A lot of journalists, already set to write a piece on the United States’ two presidential candidates this week, got their boats overturned by life’s habit of swamping such well laid plans. Events — riots and killings in the Middle East, surprising remarks by Mitt Romney — drowned the early patchwork of details journalists begin, almost unconsciously, to mentally bank for such coming stories. And in Mexico, these folk were already fielding rough questions about the tangle muy excéntrico that today passes for a presidential showdown in the U.S.
President Obama’s problems — another dismal jobs report (with more of them coming before November 6), an apparently stalled economy (though housing sales have picked up) — seemed to remain carved in stone.
What most dramatically surprised reporters, columnists and editors (and clearly the political wire-pullers and strategists on both sides), has been Mitt Romney’s now over-worked but still remarkable put-down of the “47 percent” of Americans who pay no federal taxes. Such folks, he said, believe “that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” His job ‘is not to worry about those,” he told wealthy conservative donors in May.
By now everyone reading this has learned that many of the “government welfare” programs to which these people belong were put in place by politicians on both sides — Gerald Ford, Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton. Many conservatives were surprised that Romney didn’t understand that much of that 47 percent is made up of his co-religionists: Republicans who are retired, or have incomes under 20,000 dollars a year. Yet even many of those pay into the third of government taxes that come from payroll taxes.This, unsurprisingly, unearthed Barack Obama’s “unfortunate” statement to supporters at a 2008 San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters “get bitter, they cling to their guns or religion.” It’s a quote that Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, has used against Obama for some time.
Romney also mentioned that he has a deficit in the polls among the growing Hispanic electorate. He told his donors in May that his father George, was born in Mexico. “Had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this.” It sounded a lot like the faintly coded jokes Hispanics hear in places like “the racist Klavern of Arizona,” as one Latino resident of that state calls it.
The Romney imbroglio interrupted the weekly news cycle’s attempt to unknot the tangle of problems keeping Obama’s numbers lower than his followers, and political wonks, believe they should be.
But, first a look (updated September 20) at ten battleground states where both candidates now will be concentrating energy and ad dollars. Most recent polls show Romney ahead in North Carolina Colorado and Iowa (in an August 26 survey; oddly no truly recent polls have been taken since in this bell-weather state). Obama leads in the most recent polls in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Often the numbers in these these updates are quite close, as are the two-week poll averages.
One of Obama’s biggest problems, suggests Curtis Gans, director of the non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate, is that among the perhaps 90 million of Americans who won’t go the polls in November will be a large number who voted for the president in 2008. Both Gans (whose mother was once a contributor to the Reporter) and David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center whose recent poll surveys Americans who won’t vote in November, say Obama has to find a way to animate such allies.
Why not? Gans‘ answer: “There’s a huge lack of trust in our leaders, a lack of positive feelings about political institutions, a lack of quality education for large segments of the public, a lack of civic education, the fragmenting effects of waves of communications technology, the cynicism of politics – it’s a long litany.”
Paleologos, of Suffolk U., suggests many Americans won’t vote because “(P)eople have been beaten down by the economy,” because “You’ve got this overriding sense of bitterness … and the negativity and the lack of trust.” This presents a potentially big hurdle for Obama. By 43 percent to 18 percent these “unlikely voters” support Obama over Romney. “It’s a pool of voters Barack Obama doesn’t even have to persuade. It’s like a treasure chest. But … the chest is locked … All he has to do is find them. … identify them and get them to the polls … (T)hat’s the key Obama (hasn’t) found, and he’s running out of time.”
Regarding Mitt Romney, one perhaps should allow Republicans who have long-established records of contributing energy, strategy, and insightful thought to help bring the GOP out of the wilderness of isolationists and anti-semites. Which means many who were deeply influenced — and in many cases mentored — by William F. Buckley, Jr. Buckley began his work of political resuscitation as a young graduate from Yale by writing “Man and God at Yale” in 1951. It was a call-to-arms for a new kind of conservatism, flourishing intelligence, driving imagination and a sense of humor. He almost single-handedly pushed anti-semites out of the Republican Party.
Daringly, some of his proteges — and some of their proteges — stepped forward this week to express often sharp reservations with Romney’s “47 percent” of American who “don’t pay taxes” tirade to wealthy donors in May.
This, in contemporary terms, meant that this week, many of Buckley’s intellectual proteges — and some of their proteges — took issue with Mitt Romney & Co. Peggy Noonan, President Ronald Reagan’s primary speech writer and special assistant, wrote in her Wall Street Journal column — “going where few have publicly gone,” — about Romney’s general election campaign, calling it “incompetent.” She also wrote, “It’s not big, it’s not brave, it’s not thoughtfully tackling great issues. It’s always been too small for the moment.” Tough words from a thoughtful lady.
New Republic columnist David Brooks, an authentic Buckley protege, wrote in the New York Times comparing Romney to Thurston Howell III, the wealthy character from the TV show, “Gilligan’s Island,” who embodies for many viewers the behavior of elitist New Englanders.
Even Paul Ryan called Romney’s remark “inarticulate.”
But before this turmoil, advisers, strategists, donors and other top Romney supporters were arguing that the campaign was in trouble, that a series of errors and gaffs had tarnished the project. Wednesday, before a group Hispanics in Florida, Romney began trying to do a 180, declaring that his campaign was really about “the one hundred percent” of Americans.
Let’s hope so. The U.S. needs a functional two-party system. One that can thoughtfully debate those who have different views. One not populated with people who hate other Americans. One of the headlines earlier on, asked, “Does Romney Hate Americans?” That’s a bad sign for U.S. democracy. A Buckley-influenced overhaul — is that possible? — would be applauded.