It always is, in Marc Ambinder’s world:
John Ensign and Mark Sanford are revealing TMI. Sarah Palin is struggling with her state legislature. John Huntsman, Jr. is headed to China. Mike Huckabee is ubiquitous. Haley Barbour is meeting with strategists in smoky back rooms. Tim Pawlenty has to get through the rest of his term.
[….]1. Romney is picking and choosing his battles. He shares an Obama-esque disdain for the superficial daily scrum that cable channels whip up. It’s a credit to his communications team that he can appear on television once every two or three weeks and seem to be part of the dialog. When Romney has something to say, he’ll find a venue to say it. On auto restructuring, on the Republican stimulus plan, on a free market approach to health care, on the Employee Free Choice Act, and on missile defense, Romney matches his opinions to key constituencies, and he always draws respectful news coverage. What’s Romney saying about Mark Sanford? Nothing. (Mike Huckabee called into Fox. He’s pursuing a different communications strategy.)
2. He’s not consumed by anger or sarcasm. Romney can get angry, and he can be sarcastic. But his public appearances today are calm, measured; his interviews are given in dignified settings. Romney’s political team believes that the public has no appetite for presidential adversaries who are driven by personal dislike. To Romney, this dignifies the office of the presidency.
(via Sully)
Jim
Huh. He kind of has a point about Romney keeping himself rare, compared to the desperate pursuit of the spotlight by Huck and Palin. But maybe he didn’t notice how Romney reacts in un-scripted moments, from “who let the dogs out” to his creepy, leering grin when he promised to double the size of Gitmo. Dignitude? I don’t think so.
Ash
Yeah, but he’s Mormon.
Northern Observer
The romster is as electable as a dead parrot.
Bootlegger
@Northern Observer:
Don’t be too sure. Even with his flippers he probably would have beat McCain if Huckabee had bowed out instead of splitting the far-right vote.
jake 4 that 1
Romney/Palin 2012!
The Mormon & the Moron.
someguy
I don’t see how we can avoid making him president, frankly. Really – how can you not make somebody with magical underpants and invisible theological friends the president?
gex
@Northern Observer: But he has beautiful plumage!
Ash
@jake 4 that 1: You should get on copyrighting that.
Comrade Stuck
Armbinder’s rose colored glasses must have been fogged during Romney’s wall to wall negative smear GOP primary in 2008.
It’s always fairy’s and pixie dust day in Greater Wingnuttia.
Peter J
1. Would the republicans ever pick a mormon?
2. If they do and he fails, would they pick another one for 2016?
If any dirt on Romney surfaces, Huntsman would be a prime suspect.
David
I’m not getting excited about Romney until he shows me the vault copy of his birth certificate.
Zifnab
Hasn’t this been John’s generic advice to the Republicans for months now? Sit down, shut the fuck up, and let the Dems dig their own graves without your “help”. Romney has been following said advice rather faithfully.
I mean, if you want to talk about Presidential prospects with a serious chance of beating Obama, you’re going to be looking at a blank list. But if you want to talk about people with a good shot at winning the Republican Prez Nomination, I would put Romney on my short list.
Brick Oven Bill
As the electorate is sick and tired of both of these corrupt political parties, the next President will most likely come from the military. It will probably be Petraeus, in spite of his soccer-playing past.
Rosali
Have his sons enlisted yet? It’s been a year since Mitt’s campaign ended.
joe from Lowell
Oh please oh please oh PLEASE nominate Mitt Romney.
Please?
The Republicans think that he’s electable because he won a gubernatorial race in Massachusetts. What they don’t realize is that Massachusetts is so thoroughly dominated by the Democratic Party that there is a guaranteed veto-proof Democratic majority in both houses of the state legislature after every election, so we don’t worry about the governor’s political beliefs very much. The role of a governor is this state is to serve as a speed bump in front of the Speaker of the House, who really runs things. All we want is someone who is strong enough, and independent enough from the Beacon Hill Democratic machine, to be an effective speed bump.
There is no chance of a Republican governor advancing an affirmative conservative agenda in this state, and everyone knows it, so we’re willing to vote for Republicans, even ones we disagree with, over Democrats who seem to close to the State House leadership, or too weak to stand up to them. That doesn’t translate into a willingness to vote for Republicans for federal office, however. Not even a so-called moderate.
anonevent
@David: But was Utah really a part of the United States when Romney was born? I’m not so sure.
Bokonon
Interesting that this is a back-handed compliment to Obama.
But you would need to substitute “smarmy” and “shark-eyed insincerity” for the word “dignity”, and then Armbinder might be describing reality.
