I had a new column up at Salon over the weekend about why Republicans were Romney-bashing last week. Short answer: it's win-win for them.
Today at PP, I talked Veepstakes, and why Romney should be patient about making (or at least announcing) his choice.
And at Greg's place, I got back to the topic of the Sunday Question for Conservatives this week: that the current crop of Republicans really doesn't believe, or at least claims not to believe, in policies to deal with tough economic times. Of course, they could be right! But I'm pretty sure that, right or wrong, it's a very unpopular position.
You had a post on this last week but I wanted to write that I agree that the complaints about the Romney campaign ignore the question: "what the heck is he supposed to say?" The Republicans have no real policy agenda. The Ryan overhaul of the social contract is wildly unpopular, the appetite for more hawkishness seems light, and let's not even start on the social issues. What is he supposed to be talking about that he's not?
ReplyDeleteBut what people might be missing is that the Romney campaign is pretty much what a lot of Republicans envision for the future of their party. There seems to be consensus that the "moral majority" approach is on its way out. I tend to think neoconservatism on foreign policy is on its way out also as it;s just less and less possible for the U.S. to try to dominate everyone militarily and I think militarism is less salient with younger voters. I also think the big business guys are a little cool to it outside of the defense industry.
So that leaves financial libertarianism- probably the smallest, though the wealthiest part of the GOP coalition. This stuff, while extremely popular in the Beltway has a very small following because it is massively detached from the experiences of most people. What exactly are these guys going to campaign on in the future that's different than what Romney is campaigning on now?
Here's another thought experiment. What would Jon Huntsman or Mitch Daniels be saying that's different than what Romney is saying?
This is what their campaigns are going to look like. Vague, nasty, dishonest, and vaccuous. Yet occasionally quite effective.