The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Romney Doesn’t Seem Interested In Winning Ugly

Posted on | July 7, 2012 | 32 Comments

by Smitty

Mediate has Krauthammer unimpressed with Romney:

Noted political strategist Sun Tzu:

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”

In 2008, we saw a weak candidate make weak decisions week by week, finishing weakly. While, at a high level, the Romney campaign may not be looking too brutal, I can assure you that the campaign staff is as serious as lung cancer. At least here in Northern Virginia, which seems to think it’s ground zero for the election. That may not actually be the case, but patriots here have to take this election that seriously. The Romney campaign has been ringing the phone off the hook the last couple of weekends.

Whether Krauthammer or the Romney campaign is correct won’t be known until November. However, little hints like showing up at the Solyndra Factory could indicate that, for all Krauthammer isn’t seeing the sort of scalps he craves, the Romney campaign may not be as feckless as Charles fears.

via HotAir

Category: Mitt Romney

Comments

32 Responses to “Romney Doesn’t Seem Interested In Winning Ugly”

  1. Taxpayer1234
    July 7th, 2012 @ 10:35 pm

    Good point, Smitty.  Romney seems to be following in Reagan’s footsteps as far as campaign decorum.  I hope Romney takes off his mittens for the debate(s), though…

  2. Shawn Gillogly
    July 7th, 2012 @ 11:14 pm

    Reagan was more than willing to batter Carter over ideology. The problem is that Romney is nothing if not a pragmatist. Ideology is irrelevant to him. Big Gov would be fine if it worked. That’s why he ran on in Mass.

    Hayes and Kraut are dead-on here. Obama can’t run as a stealth candidate posing as a moderate. We know what he is, he’s a Euro-SocialDemocrat who resents the American Social Contract embodied in the Constitution. So what does Romney do? He does the same thing Rove told McCain to do 4 years ago: “Oh, Obama’s a nice guy. He just doesn’t know how to be President.”

    Excrement. Obama’s a snake-oil salesman who is out to destroy Liberty and Economic Freedom because he’s ideologically convinced the Progressive Ruling Class can do better. Romney needs to hammer that argument. The evidence is out there on every facet. Instead, like most of the Republican Ruling Class, he wants to make this a referendum on who has better hair.

  3. Pathfinder's wife
    July 8th, 2012 @ 12:38 am

    Well, Mitt does have damn fine hair.

    Now is not the time for attacking so much as narrative building — what would Reagan do?  For starters he’d be out going to town on how awful it is to see so many Americans reduced to food stamps, how our constitutional freedoms were being taken away from us, how after 10 years and counting of war we don’t feel any safer — that sort of thing brings in voters of all stripes; he’d even get a few good jabs in about bowing to foreigners and taking extravagant vacations on the taxpayer’s increasingly thin dime.  That’s what somebody like Reagan would do (and it has been proven to work).  I think it’s known as speaking for the little guy instead of speaking about or to him.

    But Reagan didn’t have Mitt’s damn fine hair, so there’s that.

  4. Bob Belvedere
    July 8th, 2012 @ 1:31 am

    I totally disagree!

    The Raygun had great hair!

  5. ThePaganTemple
    July 8th, 2012 @ 1:55 am

     The difference there is everyone, even his enemies, understood that Reagan had a core set of values he would never waver from. People are still unconvinced about Romney in that regard.

  6. ReaganiteRepublican
    July 8th, 2012 @ 5:51 am

    Funny, considering that was his sole m.o. in the primaries

  7. sheryl
    July 8th, 2012 @ 8:10 am

    Yes, lung cancer IS serious, my uncle has it, and NO, I am not offended! LOL. Let us hope Mitt’s campaign is generally that serious.  I am not a Mitt fan but it’s like chemo you learn to accept it, so the analogy is probably spot on.  On a lighter note with serious implications my uncle has lung cancer and never smoked a day in his life. My cousin (his daughter) still smokes so my uncle says ” I guess this is one for your side” ! His sense of humor has never wavered. My own father (his brother) died from lung cancer in 1993, he also never smoked a day in his life. My uncle says “if the gene is there, it’s there”..I hope Mitt pulls this off with all my heart, and I do appreciate the lung cancer analogy and the timing. My uncle had a bad day yesterday so I appreciate the ability to not only comment but to put down my feelings.

