Who stands to be the biggest loser if Obama wins re-election? You think it’s Mitt? Try Mitch. That’s right, Addison Mitchell “Mitch” McConnell, the Senate minority leader from Kentucky, who announced in 2010 that the overriding goal of Senate Republicans would be to make Obama a one-term President. Republicans’ success, he was conceding, will be measured not by Republicans’ ability to keep our streets safe or to revive the economy, but by a wholly political agenda: Ousting Obama.

McConnell has the appearance of a thin-lipped, powder-faced mortician sitting in judgment high upon his throne. Whether Obama’s healthcare enhancements will save American lives and contain rising healthcare costs is of little interest to him. That it’s the morally right thing to do is not even an afterthought. The rabid opposition to Obamacare is not based on rational policy differences but instead on a favorite conservative caricature. Obama must be defeated at all costs, because, if not, he will transform Americans’ fundamental character, making us more like “them,” those vacation-taking, Volvo-driving, healthcare-entitled, Socialist-Europeans.

We are told by Mitch and his cohort that Obamacare is un-American. Free market capitalism is what makes America great and anything that smells of socialism must be defeated. A healthcare system that is more equitable and efficient is un-American? Water-boarding and wire-tapping are consistent with American values and will not alter the American character, but healthcare reform will? Come again?

How to account for the outrage, or fake outrage, on the right? It has everything to do with trying to resuscitate and inject energy into a conservative soul that is empty and aimless and a conservative movement that is bereft of ideas. Republicans’ propaganda arsenal has been significantly reduced. They can’t play the fear card against Obama, as the administration’s track record on fighting terrorism effectively shields him. Addison and company are using Obama and Obamacare as symbols to emotionally activate their base, just like Reagan’s “Welfare Queens.” The War on Obamacare is conservatives’ pitiful attempt to come up with a wedge issue when their tried and true approach, race baiting, has been taken off the table. It’s the only wedge issue that Addison has at his ready. That and, of course, Obama’s birth certificate. Pity the Republicans.

Will Addison Mitchell McConnell and Senate Republicans achieve their overriding goal, their gnawing obsession, of defeating Barack Obama? As the results are being announced Tuesday night, we will be looking for profuse perspiration on Addison’s pasty forehead.

“Gunning” for Obama

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Who can be trusted to safeguard 2nd Amendment rights? Barack Obama. Come again?

That’s what the record shows. Consider:

  • Romney was a prominent Republican voice for gun control, and even imposed restrictions on assault weapons while Governor of Massachusetts. Gun-right advocacy groups, like the Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts, responded with a news release proclaiming:

“Romney Takes Opportunity to Betray Gun Owners“

  • Romney acknowledged, and even bragged about, being no “hero” of the NRA.
  • Romney is not naturally aligned with gun owners. He was raised in an elitist Ivy League culture where sneering at gun owners was acceptable. He is not a gun enthusiast and has never been a real hunter. In the 2008 Presidential Debate, Romney told moderator Juan Williams:

“I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will.”

If you will…did he really say that? Brings to mind John Kerry’s “Who among us doesn’t love NASCAR” comment (which was actually a paraphrase).

  • There is also talk of Mormons’ history with guns. When President Buchanan sent troops into the Utah Territory, the Church of Latter Day Saints refused to fight. The Church of LDS has an anti-gun policy for their churches. How might this translate to the future of concealed carry laws across the country?

As President, will Romney turn on gun owners, like he did as Governor? Given his flip-flops, gun owners understandably find it hard to trust Romney.

Obama, on the other hand, is too frightened to rock the boat and take on the NRA, which has scared off and effectively muzzled most Democrats, even on the heels of the shooting of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Who is more likely to protect gun rights? It may seem counter-intuitive, but Obama’s track record has been more clear and consistent than Romney’s.

Romney / Obama Debate: Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee

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Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,

They quite forgot their quarrel.

Obama can turn on the extroversion and effortlessly morph into Black Southern Preacher or Charismatic Rock Star, depending on the audience.  Romney looks silly and uncomfortable when he tries to inspire and move an audience, even sillier when he tries to be funny. There may be superficial policy differences that have been exaggerated by both candidates to define and accentuate their differences.

But, largely, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are cut from the same material: Both are Ivy League guys and, unlike George W. Bush, proud of it. Neither is an ideologue nor sits comfortably with his party’s extreme wings.

They’re both rationalists, data and analysis guys, cautious, methodical decision makers. Bush, by contrast, was a gut instinct guy. Obama and Romney are dead-on Left Brainers. Both are temperamentally conservative: Reserved, serious, shy, decent, cautious, moderate, exceedingly civilized and yes, both have an unusually high regard of themselves.

Both, too, are family men. It’s like Ward Cleaver debating Dr. Huxtable.

In a couple of hours, we get to watch Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee try desperately to differentiate themselves in the name of offering voters “a clear choice”. Oh, joy!

If voters don’t perceive much of a difference, they will likely look at Obama and conclude that he deserves a second shot. There’s more risk trading in a President that voters largely like for, as Rick Santorum put it, a paler version of Obama. Rick Santorum was right about another thing. The former Senator from Pennsylvania was perhaps the only candidate who seemed to offer a real contrast with President Obama.

Just not the kind of contrast that wins elections.