Morning Fog

Romney Arouses The Base

I had to give Paul Ryan's big debut at the Republican National Convention a miss due to other commitments, but on Thursday once again I managed to tune in the key events of the evening.

Thursday proved to be far more like a real convention than Tuesday's proceedings.  The crowd that listened catatonically to Ann Romney and Chris Christie Tuesday seemed to have been given a jolt of adrenalin two nights later. 

First came Clint Eastwood.  His rambling statement made a few good points, got off a handful of zingers against Obama, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it.  Yet Eastwood himself gave the impression of being dazed and nearly incoherent at times.  Well, after all, he is 82 years old, and is a Charlton Heston look-alike at this point, which made him a good match to his audience, and maybe that's why they connected.  It seems rare to me to put a movie star, no matter how favorable his opinion, in the speaker line-up on the biggest night of the convention; I wonder how much he had to pay them to allow him to do that.

Marco Rubio, by contrast, is not well known to most Americans, yet he stood out as an excellent, rousing, and articulate speaker.  Clearly, he's a man to watch for the future of the Republican Party.  He may even be young enough, and nationally unknown enough at this point, to be able to back away gracefully from the extremist tea-party nonsense he's embraced at times.  Could he lead the party back to reason and moderation?  Perhaps he's already trying; he dwelt mostly on apple-pie themes without edging into Mad-Hatter territory.

And finally, Mitt.  Give the man credit for a pretty good speech.  Romney plugged away at great length toward his main mission -- to portray himself as something other than a cold automaton.  The degree to which he succeeded jprobably depends on the listener's own predisposition, but he gave it a good try.  More important, maybe, he managed to rouse the crowd with a standard old stem-winder. positively saturated with predictable applause lines.  

It was far lighter on specifics of his plans.  He will, for example, create 12 million jobs(!) but doesn't want to tell us how.  And it contained many of the tired old falsehoods about the Obama administration (e.g. the "destroying welfare" canard).     Maybe that's why he so freqently struck that pose - eyes up and to one side, mouth a little down - that made him look like a kid being confronted by his mom, saying "it wasn't me that broke the vase."  (Mom knows better, of course).   But truly, political conventions are not designed to deliver fact, and he deserves credit for stirring up "base" enthusiasm. His speech was probably about the best that might be hoped for; now we'll see how many are persuaded by it.   

Making Romney Human

I got home early enough Tuesday night to see the much-ballyhooed speeches by Anne Romney and Governor Chris Christie at the Republican National Convention.

I think I watched with a fairly open mind, but if Mrs. Romney's job was to make her husband seem fuzzy and warm and likeable, I'd have to say she failed miserably.  Maybe it would have helped if she had talked about him more than a few seconds, but she seemed more focused on enumerating the economic woes engendered by her husband's party, and then talking about the experience of being a woman.  There again, it seemed she fell short; even the staunch Republican core gathered at this core event never caught fire; applause was light and polite.

That's not the story being put out by the Wednesday morning quarterbacks, but it's natural that they'd tend to be deferent to her.  She's not a politician, and it's only fair that she not be criticized as if she were.  Politicians deploy their spouses at their own risk.

Governor Christie was a different story; he got a little more enthusiasm from the audience, but still no storm of fervent applause.  The gathered delegates, in fact, seemed moribund, maybe because they are quite an aged group.  Christie could have done better, but he was clearly trying to rein himself in, perhaps building toward a reputation that could propel him into higher offices a few years hence.  He ought to have stuck to his old fire-and-brimstone persona.   Favorite Christie quote, after he too listed the terrible state of employment, housing, etc. -  "It doesn't matter how we got here."  But indeed it does matter, unless of course you plan to lead us there again and don't want us to remember.

Mitt, meanwhile, seemed as moribund as the delegates on the floor.  He looked wooden and stiff while Mrs. was speaking, and later during the Christie speech, even more so - literally as if he had indigestion.

A surprisingly lackluster show.  If conventions mean anything (and it's likely, as cut-and-dried as everything is these days, that they don't) then this one means Obama should be easily reelected.

