When attendees at yesterday’s Values Voter Summit (a.k.a. PanderFest 2007) weren’t staring at the top of Fred Thompson’s head, they were waiting to see what Mitt Romney had to offer. And while it’s a challenge for a Mormon candidate who used to be pro-choice to overcome evangelical skepticism, Romney told the faithful — by one count, there were nearly 3,000 attendees at the event — exactly what they wanted to hear.
“Parenthood is the ultimate career for which all other careers exist.”
“The American family is under stress. Is under attack. Ann and I are going to use the bully pulpit to teach Americans that before they have babies, they should get married.”
“As president, I will realign government incentives to encourage marriage.”
“A federal amendment is the only way we can protect marriage from liberal, unelected judges.”
“I will oppose tax payer funding of abortion, oppose partial birth abortion … ban cloning … and raise awareness about embryonic adoption, or snow flake babies.”
“It will be one strike and you’re ours” for pedophiles on the internet — “long prisons sentences, and if you get out, it means an ankle bracelet for the rest of your life.”
“I will ensure that every family has health care — without new taxes, without Hilarycare, without socialized medicine.”
Romney’s discliplined; I’ll give him that. He quoted C.S. Lewis (dog-whistle politics), and avoided foreign policy (which this audience doesn’t emphasize). He spoke of defending “America’s religious heritage,” while brushing off concerns about Mormonism with a joke about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In short, Romney promised the crowd everything — which is exactly what they demand.
The underlying motivations here are pretty obvious. Romney wants the foot-soldiers the religious right offers, recognizes the significance of social conservatives in Iowa and South Carolina, and figures that support from the Dobson crowd will make this a two-man race (Romney vs. Giuliani) for the GOP nomination.
Theocons seem to have been slowly coalescing around Romney of late, and at a minimum, he didn’t hurt his chances yesterday.
A month ago, congressional Republicans were so desperate to avoid discussing the substance of U.S. policy towards Iraq, they decided a newspaper ad from MoveOn.org was the single biggest threat to Western Civilization in recent history. The coordinated hissy fit was a transparent effort to distract attention from the issue at hand, but it was also a largely successful sham — Republicans stopped talking about Bush’s failed policy and started talking about the NYT’s ad rates.
This month, those same congressional Republicans are so desperate to avoid discussing the substance of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), they’ve decided Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) has replaced MoveOn as Public Enemy #1. (For reasons that defy logic, CNN has decided that the GOP’s feigned outrage is a really important story.)
Far be it for me to give Republicans advice, but I don’t think they’ve thought this one through.
For the record, what did Stark say to send the right into high dudgeon? During the debate on overriding the president’s veto for children’s healthcare, Stark said, “You don’t have money to fund the war or children, but you’re gonna spend it blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their head blown off for the president’s amusement.”
Intemperate? Sure. But the coordinated hysteria we’ve seen over the last few days is more than misguided; it’s silly.
There’s just no reason for apoplexy here. Stark said something mean about Bush during a congressional debate. The president is a big boy; I think he can handle it. But by throwing a tantrum, congressional Republicans are suggesting that they can’t handle it. They’re not grown-ups. Random, intemperate criticism of Bush is just too much for the fragile, virgin ears.
In other words, by throwing a fit, Republicans end up looking weak and hysterical. Indeed, it reinforces the least flattering GOP caricature of all — these guys can’t govern, but they can fall onto a fainting couch like nobody’s business.
For years, Republicans worked to create the opposite reputation. They’re tough. This is the macho “daddy party.” They don’t care about “political correctness” and wussies who cry over words that rub people the wrong way. This is a crowd that calls it like they see it, and doesn’t look bad or apologize.
And yet, they’ve now spent the better part of a year trembling over mild rebukes from liberals. If Democrats were smart, they’d look at this as an opportunity to rebrand the GOP as pathetic cry-babies who can barely go a week without throwing a hissy fit over one manufactured outrage or another. Alas, it doesn’t look like Dems are smart at all.
Candidate Name … Percentage
1. Mitt Romney … 27.62 %
2. Mike Huckabee … 27.10 %
3. Ron Paul … 14.98%
4. Fred Thompson … 9.77 %
5. Sam Brownback … 5.14 %
6. Duncan Hunter … 2.42 %
7. Tom Tancredo … 2.30 %
8. Rudy Giuliani … 1.85 %
9. John McCain … 1.40 %
I suspect we’ll be hearing more of this.
According to once-prominent religious right figure Cal Thomas, we were on the brink of victory in Iraq, until House Democrats ruined it by pushing that Armenian genocide amendment through committee. Says Cal, “Are Democrats so cynical that they would stir an already boiling pot in hopes that it would negate whatever success America may finally be having in quelling terrorist acts in Iraq? One would hope that is not the case, but given their leadership’s rhetoric about the war already being lost and their refusal to acknowledge even the slightest progress in Iraq as positive lest it reflect well on the Bush administration, cynicism about their cynical actions might be justified.”
The Post has a nicely detailed piece in Monday’s paper on the relationship between the State Department and Blackwater. The main investigative questions still need to be gotten into. But is a good overview. How did State get into this tight relationship with Blackwater? The narrow and immediate answer is that they inherited the relationship from the Pentagon when the CPA went out of business. But there’s turf battles between State and DOD, the State Department’s own lack of capacity to protect so many of its people in such a hostile environment. The piece is, in some respects, State’s response to all the bad publicity and criticism. But if you’re interested in this issue definitely give it a read.
Ready for war with Iran? Get ready. Looks like Cheney may be back in the driver’s seat.
How did Blackwater wind up guarding State Department personnel in Iraq in the first place? More importantly, how did it evolve into a co-dependent relationship?
The Republican presidential candidates debated in Orlando, Florida Sunday night. While the debate purported to feature only the GOP field, it was a Democrat’s name that was on everyone’s lips throughout the night… someone by the name of Hillary… Hillary something. We tally up the numbers in today’s Sunday Roundup Debate Edition of TPMtv …
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Late Update: More on the debate in our Election Central roundup.