Posts Tagged ‘agony-in-iowa’
“PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – Presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday attributed a big part of his Iowa loss to the fact his main competitor had an established base of evangelical support, which turned out in force,” writes Thomas Burr of the Salt Lake Tribune in an article titled Romney attributes Iowa loss to faith
Romney, who has worked to overcome fears about voters backing him as a Mormon, took only a fifth of evangelical voters who turned out to caucus in the first test of the presidential race. Republican rival Mike Huckabee, a Baptist-preacher-turned-politician, took nearly half of that category of voters, according to entrance polls.
The Romney campaign credited a large turnout by evangelical voters – many of whom see Mormons as heretical – for Huckabee’s victory.
“Mike had a terrific base as a minister – drew on that base, got a great deal of support, it was a wonderful strategy that he pursued effectively,” Romney told reporters Friday in New Hampshire where he was fighting for a victory in that state’s first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday.
Romney said he came into Iowa an unknown governor of Massachusetts, the “bluest of the blue states,” and campaigned hard to educate voters about what he stands for. But that, apparently, wasn’t enough as Huckabee trounced Romney 34 percent to 25 percent.
“Had I been a Baptist minister, I perhaps could have chosen a different path, but that wasn’t the path that’s available to me,” Romney said. “He took one that was available to him, worked it extremely well, turned out people extremely well and I congratulate him on a well-run campaign.” […]
This self-pitying, “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam“ Romney-rant is beneath comment. Well, almost. In another post we wrote
An emerging “fixed point” now conditioning and organizing the discussion is the notion that voters want “change.” (By “fixed point” we mean a point of convergence or common assumption emerging in the popular account.)
Another emerging fixed point is that Iowa decided for Gov. Huckabee because of anti-Mormon bias etc. This is as wrongheaded as it is condescending. Here would be the counterpoint:
More counterpoint from Patrick Ruffini in a Townhall.com blog burst titled Iowa Shows Passion & Energy Matter:
[…] As I wrote on December 11:
[Huckabee’s] success is not about ideology, but identity. For his voters, he’s a Christian first, and a conservative second. Attacking him on conventional conservative issues won’t undermine his core support because it has nothing to do with being a conservative.
Ruffini’s point on its face supports Romney’s bitter complaint. But Ruffini continues:
Huckabee won women 40-26% (and men just 29-26%). He won voters under $30,000 by about 2 to 1. Cross those two, take away the Republican filter, and you’re talking about a general election constituency that is at least 2-to-1 Democratic. These are not people that conventional primary campaigns are designed to reach. These are the Republican voters the furthest away from National Review, other elite conservative media, and websites like this one. It’s easy to see just how the analysts missed the boat on this one […]
[…] Conventional organization may matter less in an era of high-stakes, high-turnout elections. Romney’s Iowa chair Doug Gross was quoted as saying that 80,000 was their “magic number” for overall turnout. It’s easy to see why. With 26,000 Romney votes, that would have been good for 32.5% and a win — about the same percentage they got at Ames (where turnout was historically low).
The Romney campaign was an efficient machine that knew who its voters were and turned them out. The problem is that Mike Huckabee’s momentum brought in new voters off the beaten path — more Evangelicals, more women, people lower on the income ladder. Think about this: In the 2000 Caucuses, only 37% described themselves as “religious right.” This year, 60% described themselves as “Evangelical Christians.” That’s an imperfect comparison, but the universe of Evangelical voters almost certainly expanded this year […]
Conclusion: the fixed point emerging in support of Iowa is the new GOP coalition, a coalition based on a renewed conservative movement that the elite conservative media failed to even register in their opinions and analyses.
Or where they did register it, they either dismissed it or ridiculed it.
Sadly, the new elite liberal media is the old elite conservative media.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
P.S. Always remember: effective politicians NEVER, EVER BLAME THE VOTERS.
“PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Mitt Romney built his campaign on a carefully managed strategy to win early and often, and Iowa was arguably the most important piece of the puzzle for the former Massachusetts governor. But that did not stop Romney from putting a positive spin on last night’s damaging defeat,” writes Scott Conroy in a http://www.cbsnews.com release titled Romney is “Delighted” With “Important Victory”—nota: the scare quotes around “important” and “victory” are in the original!
(Question: Is this naive and transparent spin? or is this delusion?)
“Things look very good for me at this stage,” Romney said at a morning press conference that felt more like the middle of night to the slew of staffers and reporters who hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. “I’m very, very pleased. I was delighted, as you know, with a second place finish. I wish I’d have had a first-place finish, but being able to beat three household names — John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson — was an important victory for me.” […]
Only here is the problem for the Romney: Sen. McCain, Mayor Giuliani, and Sen. Thompson wisely invested almost nothing in the Iowa contest. Gov. Huckabee, Romney’s nearest competitor, got outspent by Romney dollar for dollar about 20 to 1, yet he defeated Romney decisively.
Back to Conroy. Here Romney elaborates on the lesson he took from Iowa:
[…]“The message I got out of Iowa was that people in Iowa said they want change,” Romney said. “The two Washington insiders — John McCain and Hillary Clinton — both lost. John McCain by a lot. And I look at that and say what you’re seeing from the people of Iowa is that they want someone from outside Washington to come in and change things in Washington. And that’s right up my alley. There’s no way Senator McCain is going to be able to come to New Hampshire and say he’s the candidate that represents change and he’ll change Washington. He is Washington” […]
Only here is the problem for Romney. He has spent an entire year and US$80 million dollars to cast himself as an agent of continuity and conservative orthodoxy (as he construes it in his unreconstructed, ingenue way), not change.
Sen. McCain, on the other hand, has spent his entire career driving the GOP establishment and its institutions—think tanks, party operations, talk radio shock-jocks—hopping mad with white-hot rage. Sen. McCain doesn’t even need to argue that he is an agent of change. He has respected Democrat, Sen. Leiberman, to do it for him, a gesture that in itself represents change and national unity.
Conclusion: Strangely, bizarrely, Romney once again develops and retails a message that requires his audience to
(a) interpret facts as their opposites
-and-
(b) construe events not on their face, but according to a tormented casuistry
Only in the post-Iowa phase of the process Romney’s Humpty-Dumpty rhetoric (see our post-script) provokes derisive laughter instead of strained credulity. Please note Conroy’s sneering scare quotes in the title of his article. Please note how he invites his reader to laugh behind the hapless candidate’s back. These are not good signs for the hapless candidate. The media has scented blood.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
P.S. From Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, CHAPTER VI, HUMPTY DUMPTY:
[…]`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master — that’s all.’ […]
“In a sign that Mitt Romney is really going all out to win this thing, and also that genuine grassroots support could be slowing down, he revealed yesterday that he did indeed put more of his own money into the campaign during the fourth quarter — but he won’t reveal how much,” writes Eric Kleefield in a Talking Points Memo blog burst titled Romney: I’ve Put In More Money — But I Won’t Tell You How Much
The emphasis is ours, all ours.
Could this be why?
Another artifact of Romney’s negative campaigning. Others feel compelled to defend the victims of Romney’s abuse. Kleefield also reports that the Union Leader has bashed Romney on its front page!
Mitt Romney is facing some more media fire in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Union Leader’s publisher, Joseph W. McQuaid, has written a front-page editorial bashing the candidate over his attacks against John McCain …
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
“Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister riding a wave of support from fundamentalist Christians, tops Mitt Romney for first place in a new Des Moines Register poll of Iowans planning to attend Thursday’s Republican caucuses,” writes Jonathan Roos in a DeMoines Register article titled GOP poll: Huckabee maintains lead over Romney
In a battle of former governors from Arkansas and Massachusetts, Huckabee leads Romney, 32 percent to 26 percent.