Greatness Or Pettiness

In an opinion piece last Sunday that merits more attention, David Alpert asked, in considering plans to turn Washington DC's Union Station into a modern, effective transportation hub, "Do We Still Have What It Takes?" [to do great infrastructure projects]. 

It's a good question, one to which I had to answer "no"last year, when I looked at another recent project, in which frightened suburbanites and the Washington Post itself prevented the planned subway station at Dulles International Airport from being constructed conveniently underground IN the terminal, leaving it to be built inconveniently 600 feet AWAY from the airport, on the grounds that "we couldn't afford it." 

On these questions, I tend to ask, as Alpert does, can we afford not to do it?  Most often, the better solution, even if more costly, has long-term benefits in terms of cost-saving improvements, time-saving and step-saving efficiencies.  And often, we discover to our chagrin later, that the cheaper solution eventually has to be fixed, at a much higher cost than doing it correctly in the first place.   I also like the idea expressed here by Deputy Transportation Secretary Porcari that our generation has an obligation to create the big projects to pay things forward for the next generation -- to create and maintain infrastructure.

I often hear people suggesting that in the current lean economy, governments and even corporations and organizations should postpone or cancel capital projects that have been in the works for years because we "can't afford them."  Shortsighted, because to the extent those projects continue, they help pull us out of recession by creating jobs and putting money into the economy.  

Besides, I don't think it's just the economy, it's a reluctance to think in grand terms, or to take on the tremendous job of overcoming inertia.  Do we have leaders and visionaries who can do so?   We haven't seen them much in the U.S. of late.  The Union Station isn't all that immense, but it would be a start.

NeoRepublicans' Self-Contradiction

I've been noticing in political messages these days that the GOP and/or its PACs consistently try to have it both ways, criticizing Obama and the Democrats for things they do that actually seem to directly parallel Republican principles.

One example is illustrated in today's news from Texas, where state officials are racing against time (and probable future court decisions) to enact their prejudices against abortion and Planned Parenthood before the election.  Now, we all know that Texas is "sui generis" (which is Texan-talk for "a kind of hog call") but the same kind of movement exists elsewhere, and state officials sometimes unfortunately grow up to be federal officials (little shrubs become bushes, even Presidential timber), and try to spread their poison across the country.

On the broader scale, Republican extremists' abhorrence of abortion amounts to a denial of individual and religious rights.  Freedom of religion is a fine, time-honored principle.   Who among us doesn't believe in it?  But in the GOP version, the freedom extends only to their own brand of religion.  Individual rights? Again, something we all stand up for, with Republicans often seeking to claim they have a monopoly on it.  Yet conservative opinions on birth control are diametrically the opposite of real individual freedom; they would like to dictate their version of "freedom" as the standard for all.  George Orwell comes to mind, not Thomas Paine.

 

In Virginia we're seeing a lot of pro-Romney ads seeking to make political hay out of the fact (yes it is a fact) that the plan for the Affordable Care Act includes about $700 billion in savings from trimming waste and duplication from Medicare.  Seniors are being told, in very direct form, that Obama is stealing from them, taking the premiums they paid to fund another program that's "not for them."  

There are many things wrong with that.  For example, that it's untrue, and that it panders to selfishness.  But especially from the standpoint of the modern-day (= antediluvian) Republican.  Elsewhere, GOP pols claim they favor reforms to Medicare; they claim they favor eliminating waste in government; they claim they favor addressing the issue of our overblown entitlements.  Too bad, then, that they choose to attack, and to misrepresent, efforts the Obama administration has made to move in exactly that direction!

 

Then there's the issue of jobs.  For most of the past four years, crusty old Republican leaders like House Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell have made crystal-clear that they believe government can't create jobs (only the private sector can) and that government jobs don't count as "jobs."  An impartial observer (these days we'd have to find a Martian for that role - could Curiosity bring one back, please?) would certainly conclude that's untrue -- government spending can and does create jobs all across the private sector, and Republicans can and do howl mightily when federal cutbacks threaten to lay defense contractors idle. 

