First Read wonders if presumptive nominee Mitt Romney is playing with fire — or, rather, with scalding, hot tea. First, some background:
*** Stunt men: How do we sum up yesterday’s dueling campaign events? It was a day of stunts. There was the Obama camp holding a press conference in Boston; Team Romney trying to crash that presser; and Romney making a secret stop to Solyndra. What struck us was how both campaigns seemed to be more worried about winning the news cycle than making their point. Did Team Obama really not think that holding an event in the city where the Romney campaign headquarters is located could be interrupted? Likewise, does anyone think Romney would have received more attention with his Solyndra trip if they had actually publicized it instead of keeping it a secret? (Also, they might have tried picking a time other than the very moment all the cameras and attention were focused on George W. Bush at the White House.) When you chase the news cycle like McCain and Clinton did a lot in 2008 — something Team Obama rarely did in ’07-’08 — you forget about other things. Both campaigns chased the news cycle yesterday, and neither got what it wanted.
And now the key question of the day:
*** Riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger: Buzzfeed has this additional observation about yesterday’s stunts by the Romney campaign: They are winning over the Limbaughs and other parts of the GOP base. “[Romney’s] aggressive tactics stand in for the sort of policy compromises that could damage him in November; better, his advisers argue, to court conservatives with a press conference shouting match than with a high-profile fight over abortion or gay marriage. What’s more, they say, the media obsession with Romney ‘pandering’ to the right represents a misunderstanding of conservatives, who can live with Romney’s moderate record – as long as he’s a fighting moderate.” As one conservative remarked to Buzzfeed about yesterday’s Solyndra stunt: “My God, this is right out of Breitbart’s playbook. I love it!” The question is whether riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger is good long-term politics. After all, you ride that tiger — and everything that comes with it — at your own peril, especially if you’re looking to be able to govern after winning, never mind trying to win swing voters in the fall. We get that the campaign believes swing voters are NOT paying attention now, but there’s a line.
This is the crux of the issue in the 21st century. If a political party decides that, in effect, to hell with swing voters, to hell with the other party, by golly all that matters is just getting enough votes to win power, then how do they govern when they get in?
That assumes they can keep up the exact, same level of confrontation to keep the coalition in place. It’s not surprising that, in the end, all of the ringing speeches and rhetoric about how what mattered above all was conservatism would fall by the wayside. No one watching Chris Matthews interview with Newt Gingrich, hearing Gingrich shrug off all he said as in effect just campaign talk, could have missed the real trait of American politics. Primaries really boil down more than ever to rhetorical stagecraft and chest beating on the part of candidates and their followers. In the end, in the general, everyone backs their own political sports team. Regardless of belief.
The key question is whether the 21st century will continue to see an increase in political confrontation, polarization and demonization. If parties only win by that and not be convincing voters they offer affirmative choices, then how DO they govern once they get in?
Unless governing becomes one big angry 24/7 talk show of them against us.
Which would excite some members of “the audience” and totally repeal others.
Which would make governing — than a constant battle to hold onto power — difficult.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.