After surveying the field of crazies, David Brooks starts to warm up to the idea of President Mittens.
You can always count on hacks like Brooks to fall in line. Who will be next? Douthat?
by John Cole| 95 Comments
This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Election 2012, hoocoodanode
After surveying the field of crazies, David Brooks starts to warm up to the idea of President Mittens.
You can always count on hacks like Brooks to fall in line. Who will be next? Douthat?
Comments are closed.
Samara Morgan
Kain, of course. Its a small step from GaJo to Mittens.
:)
Zifnab
I’m honestly a little shocked. Romney always struck me as one of those “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride” kind of candidates. I assumed someone was going to step up and undercut him. But he’s held surprisingly strong as the candidate everyone hates least.
Does the man have any Tea Party appeal? Or is he running entirely on corporate steam power?
Certified Mutant Enemy
Romney will have difficulty with 27%…
JGabriel
John Cole:
Probably, though I suspect Will and Nooners are in the running, as well as someone at WaPo, but I don’t read it often enough to know their calumnists by name anymore.
(No, that’s not a typo.)
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JGabriel
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
That 27% is about 80% of the GOP base.
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Svensker
The sane Republicans all love Romney. Unfortunately for him, that’s about 23 people. I still think he’ll get the nom, though, as everyone else flames out. And I still think he’s the only one who has a hope of beating O since he appeals to centrists and lo-info voters, being a successful businessman and sort of “normal”* looking and all.
*Not crazy female, not crazy black, shoulders you can land a 787 on, good suits, etc.
joes527
@Zifnab: Of course Brooks is settling when he goes with mittens. He wouldn’t be his first choice, or even his fifth choice, but the other options on the table are all just too horrible for Bobo to contemplate.
Brooks is terrified of the tea party. The need to be placated by folks like him, so that they will vote correctly when the time comes, but they aren’t his kind of republicans. Not by a long shot.
The Dangerman
The Powers That Be were effective in taking down Perry (N-Head story front paging the WaPost; damn, not exactly subtle). Obviously, the PTB’s have wanted Romney and they may get him (one has to wonder how they would have taken down Christie … hopefully with a padded floor).
So, does the Tea Party take a walk (or run, as in 3rd Party) or fall in line?
piratedan
OT (my apologies)
but I really liked this:
http://wins.failblog.org/2011/10/03/epic-win-photos-street-art-win/
and this:
http://wins.failblog.org/2011/10/03/epic-win-photos-search-engine-win/
Bill E Pilgrim
I loved that article. It should go in a Bobo museum.
If we can get even more of them taking up this anti-charisma line we might eventually end up with them nominating Pawlenty.
Romney will do fine though, I’ll take it. He has Bob Dole written all over him.
JGabriel
Christie Not Running (NY Times)
Which is good, because I don’t think the sidewalks can handle the stress.
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Ash Can
Weren’t all these village yammerers basically in favor of Romney from the get-go?
geg6
Well, now that Chris Christie is deciding that 2016 looks a lot better than 2012, Romney is about all the not-smearing-feces-on-themselves GOPers have. I realize it gives them a sad, but, hey, whaddaya gonna do?
But I’m not so sure that the not-smearing-feces-on-themselves GOPers really have any say so in the matter.
El Cid
Part of Brooks’ game for the stupid and sappy readers and viewers who want to see themselves as the most centristly reasonable is to play coy and skeptical at first, and only in the end yielding to the amorous advances of whatever right wing shittery is sidling up.
JGabriel
@Svensker:
Bahahahaha.
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Corner Stone
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Those 27% ‘ers will use a baseball bat to knock people out of their way so they can go vote for Romney over the black guy.
geg6
Meanwhile, Mittens is NOT going to be one of those wussy GOP candidates who, though none said anything at the time, came out after the debate to condemn the booing of an active duty soldier (he’s looking at you, Rick Frothy Mixture):
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/mitt-romney-jurys-still-out-on-what-those-people-were-booing-when-that-gay-soldier-talked-so-im-not.php?ref=fpa
Mittens…gotta love him.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: Yep, he’s a master at the tease. That’s why so many of DougJ’s contacts think Brooks is so very reasonable. At this point he’s led every category on to think he’s one of them, at least a little.