But IF your party officially believes in the Boehner-McConnell line, what sense does it make to criticize Obama for the untrue assertion that his government stimulus (for which Republicans voted) didn't produce jobs?  Maybe they should say instead that they voted for a plan they were certain wouldn't work, and try to explain why they did that.   

Note:  As an eternal Diogenes seeking bipartisan balance, I've searched for philosophical disconnects of this magnitude in Democratic party propaganda, but really haven't found them.   Sure, you can argue (as I have) that Democrats aren't being entirely honest about preserving Medicare "as we know it."  But neither are Republicans; and the Democrats' hesitance to face hard facts about the future of Medicare at least isn't philosophically inconsistent with their party's views in general. I'll keep looking, but in the meantime I'm not impressed with the GOP's honesty or consistency.  Where are Eisenhower and Reagan when you need them? 

Misstatements - Were They Thinking?

The campaign season has brought out more than the usual complement of politicians and others blurting out things they might wish they hadn't said.

Today's poster child is undoubtedly Missouri Republican senatorial candidate Akin and his misguided suggestion that a woman's body can "shut down" pregnancies in the case of "legitimate" rape.  Not only is the science bad, but it begs the question of when rape might be "legitimate."  The Republican Party appears to be doing the right thing by cutting off Akin's campaign funding and pressuring him to resign from the race, but he is staying in the race as of this writing.  (I predict he'll drop out soon.)  To me, the seriousness of his statement is not his fuzzy use of "legitimate," for which he has excused himself, but that he is ignorant enough to believe the other part of it.  The Senate is a pretty high level office; Akin's ignorance and refusal to recant it suggests that he's not Senate material.

On the other side of the aisle, we have last week's statement by Vice President Biden to a half-African-American audience about the GOP's plans to "put y'all back in chains."  Naturally, Republicans have bemoaned the overobvious reference to slavery, while Biden's staff has defended the statement as no more serious than Republican references to "unshackling" business.   Biden's use of "y'all" was over the top since we know he doesn't speak that way normally, but worse in my view was that to make the statement at all was more than a bit patronizing, as if the blacks in the audience couldn't have made the connection if he didn't draw it out for them.

It's possible to exaggerate the importance of these little misstatements (the media do so regularly), yet in contradiction of the old "sticks and stones" line, they do sometimes have consequences -- as they may in this case for Congessman Akin.  With public figures in particular we seem to have special difficulty in just accepting it as a mistake and moving on.

As an antidote to constantly worrying such misstatements like a dog with a bone, I find the current installments of John Kelly's regular column in the Washington Post metro section.   See "Readers Share Their Mispronunciations" and "I Did Not Know That."  As Kelly says, the ability to laugh at oneself is precious.

 

Obama's Buds Bail

A curiously timed juxtaposition of two different stories occurred recently. Both involve longtime Obama associates who report they are less in favor of him than they were.

Bud One:  Artur Davis

Davis is a former four-term Congressman who provided the second for Obama's nomination at the Democratic convention in 2008.   Now he's a Republican candidate for Congress in Virginia.  Cool!  That's politics!   But what to make of it?  The Republicans, of course, welcome him with open arms, and he  will speak at the Republican convention.  What's not to like?  An African-American who now says he's disappointed in Obama, and has switched parties.  Black faces are few and far between in GOPland; they'll eat him up in Tampa.

The clear reality, for anyone willing to read the story of Davis's conversion, is that he's a political opportunist.  He tried to become the Obama of the South, running for Governor in Alabama in 2010, but muffed it and didn't get past the Democratic primary.  After moving to Virginia for business reasons, he asked consultants about running for office as a Democrat here but was told the odds weren't good (because of strongly entrenched Democratic incumbents).   And within months, he divorced himself from the Democratic Party, claiming irreconcilable policy differences.   Hmm.

Being an opportunist is not necessarily a bad thing.  (In fact it's directly out of the Romney playbook.)  Davis is right in the groove with most other party-switchers, who switch because they see a better, or maybe their only, chance to be elected.  And yes, they're usually fawned over by their new party.  We just should be aware of the circumstances, and not take the fawning too seriously.

