Could it REALLY be Romney?
McCain doesn’t need to unveil his running mate until after Obama does (and he would be foolish to jump the gun indeed) but two sources are now saying that it’s going to be Mitt Romney. Could this really be true? I can hardly imagine a better choice … for Obama. (Well, in truth, Obama would likely have cheered even louder if it had been Rudy G.) I understand that Romney was near-and-dear to the hearts of many hard-core conservative Republicans during the primary and was the anointed chosen one by Right wing radio talking heads Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt, among others. But the results of the actual primary votes should have provided a cautionary tale about the always-evolving Mass. Governor.
Look, I don’t like being the guy who keeps thinking that there are still a lot of Americans aren’t going to wind up actually casting their votes for Barack Obama because he’s black. But that fact is, I am that guy and I still believe it’s true. (To blatantly-abuse that oft-quoted Woody Allen line, “What’s a two-syllable word beginning with ‘R’ describing somebody who thinks that? Answer: Realist.”) The sad fact is that we still have a not-insignificant number of people in some parts of this country who just won’t vote for a black guy. If the Republican primaries taught us anything, it’s that there are also a depressing number of folks out there from all walks of life who will not vote for a Mormon.
Some polls released during the recent raids on a polygamist compound showed that many Americans have a hard time distinguishing between mainstream Mormons and the more “traditional” guys with fifteen wives (some of whom may be children) holed up in remote camps out west. While this most certainly may not be any more fair than comparing every black American to a stereotypical gang-banger in South Central, one of the most reliable rules in politics is still in play here: perception can and often does trump reality. If McCain wants to depress his turnout and risk a share of the independent vote, not to mention rescuing Obama from his slumping poll numbers, he couldn’t do much better than selecting Mitt Romney.
He still has more than a week (possibly two) to decide, so stay tuned. We shall see what we shall see.
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12 Responses to “Could it REALLY be Romney?”
According to the Detroit Free Press, Obama holds roughly a 7 point lead in Michigan. A lead that is very soft since close to 31% of the sample said they could change their minds. That, plus the Mayor's scandal and the fact that Obama has been late to Michigan means the state is most definitely in play. Pander Mitt (who says manufacturing jobs are coming back to Michigan) remains very popular especial in the wiped out area's like Flint.
In addition, I can totally see the Rovians orchestrating the pro-choice psych-out to make Mittens more acceptable to the evangelicals. Now, the question is will it work? It might very well, the Rovians are pretty low in the ethics and morals area but they are not dumb. However, they are to some extent working with a loose cannon who will have a very difficult time hiding his contempt for Mittens. Would that result in another “housing” type gaffe? It could, that in combination of another raid on a fundie Mormon ranch could cause some major headaches.
Of course if Obama goes with Biden (who I do like) you have parity in the gaffe gap. Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be an interesting fall.
I have to dispute a throw-away line you wrote… Romney may have been Hugh Hewitt's “annointed chosen one”, but he wasn't Limbaugh's. The closest Limbaugh ever came to supporting a candidate was with Fred Thompson, not Romney. He definitely had some nice things to say about Romney, but he was never his guy.
Obama can just say he supports the disgusting bailout scheme of the Big Three and he will do well in Michigan, especially in Detroit. He can likely count on many of his voters elsewhere in the country being ignorant of this or not caring, or even being the rare people outside of Detroit to be supportive of such a thing. And after all, Obama can simply make more promises of gummint goodies to other groups, too. (“Everything for everybody — or at least for every Dem voting bloc.”)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121936530892762…
As far as McCain and the teevee news anchor (“I [smiling powerfully] am a _conservative_”), it would be enough for me to visit Town Hall to enjoy some perverse entertainment as the reactions began to be posted there. Oh, and of course the anti-Religious-Right bigotry attacks on McCain and the GOP would be given fresh fuel. McCain needs to get someone like Fred Thompson to be his VP.
Many black folks are sitting on their hands concerning Barack Obama. All the Obama supporters in my family who voted for him in the primary firmly believe that McCain will win and “black people should be proud of Obama nevertheless”. And like you Jazz, I believe that a sizable number of people will not cast a presidential vote for a black guy. I feel like crap believing that but it's hard to shake off. BUT I honestly feel that many in that “sizable number” aren't classic racists. I feel it's a combination of past and present stereotypes plus overall uncertainty.
