the Romney message in total flux—where is the real Romney amidst all the obfuscation and conflicting testimony?

August 8, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, conservatism, election, election 2008, GOP, mitt romney, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: debate, democrats, Giuliani, healthcare, lies, McCain, Thompson

In a tedious op-ed titled For Romney, Traction in Iowa, E.J. Dionne Jr. opines:

… The one moment in the ABC debate when Romney seemed agitated came when Brownback attacked his antiabortion credentials, and Romney went out of his way to say that his previous support for abortion rights was his “greatest mistake.” Romney knows that his very skill at political positioning could also be his undoing.

Still, when he was asked about health care, Romney rebuked conservative orthodoxy: He insisted that “tax exemptions” were not enough to cover the uninsured because “the people that don’t have insurance aren’t paying taxes.”

As a rule, Republicans don’t think much about people too poor to pay a lot in taxes. It’s another reason Romney could pose a serious danger not only to Giuliani, McCain and Thompson but also to the Democrats … more

Note how Romney’s line changes yet again on the life issue. No longer was he always personally life; he now admits that he was “effectively” pro-choice and that this was a mistake. Watch for similar concessions and casuistry as it becomes harder for Romney to maintain his SUDDEN CONSERVATISM (sort of like sudden fiction) with a straight face. Even the Eager-Genitals for Mittwit “Evangelicals for Mitt” kick Romney in the head for what they characterize as a “mistake,” like falling down a flight of stairs, and not a serious error in judgment, which is what it is.

The instability of Romney’s line—and by line I mean the “pattern of verbal and non-verbal acts by which” a user of symbols “expresses his view of [a] situation and through this [the user’s] evaluation of the participants, especially himself,” as articulated by Goffman in his Interaction Ritual—develops anew in the next paragraph. Romney reverts to his center-leftism on health care in a “rebuke” to the “conservative orthodoxy,” whatever that could possibly be. For more on this theme please see:

Romney abandons conservative line; reverts to previous line

Dionne praises the troubled candidate for his heresy and promises that the more left-center-Romney “could pose a serious danger not only to Giuliani, McCain and Thompson but also to the Democrats.” Here is the problem with this line of reasoning:

Romney outflanks himself yet again!–poll indicates Romney’s pull to the right alienates independents, centrists, and moderates

yours &c.
dr. d.g.

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