 Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
The main doubt about him has been whether he believes in anything enough to stick to it if he did become President.
To hear the candidate himself tell it, Mr. Romney believes above all in "data." As he told us on a visit, his management style includes "wallowing" in data about a problem, analyzing that data like the business consultant he once was, and then using it to devise a solution. A major theme of his candidacy is that he'll bring that business model to a "broken" Washington, apply it to Congress and the bureaucracy, and thus triumph over gridlock and the status quo.
To which we'd say: Good luck with that.
Heh. But wait -- there's more on the flip. |
The only way to overcome [DC's "incentives for self-preservation and turf protection"] is with leadership on behalf of good ideas backed by public support [Hello, Senator Obama! -ed.]. The fact that someone as bright as Mr. Romney doesn't recognize this Beltway reality risks a Presidency that would get rolled quicker than you can say Jimmy Carter.
All the more so because we haven't been able to discern from his campaign, or his record in Massachusetts, what his core political principles are.
Oh, gosh, really? Do go on!
The problem is not that Mr. Romney is willing to reconsider his former thinking. Nor is it so much that his apparent convictions always seem in sync with the audience to which he is speaking at the moment. (Think $20 billion in corporate welfare for Michigan auto makers.) Plenty of politicians attune their positions to new constituencies. The larger danger is that Mr. Romney's conversions are not motivated by expediency or mere pandering but may represent his real governing philosophy.
The editorial then proceeds with a lot of right-wing blather about the MA health care law. But the basic point about Romney's "governing philosophy" is an interesting one. Here's the up-summing, which seems basically on target to me (emphasis mine):
John McCain's difficulties in selling himself to GOP voters reflect his many liberal lurches over the years -- from taxes to free speech, prescription drugs and global warming cap and trade. Republicans have a pretty good sense of where he might betray them. Yet few doubt that on other issues -- national security, spending -- Mr. McCain will stick to his principles no matter the opinion polls. If Mr. Romney loses to Senator McCain, the cause will be his failure to persuade voters that he has any convictions at all.
The Wall Street Journal was always Mitt Romney's natural core constituency. As I have already written:
What a tragedy the Romney campaign is. Here's an indisputably smart and successful guy who could have run an interesting and competitive campaign, if he had only run as what he is: a Club for Growth, Wall Street conservative who believes deeply in free markets as a way to create a rising tide that lifts all boats. My guess is that that guy also understands that immigration is a complicated issue and that the reactionary talk-radio approach to it will hurt American business, and also that he doesn't really care much about social issues as long as people basically mind their own business. But no. Some lame-ass consultant decided that that guy couldn't win in Iowa and New Hampshire, and Romney believed it, so instead Romney created a new, incoherent, and utterly unconvincing persona for himself.
I was wrong in that post about Romney losing Michigan -- his father's legacy plus enough voters falling for his "obsolete jobs are coming back" shtick got him the win. But, IMHO, I was right about everything else. If, given the Republican alternatives, Romney can't even get the Wall Street Journal on his side, what hope has he got? |