Bud Two: Mark Allen

Allen is a Chicago activist who knew Obama and worked the same areas of Chicago "back in the day."  Now, Allen says Obama's Presidency hasn't produced what he expected for people in South Chicago; he's not so enthusiastic about Obama any more, and at this point he "couldn't care less" about politics.

So Allen isn't an opportunist.  Maybe he's entitled to be disillusioned.  But maybe not.  It's understandable, but it reflects a serious lack of realism about politics.  Big change doesn't happen overnight (or even in four years), especially when someone is fighting tooth and nail to prevent it.  In addition, of course, Obama isn't the President of African-America, or the President of Poor America; he has bigger irons in the fire.  

Unfortunately for what Allen wants, his attitude is exactly what the Republican leadership hoped to achieve.  By thwarting every Obama initiative, including those that would benefit all Americans, they hoped to deaden the enthusiasm of potential Democratic voters and induce them to stay home from the polls. (As a second line of defense they have also introduced those "voter ID laws" in many states.)  In Allen's case, it appears, they have succeeded.

Two Buds

So, two very different stories of two dropouts from the Obama camp.  The first gives little cause for concern; but the second may represent a serious problem for Democratic hopes in November.

 

Expensive Foreign Aid To Ingrates

Every now and then some unsourced blurb about foreign aid makes the rounds on the internet.   Usually, it's a lot like the one I got today -- a list of countries in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere which receive U.S. foreign aid, and an unscientific review of their voting records in the UN, reflecting that they fail to vote with us 75 or 80% of the time.  I suppose I receive more such reports than most people, because of my career in the U.S. Foreign Service/State Department. The outraged sender splutters on about our giving all these huge sums of money to ungrateful countries that won't vote for us, and asks you to get outraged and splutter some more.

It's complete nonsense.  Here's why:

We don't give aid in order to get countries to vote with us.  With give it to further U.S. interests in a variety of ways:  cooperation in military efforts or drug interdiction; improvements in human rights and democracy; furthering economic growth in order to help reduce instability in the world ... there are many more.  Voting with us in the UN just isn't one of them.

Sovereign countries vote according to their view of their interests.  Generally, their votes can't be bought.  What would you, dear splutterer, think if you learned your Congressman or President was taking money from foreign governments to vote a certain way?  It's the same for politicians in other countries.  It's not done.

The UN is a funny place.  One way it's odd is that there are lots of matters being brought up and voted on that aren't the least critical, or even of interest, to the U.S.  So in most of those cases where our aid recipients vote against us, we just don't give a hoot.

And last, keep in mind how small our foreign assistance budget is.   "Man-in-the-street" interviews have been conducted, asking people to estimate how much of its GDP, or budget, the US spends on foreign assistance.  Most people think it's 10, wo, or even 30%.   Many people in poor countries might wish we were that generous, but we're not.  The actual figure (varying from year to year and on how you count some things) is .2 % [of GDP].   That's not twenty percent; it's not even two percent; it's two tenths of a percent.  Knowing that, maybe your outrage should melt away, or if you want to keep it, focus it on something else (like health care costs or the costs of our wars).

 

Romney's Taxes

A lot of folks are raising the question of Romney's tax returns.   Doesn't matter to me; but as a candidate, he must be aware that anyone with an ounce of sense will assume his reluctance to release means he's hiding something.  If he's willing to accept that downside, then fine.  

He's said he has paid everything he owes under the law, and I don't see any reason to doubt that.  So maybe he's only hoping to hide the fact that people making millions of dollars pay far, far less on it that those whose annual income is only in the thousands?

Also raising suspicion is that Romney still hasn't filed his return for 2011.  The limit on extension is 6 months, meaning he'd need to turn it in by October 15 but you have to wonder why, with legions of lawyers and CPAs at his beck and call, he couldn't have filed on time.   In fact, given our election timetable, maybe candidates for President should be REQUIRED to file their returns for the election year no later than April 15.

Cut Spending, Or Repair the Economy? Can An Election Decide?

Many pundits are saying that Romney's selection of Ryan to run for Vice President is a bold move that helps turn the election into a clear choice for voters between two fiscal solutions. 