JGabriel
@joes527:
Does no one else remember that Brooks used to write for the Washington Times, and was a founding editor at The Weekly Standard?
Brooks may pretend to be a moderate Republican for the Times and the GOP elite, but he’s just as low-class as the Tea Partiers. Hell, Brooks helped create them.
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Bill E Pilgrim
@Ash Can: Nope. Here’s Bobo in 2008:
That’s about the 2008 election of course but Brooks remained negative about Romney’s chances since then. It’s only recently that he started this “Er, well, you know having a personality is overrated!” thing, which I find hilarious. He’s also been scared off by how crazy the crazies did become I imagine, in any case that recent article is hilarious.
Southern Beale
BREAKING NEWS: Gov. Chris Christie is still not running for president.
Seriously, this needs to become like the old SNL “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” line.
El Cid
@Corner Stone:
Limbaugh et al were calling for a revolt against McCain until he locked up the nomination, and then as soon as he did it was time to fall in line and fight for the real issues in America: preventing Bill Ayers’ terrorist non-American naive surrendercrat soshullist community organizer buddy who hated Real Americans and especially white people from capturing the Preznitzy.
Bill E Pilgrim
@JGabriel: Exactly.
Greenwald did a look back at Brooks’ statements going back years that was freaking chilling.
JGabriel
@The Dangerman:
With a Sumo Wrestler!
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TooManyJens
@Southern Beale: Already tweeted it:
http://twitter.com/#!/tealdeer/status/121243525013716992
GMTA.
David in NY
LOL.
Not as mean-funny as Dole, though.
cleek
good news about Christie. he’s the only one i’d be at all worried about.
all the other people in the race are clowns.
O could still lose it, but he’s got a much better shot against the failathon that’s running now.
Alex S.
Pitiful column. So Romney outorganized the others by simply keeping 23% of the vote from Nov 2010 to Sep 2011? Jim Talent is the gold standard of advisers?
Douthat might be too catholic to support him. But I guess that the Village GOP is going to try to wrap this up. So the WaPo columnists and Politico (Joe Scarborough) are my guesses.
Darius
Was Brooks ever not warm to Romney? I always got the impression that Romney was exactly the kind of Republican Bobo liked – the big-business, cocktail-party sort.
Also, put me down for George Will as the next big-name pundit to suddenly realize Romney’s virtues.
Spiffy McBang
Brooks’ version of a Freudian slip.
joes527
@JGabriel: Of course Brooks isn’t a moderate. (he doesn’t have _any_ principles to speak of) He is a climber.
What the tea party represents to him is the threat that he has been wasting his time kissing the wrong butts.
TooManyJens
@David in NY: I have to admit it. I kind of adored Bob Dole when, in response to one of those genial “is there anything else you’d like to say to the Vice President?” questions during the 1988 campaign, he snarled, “Yeah, quit lying about my record.”
fasteddie9318
I’m sorry, but I still don’t see Mitt’s path to the nomination. He’s been running for president for what seems like a decade now, and every other serious contender in the race is self-immolating, but Mitt still can’t get above the ~25% he’s always gotten in Republican polling. This primary was always going to be about coalescing behind NotRomney; the fact that they haven’t yet figured out who NotRomney is clearly has not helped Romney. How many of the lunatic supporters of Perry, Cain, Bachmann, Gingrich, etc. are really going to break for Romney if their candidate drops out? They’ve had 5 years to warm up to Romney and they still don’t like him.
JGabriel
Darius:
I don’t think Romney drinks — it’s against Mormon stricture.
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Bill E Pilgrim
Okay look Romney is one thing, but even David Brooks couldn’t actually endorse Ross Douthat as the nominee.
That would be taking lack of charisma to levels where no one has gone before.
Oh wait I see what you mean.