Even the GOP faithful don’t buy Romney’s opportunist chameleon act, no matter how piously (or viciously) he mouths the magic words, or throws out red meat like promising to “double Guantanamo”.
jrg
Shorter Marc Ambinder: “Anyone who can tie their own shoes and chews with their mouth closed is the Republican Obama.”
steve s
Romney/Coleman 2012!
The Mormon and the Norman
Death By Mosquito Truck
Bill Clinton said America wants to elect an optimist. Mitt Romney is the most amazing optimist who ever lived if he thinks the christian jihadist republican party is ever gonna nominate a mormon cultist.
I understand he is next in line – or is it Huckabee? – but I just don’t see it happening.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Northern Observer:
The only reason he got to run last time was because he was nailed to the platform.
Professor Fate
“his public appearances today are calm, measured;”
Because he is completely made of wood
“The Plumage don’t enter into it.”
me
Romney shaped starbursts.
SGEW
@Bill E Pilgrim:
If he hadn’t been nailed to the party platform he would’ve nuzzled up to those bars and gone voom over to the Democrats.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Mittens, the Magic Underpants Wearing Mormon, will never be elected POTUS.
The Grand Panjandrum
Unless massive flocks of seagulls show up and start eating all the Christianists, Mitt Romney will get the GOP nomination right around the time I win the Miss America context.
b-psycho
@Brick Oven Bill: …Uh, yeah, as if merely having been in the military means you’re incorruptible.
tigrismus
His free market approach to health care is losing what luster it had here in Mass, and I doubt if he can get away with blaming all the failures on post-Romney execution rather than flaws in the model.
cyd
I used to find Marc Ambinder a reasonable fellow—he has never been a deep thinker, but he had good sources who sometimes provided entertaining or even useful information. Lately, however, he’s become tendentious or just plain silly. Has anyone else noticed this?
ThresherK
Rosali: I think Mitt’s sons will enlist right after they return from Bristol’s wedding reception.
Comrade Jake
Reading Ambinder is largely an exercise in patience. You have to be willing to wade through lots of crap like this to find the occasional gem. At least his crap is unique, I’ll grant him that.
As for Romney, you have to keep in mind that the dude (or dudette) who lands the 2012 nomination is very likely to be a royal douchebag. So, you know, Romney’s got that covered.
Anne Laurie
The more one is exposed to Willard, the more one loathes him. Perhaps Romney’s finally taken his high-priced handlers’ advice concerning this, and is waiting for every other potential Repub candidate to self-destruct. Of course, if he can stall until no more than 72 hours before the national convention, he might actually get the nomination, but he’d still be beaten like Genghis Khan’s rug by Obama. Or any of the other top 635 Democratic contenders, for that matter.
KG
As it stands right now – way too far away from 2012 to be worth a damn – anyone the GOP nominates is going to get blown out. In the old days, the moderate Northeasterners who controlled the purse strings of the GOP would let the nomination go to someone unelectable in order to say afterwards “see, America is not interested in someone like that, they’re unelectable and we need to moderate.” See: any GOP nominee from 1932-1946 or Barry Goldwater as an example. The Dems (assuming they were an organized political party, as the old joke goes) did the same thing in 1972 and 1984.
Unfortunately, the moderates have been purged from the GOP and the inmates are running the asylum. That likely means that someone unelectable will be nominated – my money is on Huckabee or possibly Palin. Romney, as much as I don’t like him, does come off as much more civil than any of his potential opponents. In the current GOP configuration, this is a detriment rather than a bonus; which will likely doom his candidacy from the start. And the Wingularity will intensify.
LD50
Romney’s father was born in Mexico. Therefore, according to all the Republicans I’ve talked to, that disqualifies Romney for the presidency.
Death By Mosquito Truck
I bet one of his moms was a broad too. That has consequences.
Brick Oven Bill
4-Star Generals are corruptible by the mechanics of the system, as promotions above O-5 are subject to political forces. Sully left the service as an O-3, and was not subject to these forces. This is why he called up the library to tell them that their leadership ethics book he had checked out was destroyed in his heroic plane landing, and he would be unable to return it.
This is why Sullenberger, and not Petraeus should be the next President. But our system is not currently set up in this manner.
Comrade Dread
I guess this the question as to who takes over for Hugh Hewitt when he needs a break from blowing the Mittster.
asiangrrlMN
He’s creepy. The only time I hear him talking, he’s dissing Obama and saying how HE (Mitt) would handle foreign policy by doubling down on Gitmo. Really? That’s calm and dignified? I guess Marc Ambinder’s idea of calm and dignified is my idea of smarmy, pompous, empty-headed blow-hard, but you know. To each her (generic her, Marc) own.
