Why doesn't Romney want to be elected?

[pseydtonne]

Ever since he became the statistical nominee of the GOP, Mitt Romney has been saying weird things. Why pick a fight with fellow Olympic organizers? Why pretend you have no clue when your tax-dodging horse will be competing? Why go to Israel and propose moving our embassy to Jerusalem? [Thanks to arib for checking me on that.] Why... frankly, why say anything?

We barely noticed him while he was Governor of Massachusetts for four years -- except when he came up with the health insurance plan he now opposes. Back in 2004 he had ninety days to offer a case to the highest court in the commonwealth, the Supreme Judicial Court, against the institution of same-sex marriage. He did nothing and that was excellent. We knew more about the lieutenant governor because she was pregnant and commuted from the far end of the state (to most Bostonians, that made her a New Yorker).

Speaking of running mates: everyone wants to augur the name of his veep pick. Romney's choice for vice presidential running mate has nothing to do with getting more moderates to support him. It's about getting the person that would draw the most conservatives to the polls in swing states. Romney is a deep-down moderate, which is odd for a Mormon but not for a crazy-rich investment specialist (if Jesus shows up next week, 30-year Treasury Notes are wastes of money). He needs someone that will make the Tea Party folks feel better and not sit out the election.

Does that sound logical? Not really. If he were to pick someone that would actually help the nation, he'd be sitting down with General Petraeus and they'd have a plan. However Romney has no real platform: he has been wanting to be president and has not thought beyond that point.

I was reading an article in Esquire online about the conservative side of the GOP since McGovern lost to Nixon in 1972. The premise is that they built their coffers and may have simply outgrown the GOP and reason. There is a lot more to the article, and that got me thinking.

It seems crazy to the rest of us that Romney would not try to cater to the middle, unless he doesn't care whether he gets elected. Perhaps his job is to keep the GOP from splintering into the Tea Party and the Guys with the Elephant Trademark. The GOP has to survive as a brand and a business or it cannot control Congress or the red states. This unfortunately means catering to the grandchildren of the John Birch Society (literally, if you think about the father of the Koch brothers). Unlike the last time the GOP fell apart in 1964, the reactionaries have money.

Did he pay taxes during the years he won't tell us about? Probably. Were they proportional to his income or capital gains? Probably not, but that's not illegal. It's just not very moral of a man from a religion that prides itself on shunning white lies. It's also not the attitude you want from a president: he should be interested in providing a tax base. Otherwise they'll have to use their own funds to repave all the roads to those dachas.

Perhaps he has compartmentalized his task. Getting elected would be accidental, possibly detrimental to the GOP's cohesion. After all, then they couldn't focus anger at a Democrat president and they'd have to work on something -- and they're not ready for that right now.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Back in 2004 he had ninety days to offer a case to the highest court in the commonwealth, the Supreme Judicial Court, against the institution of same-sex marriage. He did nothing and that was excellent.

The way I remember it, he whined about it in irritating fashion.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Why go to Israel and propose they move the capital to Jerusalem?

Did you mean embassy?

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Mitt is not aiming for the center, but then again the median voter model is fatally flawed. Mitt doesn't have to cater to the middle. The GOP has spent 35 years building up its clout and its war chest, not to mention lots of creative ways to disenfranchise political opponents. They run on Fear, Hate, and Big Lies. If they take control of the White House and Congress this fall, I will watch the country self-immolate and turn into a second-rate industrialized power within two years, unless the Dems use a lot of filibusters. I am not holding my breath. For that matter, the GOP might decide that, since the filibuster was so abused during the previous two years, it should be removed "to ensure it won't happen again." Never mind that they were the ones abusing it.

Right now I am betting that Scalia and possibly Thomas are waiting for a GOP president so they can retire from the bench.

Al Franken put it best. The Republicans tell people that "government can't work, so vote for us." Then they get in and they prove it.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Uh, yeah. That makes more sense. Let me fix that...

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Good point. He still never filed anything.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

At this point, I think it'd take some huge game-changing event to get Romney elected. This despite the fact that he often seems to have a slight lead in national-popular-vote horserace polls. Sam Wang has the analysis, based on a stochastic model of the electoral vote using his aggregate of state polls:

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/08/03/a-true-prediction-take-1/
http://election.princeton.edu/2012/08/07/presidential-prediction-take-2/

Control of the House and Senate, on the other hand, is genuinely up in the air, so Congressional elections might be the ones to concentrate on with regard to activism, campaign donations, etc.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

True. He did make a halfhearted attempt to get some kind of stay of implementation pending the first constitutional-amendment attempt, didn't he? (To which I think the courts just said MASSACHUSETTS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.)

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

[i]If he were to pick someone that would actually help the nation, he'd be sitting down with General Petraeus and they'd have a plan.[/i]

The hell?? Patreaus would help him get elected because of the military fetish in the country, but Petraeus is a career power climber. He wouldn't have the slightest interest in proposing things to help the country in any way. Not in his wheelhouse, as they say.

As for why he doesn't want to be elected, I think it simply has to do with the fact he finds being elected distasteful. He's a Galtian Master of the Universe CEO, this whole idea of having to subject himself to the little people is galling. So he is constantly at odds with himself over it.

As for Veep, I'm leaning Rand for the Tea Partiers but still with some sense of Very Serious Person. I suspect Rand so outranks him in Charisma, though, that it might be dangerous to his self esteem.

And I agree with TeddyWolf that if the Repubs get control of both houses, especially if they also have the Pres, they drop the filibuster for being abused.