B W Smith
@Corner Stone: That’s not just the black guy…they’ll look at it as choice between the Mormon and the Muslim. Those 27% are absolutely sure Obama is a Muslim. At least, that’s the case in Georgia.
Villago Delenda Est
Mittens is the only thing approaching a viable candidate in the general the GOP field.
Just as John McCain was pretty much the only option in 2008.
At this point in the 2008 campaign, McCain was being written off, mainly because the batshit crazy 27% were proclaiming that he was absolutely, without a doubt, unacceptable to them.
Just like Mittens is now.
TooManyJens
@Bill E Pilgrim: Thank you, Roseanne Rosannadanna.
(Hey, if we’re doing old SNL gags…)
soonergrunt
David Brooks like Romney of all the Republicans.
In other news; water is wet, the sun rises in the east, and Ronald Reagan is still dead.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: The OWS types and their ridiculous fans are way crazy radicals with silly and non-mainstream views, but, gosh, I learn something each time I read Andrew Sullivan, a lot of his views I don’t agree with but gosh he writes so well, etc.
eemom
@JGabriel:
dude. We were THIS CLOSE to a thread where nobody made a fat joke.
Shlemizel
@Corner Stone:
Exactly! Mittens can also woo some large number of “low information voters” who see him as not like the crazy Republicans.
Truman used to refer to the 5 Presidents before Lincoln as “The Little Five” because they were men of large ambition but no imagination and a strong desire to just get along. He blamed them in large part for the series of crises that led to the Civil War.
I don’t think he saw them as bad men or guys that couldn’t get things done just as guys who did not recognize the actual world they lived in & thought there was some common ground that would make everyone happy. A President Romney (probably the only R that can win in ’12) following President Obama could put us at 40% of the little 5.
They were all 1-termers (or less) who failed in different ways to make the changes required to save us from ourselves. There are an awful lot of parallels between antebellum US & today.
geg6
@cleek:
I agree. Christie is exactly the kind of acceptable white guy bully that almost every white male in American secretly wants to be (only with the looks of Paul Ryan!). I found him disturbingly dangerous. Didn’t think he’d appeal to women, though. Women, generally, abhor a bully. Which is why they hated them some Caribou Barbie.
Culture of Truth
we went off the gold standard dude
Bill E Pilgrim
@David in NY: If he starts referring to himself in the third person i.e. “Mitt Romney doesn’t agree”, you know he’s toast.
If he starts calling himself “Bob Dole”, it will be even more obvious of course.
They’re actually very different, I really just mean he’s got loser written all over him. If I could explain what I mean by that, I could package and sell it. But I can’t.
Americans actually elect Presidents because of things that have nothing to do with policy or even politics, it’s almost entirely cosmetic. The networks will start talking more and more from now on about who “looks Presidential” and so on, and that’s not an accident… it’s all that matters.
The sad and dirty secret of US politics. It’s as if people think they’re voting for who gets to stay on a reality show, the one who seems to fit the role best, cosmetically, gets it.
Anoniminous
Mittens needs about nine million votes to get the GOP nomination. Assuming he keeps his roughly 4.5 million from 2007/08 he’s halfway there.
Over the next 8 weeks the insiders should start endorsing and along with those endorsements comes money and campaign staff and support.
With those two, Romney should be able to recapitulate McCain’s road to the nomination.
Alex S.
@Shlemizel:
Hmm… Obama might be the James Polk surrounded by a couple of whigs. I like it…. as a comparison.
Anoniminous
@Villago Delenda Est:
This
We should see Romney breaking from the pack sometime late November/early December.
Bill E Pilgrim
@TooManyJens:
Well if so, you might want to add “never mind!” to your post, since that was Emily Litella ;)
El Cid
@joes527:
I don’t think that’s it.
I think that his kissing of TeaBircher ass would drastically undercut his bread & butter, which is to appeal to the stupidly ‘moderate’ who believe him the reasonable conservative who only believes in every right wing position because he has been dispassionately swayed to do so by the evidence and his magnificently in-depth sociological research.