John S.
Yeah, because everyone knows what bang-up jobs Grant and Eisenhower did while in office. If there is one thing history tells us, it is that military people make lousy presidents.
I’d tell you to just give the guy a blowjob already, but I’m fairly certain he’s not gay. You conservatives sure are creepy as fuck with your hero-worship.
SGEW
Andrew “Evil Villain” Jackson probably proves your point in general, but I still hold that George Washington was a ground-breakingly perfect historical example for future chief executives to follow (specifically, Washington quit).
Death By Mosquito Truck
I think it’s more of a mixed bag if ya count General Washington and General Jackson and some of the other earlier ones. Twelve generals became President.
Brick Oven Bill
Sullenberger-Philips 2112
“We will hire honest and compentent people.”
65-35 win.
Brick Oven Bill
Sullenberger-Philips 2112
“We will hire honest and competent people who can spell.”
67-33 win.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@John S.:
What’s really creepy is BOB was stalking Sullenberger before the crash.
SGEW
You are very weird, Bill.
mey
And can time-travel.
Bill E Pilgrim
Hey, Joe The Plumber says that our founding fathers “knew that Communism doesn’t work”.
If that ain’t a hoot, Smalley, I don’t know what would be.
SGEW
@Bill E Pilgrim: Joe the Plumber definitely hoots my smalley. O yes.
asiangrrlMN
@Bill E Pilgrim: He’s too much of a Smalley for that to be much of a hoot.
SGEW, ok. Your JTP quip was funnier than mine. Wah.
Sigh. I see B.O.B. did not get killed by a rattlesnake.
John S.
Washington was not a career military general in the true sense of the term. Yes, he was an officer in the Virginia militia and a general of the Continental Army, but he was also opposed to the very concept of a standing military.
Jackson’s presidency was a mixed bag itself, as he had some extremely fucked up policies, particularly genocide of Native Americans. I’m not sure you can consider him a “good” president when you take all things into consideration.
As for the other 10:
William H. Harrison
Zachary Taylor
Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
Dwight D. Eisenhower
That’s not really a list of luminaries in the role of president, now is it?
SeanH
Does Ambinder know what “ubiquitous” means? Because I don’t see how Mike Huckabee is ubiquitous, or how being ubiquitous would be an obviously bad quality in a Presidential candidate.
Calouste
@jake 4 that 1:
Palin/Sanford 2012
Not all there/Not there at all
John S.
Found this neat chart on Wikipedia.
William H. Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison all rank in or very close to the lowest quartile.
Definitely not a ringing endorsement of military men in the role of president.
Allan
Shorter Ambinder: Oh Mittens, your scrotum is so delicious!
asiangrrlMN
@Calouste: Ok. I really like this one. jake 4 that 1 hit it out of the park with Mormon/moron, but this is a grand slam.
SGEW
@John S.: Ooh, good point about Washington’s military service (which, iirc, he considered as a volunteer obligation required of the aristocracy, rather than the modern idea of a “career”). And I would say that Jackson’s “mixed bag” (expanded suffrage for white males vs. institutionalized genocide?) only precludes automatically labeling him “absolutely worst president ever, ever,” rather than creating lukewarm trepidation about labeling him “good.”
Overall: career military generals = bad presidents. As far as I can tell.
adam
It’s kind of miraculous that Mitt is easily the most dignified likely GOP candidate at present. Palin, Kenneth the Page, App Trail, Ensign, Suckabee–it’s just an amazing rogue’s gallery.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@John S.: Historians usually rank Eisenhower and Jackson in the top 10. Otherwise, looking at a this historical rankings of Presidents, generals don’t appear to be unduly represented at the bottom. Looks like they’re pretty evenly distributed across the spectrum.
Allan
Michele Bachmann 2012
“Yeah, I’m crazy, but I’m married to a psychologist, so no worries!”
Brick Oven Bill
Sully was not a General, he resigned his commission as a Captain. He has his own consultancy, in addition to his pilot job.
Here is a photo of his airplane in the Hudson. The book on leadership ethics that was destroyed in the water landing is not visible, as it is in the cargo hold.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Brick Oven Bill: Got any nude photos of his leadership BOB?
Chinn Romney
Uncle Mitt isn’t dead, he’s resting. One might say he’s pining for the fjords. Beautiful plumage.
JK
Everyone, including Ambinder, knows that Romney will never get the Republican nomination because of anti-Mormon bigotry. The Republican intelligentsia will never allow Palin to get the nomination because they know that she’s dumber than dirt. The Republican intelligentsia has only slightly more respect for Huckabee so he won’t get the nomination either. As the New Republic points out, Haley Barbour will remind too many people of Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazard. Tim Pawlenty and Rob Portman are too fucking boring to get the nomination.