This despite months of massive spending, organizing, and near media saturation by Romney:
- Edsall: “Since January 1, 2007, the former Massachusetts governor has spent well in excess of $80 million, including at least $17.4 million of his own money, paying media fees in excess of $30 million, salaries of roughly $16 million, and consulting payments of more than $15 million”—more on Romney’s ridiculously low ROI for his every campaign dollar (iii)
- More on Romney’s ridiculously low ROI: Romney reaches total saturation in Iowa—for example, he purchased 2,000 GRPs in Cedar Rapids alone—yet he still trails perilously behind the under-funded and under-organized Gov. Mike Huckabee
This despite Romney’s relentless attacks on the person and character of Gov. Huckabee for weeks now, combined with the GOP establishment’s infantile freakout over Gov. Huckabee’s rise:
- Romney’s negative campaigning: is Romney willing to take the party down with him?
- conservative elites smack down the Republican base—can they do so with impunity?
Back to Roos:
“I really like it that he is a religious man and social conservative. That is pretty important to me, especially the right to life,” said Huckabee supporter Alyssa Stealey, 20, of Charter Oak, who is also drawn to his call for tax reform.
Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister riding a wave of support from fundamentalist Christians, tops Mitt Romney for first place in a new Des Moines Register poll of Iowans planning to attend Thursday’s Republican caucuses.
In a battle of former governors from Arkansas and Massachusetts, Huckabee leads Romney, 32 percent to 26 percent.
“I really like it that he is a religious man and social conservative. That is pretty important to me, especially the right to life,” said Huckabee supporter Alyssa Stealey, 20, of Charter Oak, who is also drawn to his call for tax reform … etc.
The DeMoines Register poll is consistent with other polling:
“Well, there’s a new Iowa poll out: the Reuters-Zogby, which shows Mike Huckabee with a two point lead over Mitt Romney,” writes the writer of the watersblogged blog in a post titled Romneybust!
Since the most recent poll has Huckabee leading- and since Romney’s newly-minted RCP average lead (owing to at a poll with yet another pro-Romney result so out of step with the others to be suspect) has shrunken overnight to .04%- I guess we must be witnessing a Romney implosion.
Or at least that’s the conclusion one reaches if one uses the the logic pro-Romney folks have been using over and over and over during the past two weeks to demonstrate that a “Huckabust” was underway (“Yes! Huckabee is imploding!…uh, ok, NOW. Now Huckabee is imploding… well, OK. Now. Now for sure….”)
Have to congratulate them on one thing, though. Just before this most recent poll- the one that shows Huckabee in the lead- the Romney folks finally managed, after two weeks of proclaiming that their candidate had recovered and that Mike Huckabee was history- for the first time since early December have actually been able to cite two consecutive Iowa polls showing Romney in the lead!
With tne latest poll, of course, the streak is over. Worse, the Huckabee lead is one point bigger than that shown by the Reuters-Zogby poll of the day before.
That poll was, for some reason, not included in the RCP average- and seems, however tentatively, to suggest a trend toward Huck … etc.
Conclusion: Even if Romney ekes out a victory—or: even if Romney scores a double-digit blow-out—Romney’s fantastically low ROI, i.e. how much he has expended for how little he got in return and against under-funded and un-organized rivals, will be the real story coming out of the Iowa. MarkG of race42008.com makes the case tongue-in-cheek:
My gut feeling tells me Mitt will now swap places with Huck for the actual caucus figure. The headlines will say Mitt spent his estimated 9 million bucks wisely to get circa 30,000 votes. The press will speak long and verbosely about how wise Mitt was to finance his campaign by as much as a third, and speculation will run wild for days about how much of Mitt’s finances were from his own pockets … etc.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
“There is now obviously an evangelical backlash going on in Iowa and there will probably be a backlash against the evangelical backlash in New Hampshire,” writes Rich Lowry of the formerly conservative, and bought-and-paid-for-the-Romney-campaign’s NRO in a Corner post titled Friday Afternoon Speculative Horserace Thoughts
That means someone else besides Huckabee probably wins there. If it is Romney or McCain, he becomes the candidate of the Republican establishment … etc.
Remarks:
Romney already is the establishment candidate, and has been since last summer. The problem for the establishment: Romney has failed to develop traction despite his astronomical spending.