If he started to sidle up to the Birchpekoes, he wouldn’t be such an honored guest on PBS’ Newshour and wouldn’t get the admiring jowly sighs of Charlie Rose.
TooManyJens
@Bill E Pilgrim: Oh, hell. And here I was all proud that I could type Roseanne Rosannadanna.
handsmile
As JGabriel suggested above (#4), keep a close watch on Fred Hiatt and his stable of Village Idiots to discern the tectonics of conventional wisdom on Mittens’ candidacy. (Other than Dana Priest’s brave investigative work and Harold Meyerson’s columns on labor issues, the only reason to follow “Pravda on the Potomac” is to learn which commissar is standing next to the Premier during the parade.)
Of course the decrees issued by conservative mandarins such as Brooks, Douthat, Will, Gerson, Noonan et al hold no suasion whatsoever for the true believers of the Church of the 27%. Their doctrine is proclaimed by its high priest and true GOP kingmaker, Limbaugh. Are there readers here, who possessing industrial-strength ears and stomach, know of his opinion of the Mormon former governor of Massachusetts?
Villago Delenda Est
@David in NY:
You know, mean-funny REAL Bob Dole might have been a better persona to run under in 1996 than consultant-modified Bob Dole was.
The Bob Dole who appeared prior to the election was meh, at best. The Bob Dole who showed up on Letterman after the election might have won.
Hungry Joe
Romney is like the middle son, Geoffrey, in “The Lion in Winter.” The oldest, Richard (later the Lionheart), has allied himself with his mother, and the youngest, John (later perhaps the worst king in English history), is a sniveling dope. Geoffrey, a nonentity, keeps saying to King Henry, “Look at me, Father. I’m all you’ve got left.” Henry glances at him for maybe two seconds and waves him away. The analogy isn’t perfect (I can’t seem to find a potential Richard the Lionheart in the clown car), but Romney is Geoffrey … except he’s the one this Henry (the GOP — I know, another dicey analogy) will end up with.
fasteddie9318
zOMG HAS CHRIST CHRSTIE CHANGED HIS MIND YET?!?!?
harlana
The Rove Machine seems to be working pretty well since, from what I can tell, Fox News was immediately all over Perry’s poor debate performance, a harbinger of doom. He could have whipped it out and pee’d all over Wolff Blitzer and been lauded as brave and refreshing! had Fox not decided to throw him under the bus.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Culture of Truth:
Greg “workers shouldn’t whine when they lose their jobs due to off-shoring” Mankiw – FAIL
Jim “failed senator and spammer” Talent – FAIL
IM
Somebody has to win the republican primary. So it’s Romney by default.
piratedan
@Darius: well Romney may have brought BoBo to the dance, but that doesn’t prevent Bobo from fantasizing about other partners, in a secretly lusting yet maintaining his chaste image kind of way.
eemom
We really should pause a moment, amidst all the sturm und drang, to appreciate how utterly hilarious of a spectacle this is.
Know what the republicans are like? They’re like Scarlett O’Hara searching desperately for the right dress to wear to the barbecue to win Ashley’s heart.
There’s the green one, but everyone’s seen it, and besides it’s got a big spot on it.
There’s the pink one, but the neckline is too low. There’s the white one, but it’s too little-girly. There’s the black one, but it makes her look old. There’s the red one, but it makes her look fat.
One by one, all the dresses are yanked off their hangers, surveyed and discarded.
Sigh. The
green dressRomney it is.Corner Stone
There just isn’t time for a “new” candidate to be viable. Who’s the most famous actor or rock star in the world that is an avowed Republican? I don’t know, but that is who it would take at this point. Someone with a built in fan base to start and someone who could self fund the first $20M or so.
This mythical person hasn’t yet spent a dime in Iowa, and Romney has NH all but locked down. After that you have mainly SC then Super Tuesday, depending on FL’s decision.
If Perry can keep his head down* and grind out the $20M or so he’s supposed to have raised recently then he has a chance to level the playing field against Romney.