The best hope the Republicans have in 2012 is to get on their hands and knees and persuade David Petraeus to run.
joe from Lowell
Damn, the Dead Parrot sketch is a spot-on metaphor for Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations.
MBunge
Measured on a ratio of money spent vs. votes won, Romney might be the single worst Presidential contender in U.S. history. Just because he’s the closest thing visually to Jed Bartlet with a dye-job, doesn’t change the fact that voters have an instinctive revulsion for the guy.
Mike
EarBucket
Petraeus doesn’t want the job. It’s a very odd situation, as there doesn’t really seem to be a credible candidate in the GOP right now. Maybe somebody like Tim Pawlenty, but he’s so boring that I have a hard time imagining him really seizing the wheel.
Mike Huckabee seems most likely to me, but he’s not very good at raising money, which is a big deal. But who knows?
JK
For sheer entertainment value alone, nothing can top
Palin/Bachmann 2012
Dumb and Dumber
I’m still betting Republicans succeed in getting David Petraeus to run and the party faithful will quickly fall in line to support him.
Anne Laurie
To misquote Einstein: The 2012 Republican candidate will not only be weirder than we imagine, s/he will be weirder than we can imagine.
SGEW
@Anne Laurie:
Brick Oven Bill/Timecube 2012?
Calouste
@asiangrrlMN:
Can’t claim it as my own, saw it on the GOS yesterday, complete with McCain style election sign.
But yeah, it is a pretty good one :)
Calouste
@EarBucket:
If it is Pawlenty, I want to see the DNC run daily adverts with that collapsed bridge and statements that Pawlenty cut funds for highway maintenance and appointed an incompetent crony as the transport commisioner.
KRK
You forgot to mention that Romney is also “a spectacularly good-looking man,” which Politico seems to think hurt him in the primary.
Romney 2012 campaign slogan: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
Dennis-SGMM
1. The decaying corpse of Ronald Reagan is picking and choosing its battles. It shares an Obama-esque disdain for the superficial daily scrum that cable channels whip up. It’s a credit to its communications team that it can be mentioned on television once every two or three minutes and seem to be part of the dialog.
2. It’s not consumed by anger or sarcasm.It’s only consumed by bacteria – easily reversible and no impediment to Republican governance.
JK
@Anne Laurie:
Anne,
The quote to which you’re referring actually comes in various versions from J.B.S. Haldane and Arthur S. Eddington.
h/t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBS_Haldane#Quotes
Dennis-SGMM
@KRK:
Romney/Palin 2012 because it’s better to look good than to feel good, or informed, or even moderately bright.
Comrade Stuck
In the times Petraeus found himself under the spotlight of national politics, he looked about as thrilled as a man waiting his turn for the all-night dentist.
Brachiator
Or anything resembling intelligent thought.
An Empty Suit is a shame to waste.
Once you eliminate the impossible, what is left, no matter how improbable, is Mitt Romney.
anonevent
Duplicate
anonevent
Having a General run the country is almost like having a professional player coach a team: He or she may know what to do with orders but that’s not the same thing as giving them. And surprisingly people know that at a gut level, hence no President McCain. Sorry, BOB.
You know, BOB, I had a manager whose initials were only one letter away from PHB. Your initials are funny, too.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Comrade Stuck:
That’s because he was brought in to save the political hide of Danger Monkey.
Tonal Crow
Has Romney claimed to have marched up Mt. Sinai with Moses yet? And, if so, has he blamed the media for misinterpreting his “figurative” usage?
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/21/romney_never_saw_father_on_king_march/
Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald. Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said: “My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit.”
(emphasis added).
Brick Oven Bill
anonevent;
There is a significant difference between Grant and Petraeus. Grant was a General in the 1860s, and could exercise independent operational judgment pretty much freely. Petraeus has had to operate in large manner within the constraints of the political system, but with a uniform. Hopefully this explains his denial of the core texts.
If he were in acquisitions, he would be a beltway type. But as current CINCCENT, and formerly head of forces in Iraq, he is pretty much an operational guy. Being away from the money circles, and leading men in a series of operations, is good training for being an independent executive who can stand up to the Wall Street types.
David Petraeus would probably make a good President, although his definition of the enemy being ‘international extremists’ is not a good sign. This is why I would feel better about Sullenberg-Philips. But Petraeus did not go to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, so this is good. If he is in that circle, he came in from the outside.