But I'm also the “Obama/Clinton for the win” guy so I'm all mixed up!
I suppose Obama could go with the auto bail-out pander, but, he is on record telling the companies to get their house in order (something the Clinton camp surrogates were pushing at the time, but if he does that and it puts Michigan in his coluum, do you really think a McCain/Romney ticket would come back with some counter pander. I had total respect for McCain for telling people in Michigan not to count on the jobs coming back but he's flipped on so much it would be easy to flip here as well.
BTW-my father is a retired auto exec, my husband's grandfather and uncles have ties to the auto industry and we both grew up in the Detroit suburbs (we are in Philly now). The total devastation that Michigan is going through is not something to be lightly dismissed. Much of Detroit looks like New Orleans and it didn't have a hurricane. That is why the idea of auto pandering infuriates me. If Michigan continues to pin its hopes for the future on the auto industry, it has no future. It desperately needs to look in another direction.
In 2004, the New York Post reported that Richard Gephardt was Kerry's VP nominee.
Oops!!
McCain doesn't have to pick anybody for two weeks. Why should he hurry?
Kathryn,
“The total devastation that Michigan is going through is not something to be lightly dismissed. Much of Detroit looks like New Orleans and it didn't have a hurricane.”
First of all, I am going to insist on making a distinction between Detroit the city itself and the rest of the metro area. I realize this may be tangential or oblique to the real point you are making, but it must be made nevertheless. Cross Eight Mile on the north or approach Detroit from the east and note the shocking change as you reach Alter Street. Detroit the city itself is a case in and of itself, distinct from the metro area.
The metro area is suffering as is Michigan, but it's largely that of these places' own making. The Big Three and the UAW were operating on a long-obsolescent and unsustainable model. They began to become irrelevent by the 1980s, when, for example, I was in California (which has been the real center of automobile culture and which drives trends elsewhere, and has since the 1960s-1970s while Detroit was blind, not merely asleep), and so many of us bought better foreign models. (This includes innovation. Where to this day is the Big Three-made rotary engine sports car, much less other rotary engine cars such as a small sporty hatchback wagon-like Cooper Mini with a rotary engine, for example?) In this Michigan and the rest of the industrial heartland shares much with other places, most notably New York and New Jersey, an exodus of jobs because of business-unfriendly long-held Democratic-and-liberal politics and policies.
The auto industry is doing very well in the USA, but in the southeastern USA. There is much growth and growth-related problems — in the Southeast and the West, not in the Northeast and Midwest, which are heavily Democratic and self-handicapped.
“If Michigan continues to pin its hopes for the future on the auto industry, it has no future.”
Hoping for life support, propping, a crutch, simply buying time, for the failed model, without badly needed reforms (have these places ever learned lessons going back to the 1980 elections?), merits no respect. Were they to become like other parts of the country that are attractive not only to the automobile industry in this country but to the more-glamourous aviation industry, for example, they might do better. They should try to exploit their industrial base for something related to industry. This could include getting a bigger share of military production. That alone won't do it, but could help. But the problem is just as the climate repels so many people compared to what they can enjoy in the South and West, so does the climate against business. Michigan and other places like it have an inferior climate by the standards of the modern public; they are at a disadvantage that means they must make it even _more_ attractive to business than they otherwise would to retain (much less gain) business. (At least Michigan has natural amenities and a typical Midwest culture of stay-put family ties to its credit. Other places lack the boater's and fisher's and outdoorsperson's paradise elements that Michigan can claim.)
I said just as much a few months ago and T-Steel noted it and had started a thread about it. This really isn't much different than when New York City bankrupted itself in the 1970s through its liberal politics and politics. (Then they were parasitic and arrogant enough to demand a federal bailout.) This is “Cyanide Nation” economic and political death-dealing to business.
(Where Detroit city is “entwined” — to what extent is its city government based on a model mimicking to the Big Three and the UAW as if this were still the 1960s?)
Customers won't accept being held hostage, and neither do businesses and taxpayers. Many have voted with their feet accordingly. Many others have left as they see no choice (often broken-hearted to leave Michigan).
And a bailout is _not_ a moral or an economic or logical solution to this problem.