I don’t believe Perry can do that because like Palin, the more people see of him the less they like him.
So, Romney.
*I was sooo tempted.
Judas Escargot
@Alex S.:
Maybe Obama needs to invade Mexico, after all?
eemom
@Hungry Joe:
Ah, I see I am not the first to reach out to folklore.
JGabriel
@eemom:
You’re welcome! I live to serve.
.
Corner Stone
So one of my friends is a complete nutter. Has voted for Pat Buchanon at every opportunity he could. Thinks anyone to the left of Uncle Pat’s positions is a RINO, and hates their freakin’ guts. Hates them. But he’s voted in every election possible since I’ve known him, which is 20+ years now. Any guesses who he’ll be voting for in ’12?
And “Hitler” doesn’t count.
Elie
@eemom:
Was that the dress that Carol Burnett spoofed during her take on Gone with the Wind, that still had the curtain rod in place across her shoulders? (dress was made from old curtains) If so, I think that the image you just described fits Romney to a tee… AWKWARD!
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
Norris/Nugent ’12!
David in NY
@Villago Delenda Est: Or better, if Dole had a sense of humor that could be just funny, or even self-deprecating. But it was mainly a weapon used to ridicule someone else, and his handlers were probably right to make him button it up. People didn’t like it. But that left him an empty suit.
Alex S.
@Judas Escargot:
Well, it didn’t give Polk a 2nd term either… (cheap trick, I know, but it’s all I’ve got)
El Cid
@FlipYrWhig:
piratedan
@Alex S.: considering he didn’t seek the office, may have had something to do with it.
WereBear
They’re Republicans. They get starbursts and lust thrills and lurking icky thoughts; but HAPPY they don’t know what to do with.
Romney it is.
Rafer Janders
@Hungry Joe:
The analogy isn’t perfect (I can’t seem to find a potential Richard the Lionheart in the clown car), but Romney is Geoffrey … except he’s the one this Henry (the GOP —I know, another dicey analogy) will end up with.
Aggressively stupid, arrogant, obsessed with weapons and demonstrations of faux-machismo, dogged by rumors of a secret gay life — you really can’t find the Richard in this field?
aisce
@ alex s.
one could argue that universal health insurance is obama’s mexican war. it fundamentally reshaped the nation and will endure forever, but it doesn’t really get at the cancer rotting the heart of society. and the cancer will eventually need to be dealt with.
eemom
@Elie:
Yes indeed!
As an interesting aside, Carol Burnet was successfully sued by the heirs to Margaret Mitchell’s estate for copyright infringement over that episode. They’re her nephews, and a very litigious pair of bastards.
eemom
feh, I was trying to correct that but my edit time expired.
I misspoke a bit there — it is true that the Burnet scene was a spoof of GWTW, but the dress made from curtains was a different scene from the barbecue dress.
I loved that book as a youngster, so I gotta get it right.
Elie
@eemom:
Wow!
Hopefully, they did not win… I actually saw it recently on a highlight show about Carol Burnett — so I imagine if they had won, they would not have been able to show it again?
I laughed my ass off with that episode (shows how old I am, but who cares!)
David in NY
@eemom: Is that true? I know Mitchell’s estate sued somebody else for a re-writing of the story in GWTW, but I can’t find any indication that it sued Burnett. Maybe I’m just missing it.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
Obama, ’cause he’s bad as Hitler?
.
Hoodie
Romney is the only candidate who could possibly be the standard bearer of the incoherent jumble of racists, religious fanatics, ideological fanatics, delusional paranoids and assholes that make up the Republican Party these days, because he seems bereft of conscience and principle and devoid of any sensitivity to inconsistency or irony. I imagine Christie realized that even he couldn’t pull that off.
The Other Bob
@Corner Stone:
Ted Nugent? Hank Williams Jr?
Corner Stone
@JGabriel:
I thought I made it clear that Hitler was not an option for him.
fasteddie9318
@Corner Stone:
Göring?
Himmler?
Himmler’s diabolical twin sister, Hermler?
