Political Animal
Blog
Team Obama’s odds of victory in November depend a great deal on its ability to force an actual comparison of the two candidates’ (and their parties’) policy agendas, particularly with respect to the economy. And on that front, the president has already made it abundantly clear—particularly in his much-praised new “The Choice” ad—that he will continue to tie Romney’s economic strategy to that of Obama’s predecessor.
So it’s not the best sign for Mitt Romney that when he was directly asked by NBC’s Brian Williams yesterday to distinguish his approach to growth and job creation from W.’s, he sort of ignored it and just read his usual talking points. Here’s Jon Chait’s take on the moment and its significance:
The answer was a mere recapitulation of his plans (“Well, let me describe — actually, there are five things that I believe are necessary to get this economy going … ”). I won’t reprint the entire answer, but Romney did not make the slightest attempt to distinguish his approach from Bush’s. Of course that is because it’s the same thing! Every single idea Romney listed — low taxes, free trade, less regulation, developing energy, etc. — was part of Bush’s program.
Now, the usual Republican answer here, on how their approach will succeed where Bush’s failed, is to shout, spending! Romney promises to cut it. Bush also promised to cut it, but didn’t. I don’t think this really answers the main objection — lower spending may help the long-term budget picture, but the policies Republicans most directly associate with economic growth are taxes, regulation, and energy. And here Romney really is proposing the exact same policies as Bush.
But the surprising thing is that Romney didn’t even have that, or any other handy answer to the question. This is a pretty bad political messaging slip-up, but it also indicates a larger problem: Republicans haven’t really internalized the degree to which Bush’s policies truly failed to produce strong economic growth. They blame him for letting spending grow too high, and they recognize that the crash was a bad thing, but conservative rhetoric almost uniformly fails to acknowledge that even pre-crash growth under Bush was absolutely miserable.
It’s not real hard for voters to remember that their disgruntlement with GOP economic policies didn’t begin with the crash. So I expect that future Obama campaign communications will refresh their memories, and could continue to catch Romney flat-footed.
Facebook
Twitter
T2 on July 26, 2012 4:51 PM:
Its not that Republicans can't/won't/don't remember two unfunded wars, a huge Tax Cut for the Rich and numerous policy miscalculations (all ok'd by Rove, btw).
It's just that policy isn't their thing. Politics is. Dick Cheney's famous quote that "deficits don't matter" is the perfect example of where they stand. If a Dem is president, the deficit is #1 problem, if its a GOPer then it doesn't matter. Just politics. So they can't bother themselves with remembering what worked and what didn't...it just doesn't matter to them. All that matters is getting a Republican elected again - politics.
That they would repeat the very same mistakes isn't part of their worry, they didn't care then and they don't care now - getting a GOPer elected is what it's all about.
c u n d gulag on July 26, 2012 5:01 PM:
For a guy who doesn't drink, Mitt seems to have taken that whole "Hair of the dog that bit ya - and half of the economy in half" stuff pretty seriously.
Is another drink of Bush's poison going to make us immune to more of the same?
I guess Mitt and his advisor's think so.
FRIGHTENING!!!
Ron Byers on July 26, 2012 5:09 PM:
Mitt's real problem is not that his program is just like the Bush program. No, his real problem that he didn't have an answer to William's pretty obvious question. It wasn't a gotcha. It should have been something Romney was prepared to hit out of the park, or at least end up with a clean single. That he had no canned answer to the obvious question is just another example of the professional incompetency of both the candidate and his staff.
Mitch on July 26, 2012 5:16 PM:
They have absolute faith in their ideology. When you have faith, evidence is meaningless. Less than meaningless. When you have faith, evidence that disproves that faith can benothing but lies.
As I ask my Repug friends, coworkers and family, "If cutting taxes on the rich helps us all, then WHERE ARE THE JOBS???"
No answer except for faux rage at "socialism" and taxes, utter denial of the fact that taxes for the top earners are lower than they have been since just before the Great Depression, and a rejection of the truth that the richest of the rich have more money than EVER.
And they are certainly NOT using it to create jobs.
The Trickle Down Hypothesis has been proven false. Of course, they seldom refer to it as "trickle down" since that brings back too many memories of Bush the Lesser. Instead they refer to the plutocracy as Job Creators.
Now, if Dems could learn to say what I just said, they might be able to fix things. Instead they tend to speak in diplospeak (at best) when Repugs say things like, "Stop attacking success."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/26/romney-in-piers-morgan-interview-stop-attacking-success/?hpt=hp_c1
In response to that we should say, "We are not attacking success. We are attacking the ideology that brought us to this point. We are attacking the policies that let people like Romney pay 15% or so in taxes, while the middle class pays double at least. The top 1% has more money than EVER. So when is it going to start trickling down? When are they going to live up to their name and become "job creators"?
left reach gal on July 26, 2012 5:24 PM:
So often talking in circles, Mitt seems personally confused by his endlessly conflicting viewpoints-- so he is routinely exposed then crushed during interviews.
My take on it is that he is self-conscious from his duplicitousness stances-- from having to hide facts, twist facts, and remember to state the current view of his base--and I think it is aging him dramatically. On the big screen HD television, he really looks as if he is reeling from it all. I think the campaign added ten years to his face.
My opinion is that it is the psychologically limiting cognitive dissonance he experiences as he is called upon to discuss issues and the statements he makes to please the base are not really what he thinks.
....who said that too bad our cars can't run on cognitive dissonance.
RT on July 26, 2012 5:28 PM:
"Republicans haven’t really internalized the degree to which Bush’s policies truly failed to produce strong economic growth."
They never will, as Mitch said. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
howard on July 26, 2012 5:32 PM:
to add to some points already made here, i have an acquaintance who is quite right-wing, and i point out to him all the time that what it takes to maintain his worldview is a complete indifference to empirical data.
lower taxes are better, dammit! the fact that the economy of the '90s outperformed the economy of the '00s? never mentioned.
the fact that the economy of the '50s outperformed both with even higher taxes? never mentioned.
right-wing positions are, by and large, theological, not logical.
left reach gal on July 26, 2012 5:44 PM:
Well said, Howard.
Mimikatz on July 26, 2012 6:59 PM:
They have a trickle-down philosophy of success. It is all due to the rich showering blessings on the rest of is. They refuse to understand that in a consumer society, if 95% of the population has too little to generate consumer demand, then businesses will stagnate. The simple fact that lower tax rates for the bottom 95% creates demand, and higher taxes on the rich generates revenue for job-creating public expenditures, which Zin turn creates more demand for goods and services is entirely foreign to and lost on them. The world must conform to their ideology, so they just keep making mistakes. Bur they are able to mobilize anger and resentment better than the Dems, so they have won some crucial elections, particularly 2010.
John sherman on July 27, 2012 10:52 AM:
Also worth noting that the Brits have a Conservative government enacting conservative policies pushing their economy into the toilet. I believe they're working on a double dip recession.howthsF