Romney promised the wingers all kinds of crazy stuff during the primary, and as president he would be beholden to a largely winger Congress. So I think we have to conclude that he will do many of the things that he promised the wingers a few months ago. Here’s president Obama making that point on the DREAM act:
Here’s a bunch of ads with Romney trashing immigrants, made for winger consumption, during the 2008 primaries when he was even farther right on the issue. The way he slimed McCain for Kennedy-McCain immigration reform — a good bill that McCain deservers credit for — was shameful.
There’s no way around it: Romney has said he will govern from the far right, he’s slimed many a a primary opponent for not being sufficiently far right, and he’ll have to answer to Cantor and DeMint if he’s president.
This whole “Romney will govern from the center” stuff is total bullshit. Certainly, there’s no evidence for it.
Thoughtcrime
Mitt Romney doesn’t care about black people:
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/06/22/joe_williams_suspended_over_white_folks_remark_on_msnbc_.html
Valdivia
The thing that totally burns me is how all of the media in DC is giving this asshole the presumption that he was just pretending since 2006 to be a total wingnut. And that deep inside he really is a super serious technocrat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think one of the keys to Romney’s personality is that, on a one to one level, he answers to no one– I can only imagine his staff holding meetings to decide how to tell him he’s wrong about something. In a Romney presidency, there will be a lot of subterranean grumbling about Demint and Boehner getting their calls returned by staff. Subterranean because Republicans are smart enough to keep their dirty laundry in the house (I saw Jim Van de Hei on TeeVee last week saying partisanship was Obama’s fault cause he cancelled those weekly cocktail parties just because McConnell announced his number one goal was to ensure Obama’s defeat in 2012). But Romney knows that he will/would need the wing nuts to get the second term, and as we’ve seen, he’ll do anything to get it. And in the second term, the the Future of the Mittlets to worry about. I think Mittens really wants a Mormon Kennedy family.
smintheus
Interesting poll out today showing that in many swing states Obama’s support among Hispanics is going up to the levels he had in the 2008 election, and in a few states even higher.
In Arizona it is way up to 74%. It’s just possible that Obama’s overwhelming Latino support in AZ might finally make the state competitive in 2012. In the last two presidential elections, the Democratic candidates have received only 56% of the Latino vote in AZ. A 20% jump in Latino support is huge in a state where Latinos should make up at least 16% of voters this year. That would be a swing of about 7% from the Republican to the Democratic column; in 2008 McCain won AZ by only 8.5%.
Davis X. Machina
@Valdivia: Because media VSPs don’t actually take this stuff seriously — except for the money part, hence the tax-fixation — they can’t believe anyone else actually takes this stuff seriously.
Taking this stuff seriously gets you put in the petting zoo with Krugman.
Romney has more money than God, so he’s clearly one of the tribe. So the presumption is he doesn’t take this stuff seriously, either. It’s all has to be a shuck, a front, a shell game. He has to be just pretending to be a wingnut.
It’s not an ideological preference, it’s an aesthetic one, on their part. Their ideology is their bank account, and their Rolodex. (Do they still have Rolodexes?)
Never break kayfabe, is the only rule.
Problem is, Romney means it. He actually is a rich mofo with a hardon to bone the Republic. He’s not just the heel.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@smintheus: I’m skeptical about polls till things settle down after the conventions, but I was wondering if the recent bump in FL was from a bump in Latino enthusiasm.
Patricia Kayden
Romney will have no choice but to govern from the extreme right. They’re who will put up the billions of dollars to get him elected. Plus with his Etch-a-Sketchiness, he doesn’t appear to have any firm principles and will do whatever his T’Bagger/Business handlers tell him to do.
I fully take him at his word that he is “severely conservative”. Whatever that is supposed to mean.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-reframes-himself-as-a-severely-conservative-governor/2012/02/14/gIQAaMiqHR_story.html
jl
The contrast in delivery between Mitt and Obama is striking.
Romney’s delivery consists of one and two liners, after which he pauses. Comes off to me like a bad con artists who knows he is spewing BS. Only the purpose of the BS spewing changes, but it is always BS.
Sometimes the Mitt pause is like a horribly incompetent comedian who spends too much time cluelessly trying to evaluate the obviously bad audience response to a lame joke.
Other times, seems more to me as if Romney is in his leveraged buyout money and power master tycoon mode, and he uses the pause to let the implicit threat sink in.
Obama is worlds apart, of course. Commenters will differ, some will say Obama is an excellent con man, and others will say that the reason is that he is not a con man. but in anycase, no comparison in terms of feel of delivery.