We concur with Lowry that Gov. Huckabee’s rise reflects an Evangelical reaction (backlash is Lowry’s term), a reaction to Romney, and not the first time. Elsewhere we described Gov. Huckabee’s rise as a breakout, as in breakout population.
But the slow, halting, and begrudging rally to Romney’s standard is but a counter-reaction Gov. Huckabee’s rise—an artifact of the general freak-out among the partisan commentariat at the prospect of a Huckabee candidacy.
S0: Reaction (Gov. Huckabee) that calls forth counter-reaction (Romney).
This is not the ordinary contrapuntal music of an ordinary primary season. Rather: This is the sound of an issues coalition breaking apart, with sudden breakouts at the extreme margins, and only emptiness in the middle. For Romney this is the sound of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” a track the Romneys played in an almost empty room at a country club in Carroll Iowa, as reported by Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones in an article titled Don’t Stop Believing: Romney’s Swan Song?
… After speaking for only over fifteen minutes, during which he garnered infrequent and tepid bursts of applause, Romney received three questions before the crowd fell still and he had to prompt further discussion with the line, “Well, this is quiet here” …
… [Stein] asked [a Romney partisan] about Huckabee’s support in Iowa. “The Evangelical people are Bible-toting people and they like him because he is a minister. But you can’t run your country on the Bible,” she said, sounding exasperated.
“Do you mean in a practical sense?” I asked. “Or because it violates the Constitution?”
“No,” she said. “Most people who are Bible-toting people want to be everything to everybody. You’re supposed to give to the poor, and you’re supposed to do this and that. And that’s fine. But when it comes to running a country, you can’t be that way.”
“They’re just too nice?” I clarified.
“Yes!” she said … etc.
Further evidence of Romney’s Agony-in-Iowa despite having spent US$7 million dollars in the state: the increasingly absurd grandiosity of Romney’s claims. Kernels From Iowa: Romney vows to eradicate illegal immigration, is Rick Montgomery’s headline, also reporting from Carroll, Iowa.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
P.S. An apter theme song for Romney’s failing Iowa campaign would be Kanye West’s Stronger:
… N-n-now th-that that don’t kill me
Can only make me stronger
I need you to hurry up now
Cause I can’t wait much longer
I know I got to be right now
Cause I can’t get much wronger
Man I been waitin’ all night now
That’s how long I’ve been on ya …
“James Dobson Declares Values Voters Still Have a Strong Voice; Calls Romney’s speech a “magnificent” reminder of faith’s role in politics and policy,” as reproduced by Justin Hart in a race42008.com post titled James Dobson on the Romney Speech
Colorado Springs, Colo. — Focus on the Family Action founder and chairman James C. Dobson, Ph.D., issued the following statement today in response to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s speech on “Faith in America”:
That’s interesting. Is there a vast Dobson responsa literature?
“Gov. Romney’s speech was a magnificent reminder of the role religious faith must play in government and public policy. His delivery was passionate and his message was inspirational. Whether it will answer all the questions and concerns of Evangelical Christian voters is yet to be determined, but the governor is to be commended for articulating the importance of our religious heritage as it relates to today.
Dobson’s reasoning is perverse on its face. Romney’s inoculation script—what bloggers refer to as The Speech—reminds us not that religious faith plays a role in government or public policy, but rather in US electoral politics as the Evangelical movement, whom Dr. Dobson purports to represent, maintain a bloc that Romney sorely wants to claim for his own. It is precisely Romney’s peril—his Agony-in-Iowa—that provoked Romney into finally delivering The Speech.
Please also note Dobson’s hedging and qualifying: “Whether it will answer all the questions and concerns of Evangelical Christian voters is yet to be determined” … etc. Dobson is right to be cautious. He’s been burned before for drawing too close to Romney, e.g. at the so-called Value Voters Summit:
Back to Dobson:
“Many in the media have been busily crafting the obituaries of ‘values voters’ in recent months. David Kirkpatrick of The New York Times, along with Tom Brokaw, Frank Rich and other liberal journalists, have been predicting a dramatic ‘Evangelical crackup’. They are dead wrong. Religion has already played a major role in this election cycle, and will continue to be evident through’08. The sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage and the care and nurturing of children will be important issues to people of faith as they choose a new generation of leaders. You can take it to the bank.