But it would be a false choice, for neither party is presenting a realistic set of solutions to the problems ahead.  The Washington Post did a good job today of pointing this out, so I won't belabor it, but it's worth a look at the "fiscal myths" that the Republicans and Democrats are respectively touting - reduce the debt or tax businesses and the "rich." 

So, each party persists in pushing a version of reality that doesn't wash.  Why?  Because our election process demands it.  Say something unpopular, even if most people concede it to be true, and you'll be looking at the White House from the outside for the next four years.

There is another danger in looking to the election to resolve things.  In the current political climate, the winning party is likely to claim a mandate for its false version of a cure, no matter how slim a majority it obtains.  (Bush W claimed a mandate even without a popular vote majority.)  To proceed on that basis would doom us to at least four more years of inaction as the winning party seeks to enact its version in its entirely, the "one hundred percent" solution. 

A lasting solution to our fiscal issues will ultimately depend on pulling together workable ideas from both parties (that would be a compromise, an animal that is now almost extinct).  That solution can only be found, if it's going to be found at all, by old-fashioned political horsetrading after the election, with each side conceding some of its more extremist positions.       

I think both candidates understand this.  Which may be able to implement it?  My money is on Obama, who as a second-term President will be concerned with his legacy and has already demonstrated a willingness, even a longing, to work with the opposition (although he was rebuffed by Republicans, who preferred to be the Party of No).  

Romney's "position-of-the-week" reputation demonstrates at least that he personally is a pragmatist, like Obama.   But his choice of Ryan, whose budget plan is a Trojan horse for gutting and enfeebling government, gives cause for concern.   If elected, can Mitt walk back the slavering extremists after throwing them this bone?  Romney will in any event have a lot farther to go to bring about compromise because, as several political studies have demonstrated, far-right Republican attitudes over the past couple of decades have moved much farther right than far-left Democratic views have moved left.  And possibly, as a first term President, Romney is likely to want to prove Obama wrong, which means in effect that he has to prove Bush right - and that is a frightening prospect for all of us.

Here in Virginia, one of those key states for the November election, we're seeing easily 30-40 political spot ads per hour on television.  Many are from PACs insisting that we "deal with the debt" as a priority, rather than trying to stimulate recovery through spending, even temporary.  I think that's a seriously flawed solution, and I don't believe this election is really about the economy, which will improve itself without guidance by politicians.  Nevertheless, in light of the above, IF the PACs really want to deal with debt, they ought to be pushing to elect Obama, not Romney.  

Romney Picks Ryan

Romney has chosen Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, the man up to now better known for his plan to privatize social security and more recently for his take-no-prisoners budget proposal, as his running mate and Vice President. 

The media buzz is that Romney decided he needed to "reset" and freshen his campaign.  In that respect, the choice reminds me a lot of McCain's picking Sarah Palin. Evidently conceding that he can't compete with Obama on the popularity scale, Romney has doubled down on the economy by choosing Ryan.  

Ryan deserves credit for seriousness and purpose, trying to focus attention on our spending.  That's an important goal but (outside the heads of the comfortably-well-off class) it's not the first priority now.  By the time it is, after the election, I'd think Ryan could be more effective for the country by remaining in Congress than by burying himself in Veephood.  Anyway, there is little reason to think the GOP can lead us out of the economic quagmire they created; the last Republican administration, as events have proved, was unaware there was a problem.  You might say it couldn't find its morass with both hands.

Among the three finalists we were told Romney was considering, it seems to me Ryan was always the likely winner.  No one outside Ohio had ever heard of the drab Portman (or was it Porter? -- no one will care now), while Pawlenty would likely have ended up on a list of ineffectual smiley-face Veeps along with Dan Quayle.  Ryan does at least have a record and some national name recognition, so Ryan it is, for better or worse.

I'm going to say "worse" -- probably for the Republicans' prospects in November, but more to the point, for the country at large. The choice represents further lean toward divisiveness and partisanship.  Ryan is the darling of the party's right wing, and his budget proposal is one-sided and partisan.  So in extremis, Romney chose an extremist. It's difficult to see how that will help him attract the swing voters he needs.