It will be interesting to see the two of them together on the same stage at the debates.
trollhattan
Do any of our Deep Thinkers still claim this? Etch-a-Sketch done got broke, as far as I can tell.
japa21
@smintheus: I think there is something else that people may be missing. His percent of the latino vote is going to be higher than it was in 2008, but additionally, the turnout of latinos voting will also probably be higher. One of the complaints about the Bloomberg poll was that it had a higher percentage of non-white voters (including latino) than the norm. It probably was too high, but the old turnout models may well be off base.
smintheus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The poll does show a small Latino bump in FL.
One of the most interesting things about Latino voters is that they’re often extremely well informed about issues…because they get their news from decent journalists like Univision rather than our crappy English language networks. As a result, their voting decisions aren’t as subject to the kinds of crazy distractions that Republicans use to swing the rest of the electorate. I think major shifts in Hispanic opinion are likelier to be substantial and difficult for Romney to erase.
MattF
Problem is that there is simply no evidence that Romney has an actual position on any policy issue. So, sure, hit him on immigration– but I think that character is the real, huge issue and has to be hit over and over again.
redshirt
Why would Rmoney even debate Obama at this point? The media would back him, his supporters would back him.
OR, conversely, he agrees to do 1-2 debates and pulls a Palin – ignores whatever questions are asked in order to regurgitate that moment’s Talking Points.
smintheus
@japa21: I think in several western states his percentages will definitely be higher. The general assumption is that the share of the Latino vote keeps going up at more or less the same rate every 4 years (which would make it 18% in AZ this year). Problem is that GOP is experimenting with all manner of new voter suppression tactics, which could hold things back a bit.
Valdivia
@Davis X. Machina:
Money= smart and moderate? Gah I guess these people haven’t been paying attention to Donald Trump. Or to the fact that Romney and him are one of a kind.
mclaren
Of course Romney will govern from the far right. Any Republican president will.
Just as any Democratic president will govern from the extreme right.
So you have a choice of government on the far right, or government on the extreme right.
Does anything about this false dichotomy strike you as problematic?
Ash Can
ThinkProgress has a dandy story on its main page right now (sorry — can’t furnish a link; I’m on the iPad right now and can’t figure out how to make it do the things I do on a regular computer). Romney campaign co-chair Ray Walser told a Daily Telegraph reporter that Romney would likely rescind Obama’s immigration executive order if elected. No surprise there, of course, but get this — the reporter then calls the campaign for their comments, gets nothing, and Walser later calls the reporter back and says he discussed the matter with the folks at campaign HQ. He begs not to be quoted on the matter (too late, genius), and says the campaign recommends that the reporter get information on the matter from someone other than Walser.
You can’t make this shit up.
Valdivia
@Ash Can:
Just saw that at Plum Line. I am still wondering why people keep saying this is a super disciplined campaign. They seem to not expect any questions, pushback etc.
jl
@Valdivia:
I expect to see a pundit to complain that all this taking what candidates say seriously is interfering with the fine art of lying.
The people of these great United States should understand the logistical problems of so many dogwhistles sounding in different directions, so many back channels, so much too much paranoias to stoke. If only people could understand the difficulties of puling this off, they would have an appreciation for the Romney/GOP logistical and management skills, which are sorely needed to put things in
ordnung, order.Edit: But, wait, what if the Romney campaign turns itself into a reality show? Heh? Could work? I’ll pitch that too them, might make some money off it.
Lurking Canadian
But Romney has broad shoulders and good hair, nd isn’t that what really matters?
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
RE: This whole “Romney will govern from the center” stuff is total bullshit. Certainly, there’s no evidence for it.
There are pundits still selling this, along with the fantasy that Romney will veer toward the center after the GOP convention.
And here in Southern Cal, I’ve heard a number of talk show hosts claim that they voted for Obama, but who now say that they will vote for Romney, because they are convinced that he will govern from the center no matter what he says and no matter what the Republican Party or those in Congress demand or want.
Strangely, some of these talk show hosts even condemn what they see the GOP doing in other states, but then insist that Romney would never try to do the same thing, or allow the same thing to happen on the national level.
But then again, some of this cognitive dissonance also reminds me of a professed liberal who wrote on some blog that the Supreme Court will always uphold Roe v Wade, as though holding on to this was more important than finding ways to oppose and repeal the attacks on women’s reproductive rights at the state level. The idea, I suppose, that as long as a women has a right to abortion, laws and regulations that make actually obtaining an abortion impossible don’t really matter.
In a related way, for these Romney supporters, as long as he passes himself off as a pro-business moderate, what he actually says or does don’t really matter.