To this point I believe Obama will win, and the Dems overall will do better this year than they did in 2006. The only way this could change would be if Obama or other Dems began threatening to be too liberal. That would please the “progressives” and radicals (except those who were still unsatisfied) but disturb everybody else.
DLS, I completely agree with you on the problems with Detroit's/Michigan's business climate and the why there shouldn't be a bail out of the auto industry. Also, I grew up in Birmingham, my husband is from Grosse Pointe in we are fully aware of the Alter Road divide. What I was getting at regarding Detroit's devastation was that it is spreading. It is most obvious south of Eight Mile and west of Alter Road but it is no longer contained there. My parents live in Bloomfield Hills on a golf course, there are several foreclosed homes on that course. I was in Michigan a couple a weeks ago and drove across the state from my parents home to see my brother. I was listening to a call in show regarding the economy and the panic of the callers from all over the state, places like Saginaw, Mt. Pleasant, Flint, Holland was incredible.
My point is, bad decisions made by both people in local government AND within the auto industry have left Michigan in a huge hole. For Mitt Romney to go to Michigan during the primaries and imply that the auto jobs that left are coming back at the same pay if only you cut taxes was immoral. I respected McCain at that point for being honest, the jobs aren't coming back, you need to look elsewhere. If he picks Romney, someone he clearly has no respect for, in order to win Michigan, it is as big of a flip flop as Obama accepting a bail out for the auto industry (something he has hinted he is against.)
DLS, I agree with everything you said about Michigan. Trying to start and maintain a small business in Michigan is damn near impossible. Ridiculously high business taxes (not to mention astronomical property taxes) doom you as soon as you open the door. Michigan isn't friendly YET to entrepreneurship (which it needs a large amount of), in my opinion.
Kathryn and T-Steel, my living and traveling all over this land while I can do so easily has been intended to, indeed, be a “living education” literally in motion.
* * *
“What I was getting at regarding Detroit's devastation was that it is spreading.”
Yes, beginning with parts of Warren, say. And closer to where your parents are, I've gone down a number of streets near there (particularly in Royal Oak) and can often see a dozen homes for sale on a single block.
Saginaw and Flint really look bad these days. (I've been around since coming here.) Southwest coast (pinnacle of boaters' paradise [tm]) isn't hit as bad, I suspect because it gets the crowds not only from the rest of southern Michigan but also from Chicagoland. When summer ends, then what, though?
* * *
“Trying to start and maintain a small business in Michigan is damn near impossible. Ridiculously high business taxes (not to mention astronomical property taxes) doom you as soon as you open the door. Michigan isn't friendly YET to entrepreneurship (which it needs a large amount of), in my opinion.”
I believe you'll find it's much nicer in numerous ways (including this winter) there in Georgia. (I don't mind snow when it's cold enough to have snow.) Also, hopefully you still have relatively low to very low motor vehicle fuel prices there (1998-1999 at one time when I was there gasoline was 65 cents per gallon).
“a call in show regarding the economy and the panic of the callers”
They don't want to have to leave Michigan, from what I've observed, but they must.
“For Mitt Romney to go to Michigan during the primaries and imply that the auto jobs that left are coming back at the same pay if only you cut taxes was immoral.”
They aren't coming back. Tax cuts alone are never going to make them return.
I'd like to see Midwestern manufacturing survive and even grow here, but it's not going to be like the 1950s and 1960s where the competitors were the nations that were destroyed in World War II to various extents, so there was no foreign competition, and consumers were held hostage. It would be nice to see more aviation as well as automotive and military and other high-value production be done here in Michigan and the rest of the Midwest. The point is, it can be done anywhere in the USA and that means competing with the South and the West outside of California and in the future, Oregon and Washington. (Boeing already has had many a thought of leaving Seattle metro due to similar kinds of anti-business-climate problems and excess costs.)
It's not just Michigan, and not just the Midwest. I lived in Upstate for a while, too. Upstate is not only losing jobs and people, but in particular is losing its young.
http://www.ppinys.org/reports/JustTheFacts.html
http://www.ppinys.org/reports.htm
[small business]
http://www.ppinys.org/policy-primers.htm
[Look at Figure 5. Then consider the worse state now of the Big Three and their suppliers as well as the housing problem.]
http://www.ppinys.org/reports/2003/censusbook.pdf