Dennis-SGMM
Generals usually make poor presidents because they’re accustomed to giving orders and having them carried out. They are not accustomed to begging, cajoling, compromising or chivying along fractious and self-interested legislators. Vivid dreams of a man on horseback who will somehow save the GOP and the conservative (bowel) movement from their own stupidity, bigotry, greed, and narrow-minded cluelessness is easily as hallucinatory as anything dreamed up by the LSD-infused imaginations of Sixties Hippies.
We are all living the aftermath of GOP governance and it isn’t a pretty picture for many of us. Maybe you should save yourselves before you anoint a savior for the rest of us.
JGabriel
Ambinder:
JGabriel’s Translation:
.
Rob
Hey! look you knew your sunset star are coming shortly to his term,so why you guy say any thing just for fun or for you happy only,but now America knew who is your heroes(Obama)he is the fake,is not the true that will bring change for America, just will take over America, do you know that now he is riding on the neck of America, attack America around the world, so sad, why you are so scare, and hate Mitt. Look Obama resume and Mitt resume,who is the best, and who is 100% America,Obama dad was a visitor from Kenya(Obama is 50% America),Mitt is the most experienced and most qualify for the president of U.S now and the future, what ever in 2013 Mitt will be in the office,he will be a greatest president. America see him that way too,because now they knew who is the America true leader, Mitt love America, but Obama attack America,blame America,against America (America is arrogant,America is dictator, America is torturer, who’s said that)all 43 president never ever attack America like Obama, America leader never blame America, they love America , they protect America, so who is Obama,what do you say?
Comrade Stuck
@Rob:
Someone left open the portal door to hell. I think it should be closed.
KRK
@Comrade Stuck:
And here I was feeling impressed that Balloon Juice rated a comment from Romney’s chief campaign strategist.
John S.
@Death By Mosquito Truck:
No, they aren’t.
See all those red boxes? That indicates they rank in the lowest quartile.
William H. Harrison
Zachary Taylor
Franklin Pierce
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
All rank in the lowest quartile.
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
Are borderline lowest quartile or in the second to lowest quartile.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
George Washington
Andrew Jackson
Are the ONLY generals to rate in the top quartile, and I think that Jackson and Eisenhower are extremely debatable.
Now, you want to tell me that these guys are spread out evenly across the spectrum? I say bullshit. Nine out of twelve are in the realm of mediocre to lousy. I stand by my assertion that generals made lousy presidents.
Mike in NC
This is generally (pun intended) the consensus of presidential historians, though most of those guys who served in the Civil War weren’t professional soldiers, so the data is slightly skewed. As for Petraeus, he has a massive enough ego that he might be tempted to run for president, but would likely drop out at some point in the proceedings as he seems to have some degree of self-respect. Nor would he condone taking orders from Reichsmarshal Limbaugh.
joe from Lowell
Google translator Gibberish-English not is only best products that of same, what you say?
Death By Mosquito Truck
I stand by my comment that it’s more of a mixed bag. Pistols or swords?
Batocchio
I guess he missed Romney’s “monarchy” comments?
The guy has so much contempt for his audiences he doesn’t even bother to come up with plausible lies. Rudy was the scary, meglomaniac authoritarian, but Mitt was and remains the sleazy used-car salesman. I think it was Harold Meyerson who called him the Platonic ideal of insincerity.
Bob In Pacifica
There must have been an order to send out puff pieces on Romney. Hack political writer Carla Marinucci of the SF Chronic fluffs up Mitt today. Seems that Mitt is now living in La Jolla, California, and by Carla’s math that gives him a leg up in four states: Michigan, because of his dad, Massachusetts because he was governor there, Utah because he’s a Mormon, and Cali because he lives here and is buds with Meg Whitman who’s the frontrunner for Republican candidate for governor when Arnold slinks away.
There’s an anonymous quote in the article that says Romney can run a company and a country. You could say the same about Dubya. Ran everything into the ground.
Anne Laurie
Except that Massholes on all parts of the political spectrum remember Willard as a smarmy lying sack of Epic Fail. And the Michiganders I knew, such as my late father-in-law the lifelong Republican, couldn’t believe we were dumb enough to make him governor in the *first* place. And I’m sure all his potential opponents already have ads ready to remind Utahns that Willard ran in Massachusetts because, I quote, “Nobody gets to run for president as governor of Utah.” So, if Repub primary voters in California (and the remaining states) are dumb enough to fall in love with The Suit That Walked Like An Animatronic Simulation of a Man, it won’t be that we didn’t warn y’all!
eyeball
So, Romney is the … white Obama? … Nyuk.
Nancy Irving
It’s true that Romney is perhaps the least embarrassing GOP leader still standing, notwithstanding the magic underwear.
That’s not saying a great deal, though.