Here is Dobson’s real concern, his only concern: power, power in the form of the influence he once wielded in Republican party politics. Dobson uses the occasion of Romney’s abject humiliation—Romney’s being forced by Gov. Huckabee to dwell on the topic of his faith tradition—to lash out at voices in the media who had the audacity to suggest that Dobson’s power is on the wane.
“Again, Gov. Romney’s speech served as a reminder that religion has always played a significant role in electoral politics. Candidates who disregard the spiritual heritage of this great nation and its viability today will do so at their peril.”
Here Dobson corrects himself precisely where we suggested above—not government, not policy, but the marketplace-barnyard of electoral politics is Dobson’s concern. What Dobson means to say is this: “Candidates who disregard Evangelical elites like Dobson will do so at their peril.”
Here is the problem for Dobson: power—power not in the form of coercion, but rather power in the sense of group cohesion or social solidarity, what ibn Khaldun would call asabiya—never needs to justify itself or to argue for its own existence. And Romney’s speech is not a demonstration of Romney drawing strength from a vital movement or an historical source, but precisely the opposite—it is rather a demonstration of supreme weakness, almost helplessness on Romney’s part as he tries to attach himself to a base that has lost its coherence.
Moral: Dobson and Romney deserve one another.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
P.S. About my subject line: apologies to Dylan Thomas and lovers of poetry everywhere.
“Mitt Romney, the Mormon who has seen his White House hopes fade in recent weeks, will stake his political future on a John F. Kennedy-style speech tackling the issue of his faith,” write Tom Baldwin and Tim Reid in a timesonline.co.uk release titled Mitt Romney gambles on JFK moment to stay in the battle to be president
The Republican presidental candidate acknowledged tacitly yesterday that the speech had become necessary because of fears about his religion among evangelical voters in the crucial early state of Iowa.
A weekend survey of Iowan voters, who kick off the nominating process on January 3, suggested that Mike Huckabee, who portrayed himself as an “authentic” Christian conservative, had surged five points ahead of Mr Romney in the Republican race … etc., etc.
Comments:
Note the grim hyperbole. Romney “will stake his political future on a John F. Kennedy-style speech tackling the issue of his faith?”—way to set up impossible expectations. Note also the tone of abject desperation. Note that the notion that Romney’s JFK speech is a knee-jerk reaction—almost a pain-response—to Team Romney’s Agony-in-Iowa, has become the consensus opinion.
Has anyone ever so disastrously mis-managed a message in advance of its delivery? We mean, ever?
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
willard milton romney
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who is willard milton romney? 
Does Romney’s inexperience account for “The Speech”?
December 6, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, campaign communications, campaign communiques, campaign literature, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, Evangelicals, gaffs and pratfalls, GOP, incompetence, media, mitt romney, polls, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: "the speech", agony-in-iowa, commentarymagazine.com, david frum, david frum diary, Iowa, jay cost, John Podhoretz, Kevin McCullough, mormonism, mormons, NRO, realclearpolitics.com, townhall.com
“So, Mitt is going to give that Mormon speech,” writes Jay Cost in a realclearpolitics election 2008 article titled Mitt’s Ham-Handed Campaign
We heartily concur. Only the most naive of ingenues could make a mistake of this magnitude:
We have harped on this same string for weeks. See:
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
P.S. Evidence of Romney playing “the game he cannot win” because of the line of inquiry his own speech opened up:
“I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith,” says Romney, as quoted by Kevin McCullough in a townhall.com blog post titled WORST Romney line of THE SPEECH!
Romney as cited by John Podhoretz in a http://www.commentarymagazine.com post titled Romney’s Boilerplate Mistake: There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers — I will be true to them and to my beliefs.