Valdivia
@jl:
Well said. Also: I get the feeling that the people in the Village just drip in admiration for the Romney gang because he lies. This is why they never call him out on it.
jl
@Valdivia: I would not be surprised if many pundits do, though probably unconsciously, with signs of violent cognitive dissonance rising to the surface from time to time.
I think this stuff will get the pompous and narcissistic corporate press corps pissed off, though, if it ends up with Romney not playing along with allowing them to look good. If the corporate press thinks some one made them not look good, then whoever did that aint going to look good.
And then, add in the bad tire swing. So I am hoping that the press will just throw up its hands and say ‘eff it, we can’t do this anymore’ at a few critical times during the campaign, wrt Romney.
chopper
the other thing is, mittens has no mojo in the GOP. nobody listens to him and it’s doubtful that, even as president, anybody would do anything he demands. he’d basically be the house republicans’ bitch, the zombie with a pen grover norquist wants to have in the WH.
anybody who thinks that mittens is going to blaze his own trail as president has their head up their ass. even if he wanted to, he’d end up signing whatever the house wants.
Valdivia
@jl:
I think 5 months is a long long time to be weaseling out of answering questions so like you I hope they do get tired.
lamh35
Speaking of Obama’s speech at NALEO today, this picture might just be the cutest thing ever.
http://twitpic.com/9zag5b
FlipYrWhig
@Valdivia: All the lying shows, at a meta level, that they run a “hard-nosed,” “win at all costs” campaign, “they’re in it to win it,” “throwing punches,” etc. Media people eat up that stylistically macho bullshit, even from people who aren’t the least bit macho. Think of how much they loved porcine homunculus Karl Rove.
Valdivia
@FlipYrWhig:
agreed. and they treated him like that even after he utterly failed in 2006-2008. But now he has more money than god to throw around so he must be a genius.
Valdivia
@lamh35:
thank you. made my day.
NCSteve
Almost as ridiculous is the continued insistence of the MSM asshats that Romney has “moved to the center” for the general. He hasn’t. Not one frakking position has been changed, not one walkback has occurred, and not one issue has been broached that in any way constitutes a change from his hard right basejob during the primaries.
Instead, he does what he did yesterday. He gives a content-free, semantically null non-walkback walkback basically saying “on my first day I will do something about this problem and that’s what we need is for something to be done and you can rest assured that something is indeed the thing that I will do. And anyway, Obama made the recession worse which is what I, your better, tell you you should believe and act upon.”
Nothing he has said is inconsistent with the implementation of his primary statements. He continues to go before right wing audiences and take hard right wing positions, just as if he’s still in primary mode. And yet the MSM asshats write and yammer about his “change in tone,” and “pivot to the center” because, being worldly wise and savvy, they know that that’s what the CW says he’s supposed to do, the narrative is, and must be, that he’s doing it.
jl
@NCSteve: Well, if you could make between half a million to many millions a year looking pretty, savvy and wise in front of the camera machine, why would you do any work if you didn’t have to?
GHW Bush said something clueless about a check out scanner and it was a hit, I tell you, a hit, a clip that provided a priceless insight into to Bush I (and required zero work and thought).
So, look forward to a clips and commentary every time Mitt looks awkward around, say, a donut or an expresso machine. If he says something insane or dishonest, that won’t make the cut.
Same with Obama, and ‘funny’ mustards. The corporate media will go this route until they get pissed off by some perceived slight.
pseudonymous in nc
He’d govern from the vacuum. All he wants is to be president, because that’s something his daddy and his billionaire friends don’t have.
DFH no.6
@smintheus:
I’m guessing from some of your posts that you might live out in these parts, so I don’t mean to sound snide or anything, but AZ will not be competitive in 2012.
No way, not even if Obama had 90% of the Latino vote.
I’ve lived in this beautiful but crack-brained state for over 31 years so I know the Mormon dude will win handily here. RMoney will beat McCain’s take in 2008.
The white folk will come out in droves to vote for him, and vote the vile Kenyan socialist usurper out. AZ is still many election cycles away from the Latino vote really having a strong effect statewide or in federal elections.
Won’t matter this year, though. The inimitable Davis X. Machina linked to a state electoral map in an earlier post that I think has the likely results pretty dead on (an Obama win, just with fewer electoral votes than 2008).
The only quibble I have with that map is it shows Obama winning Florida but losing Ohio, whereas I think the opposite more likely. Obama still wins with 303 electoral votes.
The real bellwether state this year is Virginia.
Lojasmo
@mclaren:
You are either a douche or a super-douche. It is indeed problematic.
Lojasmo
@DFH no.6:
Virginia? Are you fucking kidding me? Go back to your cave, concern troll.