Thousands of journalists and bloggers write about politics and political figures as if their insights were revelation, each seeking overlooked or understated views on this or that piece of contemporary trivia. Herman Cain is an alleged serial sexual harasser, but maybe there is a humanistic back story. Michelle Bachmann makes seriously outlandish and occasionally dangerous claims, but maybe she’s just being ironic like all the kids do these days. The youth vote is hot, after all. Those examples are fabrications; their only goal to describe the nature of the politics blog beast. What is really interesting is the front-runner.
But Romney’s narratives are almost always dry, policy-driven, predictable rehashings of his tendency to go where the wind blows. He was pro-choice before he was pro-life. He was pro-health-reform before he was pro-social-darwinism. The most personal criticism I’ve ever heard about the man is some legend about the Romney family strapping the (occupied) dog crate to the car roof when they went somewhere on vacation in 1983. In the runup to the 2008 elections, this was billed as “emotion-free crisis management.” And I thought that “no-drama” Obama had the corner on that market.
We know that Romney is winning the GOP nomination race despite anemic polling, uninspired, triumphalist campaigning, and a somewhat causal adherence to the doctrines of his doctrinaire political party. The Republican electorate hopes that someone, anyone, will present a serious challenge to Romney, and ultimately Obama. But time and again, the realities of a modern political campaign come calling on their latest cloying, saccharine flavor of the month. Inevitably, someone says something stupid, or some skeleton emerges from some closet, and the money and enthusiasm disappear without a trace. Again and again, they are resigned to the inevitability of a Romney candidacy.
If I were emotionally engaged in who wins the GOP nomination, I’d be irate. After three years of (heavily subsidized) activism against a president in the opposing camp, after all the conservative talking heads spelling out the party message in no uncertain terms, and all the games of to-the-death-chicken on Capitol Hill, it comes down to this callow, glorified used car salesman in a Teflon suit and a weathervane for a moral compass. I’d be looking for anybody but this guy too. But there is no one else.
Last time I checked, the average GOP voter is highly motivated by ideology and emotion. People liked Ronald Reagan because he seemed like a nice guy with a sunny temperament and a knack for making strong statements against a cold war enemy that was already crumbling under its own weight. People liked George W Bush because he looked like their goofball high school buddy, even as he made them feel safe in a dangerous world. They hate Obama because he’s nothing like anyone they know, and, unless he is actively campaigning, comes off as a professorial and condescending.
For most people, finding a president they can get behind is not about policy. It’s about what you hear over lunch at work, what your friends and family say, or, if you’re civic-minded, what you see on the half-hour of nightly news you watch. And nobody likes Romney. He is stiff, phony, nakedly ambitious and opportunistic, occasionally nasty towards his opponents, over-privileged from birth, father to a Stepford family, and an owner of too-perfect hair. Every characteristic that makes the man a winner in life makes him a loser in presidential politics.
Too many bloggers and journalists obsess about Romney’s policy positions, and whether he is “conservative” enough for the modern GOP. Too many people take Rick Perry’s desire to abolish three cabinet-level federal agencies he couldn’t remember, or Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan as gospel, making anything Romney says sound reasonable and eminently presidential in reply. But it’s not about policy any more than Boss Tweed passing out free beer at the polls, or Huey Long stoking the fires of depression-era Louisiana’s working poor. It’s about hitting certain emotional chords among people who might show up to vote in on an Iowa morning in the dead of winter. People who are cerebral enough to pay attention to this campaign in its early stages seem utterly deficient in their analysis of the emotional language driving these candidates. There is so much earnest analysis by people whose intuitions and inklings have grown atrophied by too many years of trying to be taken seriously by other serious people.
We all know that Romney is supported by the GOP establishment; a shadowy group whose sole motivation is to keep all their money and make much, much more. We mostly suspect that he will probably win this nomination by the grace of his powerful friends, and for lack of an alternative. But they all really do hate him, even his savvy and influential benefactors. None of this is revelation, but it’s important all the same.
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