Villago Delenda Est
@fasteddie9318:
Bimler. The name is Bimler.
uptown
Been seeing “and I’m a Morman” ads showing up on the TV in Seattle. Guess someone is thinking ahead.
kindness
Uh oh! Bobo seems to have popped a tent in his pants for Mittens.
Someone hand the guy a box of Cleenex. Last thing we want is what is sure to happen. Hope the poor poor man has a change of pants in his office.
Linda
OMG–talk about the bigotry of low expectations. A professional contortionist couldn’t limbo under THAT bar.
Hungry Joe
@ Rafer Janders:
“Aggressively stupid, arrogant, obsessed with weapons and demonstrations of faux-machismo, dogged by rumors of a secret gay life—you really can’t find the Richard in this field?”
Damn, you’re right. (A young Anthony Hopkins was Richard in the film adaptation. Brilliant.) As for the GOP … as Eleanor of Aquitaine put it, “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”
eemom
@Elie: @David in NY:
hmm. Maybe I’m misrememberating. Or maybe they did lose.
It was a hilarious scene, anyhoo.
rikryah
come on Mittens!
Ian
@Alex S.:
He didn’t run for a second term. Said he got everything he wanted done and he did not care for the presidency.
DFH no.6
@geg6:
Not cool and total bullshit. Really, geg6? I read and enjoy your comments here all the time, and I’m way disappointed in this one. Likely you don’t care. Not going to comment further on such ridiculous goddamn bigoted nonsense.
Anyway, yes, I’ve been saying Romney is by far the most likely nom, for all the reasons many in this thread have stated.
All the rightwing mouthpieces will eventually get on board, just as they did with the last Republican candidate that the conservatives hated until they didn’t (McCain in ’08). Fascists do lockstep very well, of course. It’s a strong suit.
Romney is the 2012 McCain, and I even expect him to pick the 2012 version of Palin for his veep.
Except this time, Romney’s the “change agent” and Obama’s the status quo. And the economy sucks.
And thus Battle Royale for Obama against Romney.
Which is why I’m still rooting for Perry.
4jkb4ia
It’s going to take a while for Douthat to come around because on Sunday he wrote that Romney can’t take advantage of a real right-wing populism IIRC. The Douthat shtick doesn’t depend on any particular candidates.
(I don’t believe Douthat gets to write every Sunday either, but such is the case)
mpbruss
Not Douthat; someone else (it’s the Mormon thing).
DanielX
David Brooks seeing starbursts for Mittens….who knew? Not much more predictable than grass being green or water being wet. Ain’t no big surprise, Romney is the only Repub candidate who wouldn’t be clapped into Bedlam (today we call it “protective custody”) the first time he or she opened his or her mouth at a Georgetown cocktail party. Of course ‘some’ said the same thing about W, but he got a bye ’cause he’s a Yalie.
We can now anticipate Brooks, Noonan, Will and of the Village Asshole…er, Hallelujah Chorus contorting themselves into positions worthy of a Chinese gymnast in their efforts to show that Mitt Romney is a Man Of The People, A Natural, A Man Of Firm Beliefs who completely understands the problems faced by the (rapidly diminishing) middle class….
Whoops! I was actually channeling of those jerkoffs there for a moment. ::::::Pause for medication:::::: Better – actually, Mitt is kind of the Mormon Republican version of Evan Bayh, a man who never saw a position he couldn’t straddle, to the point where I’ve been told his backside looks like a damn waffle iron. Mitt seems to be very much out of the same mold (except a whole lot richer). How could Bobo NOT have a crush on him? He’s a Republican, he looks good, he’s rich, he seems passably intelligent and he doesn’t appear to be clinically insane, the latter two qualities alone putting him head and shoulders above most of the other Rs in the running. Why…..why……he looks like a Centrist! of course, there is that tiresome business about his being a Mormon, and Mormon doctrine not admitting that blacks were actually human beings around 1985….but it would be SO crass to bring up such things, much like publically discussing the Three Wives of Newt the First, well known genius and family values guy.