  8. Adobe_Walls
    July 8th, 2012 @ 8:43 am

    Watched a “A Time for Choosing” again yesterday, I wonder when was the last time Romney or anyone on his team did.

  9. Wombat_socho
    July 8th, 2012 @ 9:48 am

     Also, velociraptors!

  10. Pathfinder's wife
    July 8th, 2012 @ 10:21 am

    but nobody has as nice a hair as Mitt…even freaking Fabio is envious

  11. McGehee
    July 8th, 2012 @ 10:36 am

    The Dos Equis “most interesting man in the world” has a crush on Mitt’s hair.

  12. John Edwards
    July 8th, 2012 @ 11:32 am

    Ahem………

  13. richard mcenroe
    July 8th, 2012 @ 12:09 pm

    Not choosing is actually a choice and thus the state has the authority to mandate.

  14. Pathfinder's wife
    July 8th, 2012 @ 1:30 pm

    Sorry Johnny boy, you have been supplanted…the  ever so affected, silky pony look so ’00s, no distinctive touches of grey that spike nicely (in an unzipped fashion no less) when dampened by the spray emanating from the wake of a jet ski…

  15. Tennwriter
    July 8th, 2012 @ 1:44 pm

    In some alternate reality near us, Mitt Romney is an Oscar contender for his role in the block buster movie “Superman: the Mature Years”.  And that Mitt, just like our Mitt, is a bit of an empty suit.  In that reality, Jim Demint is majority leader, and Palin is President, and Dave Ramsay is SecTres.

    Yes, we’re the uncool dimension other dimensions punch in line at school.

  16. Adjoran
    July 8th, 2012 @ 3:56 pm

    It’s freakin’ July, the height of summer vacation season.  The only people paying attention are the political junkies like us on both sides.  The swing voters who will actually decide the election won’t even begin to get serious until after Labor Day, won’t make up their stupid minds – sorry, if Obama is even a possibility still for you, you’re an idiot or a communist, so suck on it – until the last 30 days.

    Carter was ahead of Reagan until October.  And unlike Carter, Obama can’t even manage 50% in polls of adults.  That is a seriously ominous sign for an incumbent.

    All the armchair quarterbacks should sit back, take a chill pill, and relax a bit.

  17. Amy Lidster
    July 8th, 2012 @ 4:20 pm

    Thank you TheOtherMcCain.Com! I can’t even train my dog to pick up the pinko newspaper in my driveway! Now I have something to read every morning!

  18. McGehee
    July 8th, 2012 @ 4:37 pm

     

    The swing voters who will actually decide the election won’t even begin to get serious until after Labor Day

    I wish someone could offer a workable explanation for why these campaigns start a year and a half before anybody sane cares.

  19. Pathfinder's wife
    July 8th, 2012 @ 4:42 pm

    It is probably time to put the presidential election on the backburner a while, as it is quite early.

    Focus on the House and (maybe even more important) the state level races — sniff out and find the most conservative, Constitution loving, liberty minded people running for those spots.  Vet them stringently and ask the first, basic question: are you going to represent the people, will you take your oath of office seriously?  Accept no equivocation on that.  The ones that satisfactorily can answer that — start promoting them far and wide (even if it means breaking with what the party wants…party isn’t as important as principle anyway).
    The presidential election will happen and will be what it will be; the down ticket elections are the key no matter what.  Just maho and two cents.

  20. Quartermaster
    July 8th, 2012 @ 5:30 pm

    Indeed he did!

  21. Shawn Gillogly
    July 8th, 2012 @ 6:43 pm

     True. But after spending 6 months of running a scorched earth primary, he *does* need to make the base care about him.

  22. McGehee
    July 8th, 2012 @ 7:17 pm

    I think you meant that as a reply to Adjoran.

  23. DaveO
    July 8th, 2012 @ 7:17 pm

    I’m reminded of 2 things:

    1. Romney’s campaign was very ruthless during the primary.

    2. Romney’s campaign manager promised to severely throttle back that ruthlessness during the general campaign, much like Senator McCain’s campaign.

    Technically, isn’t discussing Romney violating the wombat’s banning rule?

  24. Pathfinder's wife
    July 8th, 2012 @ 8:57 pm

    No, no; you just can’t bash him or liken him to somebody else.
    I think critical comments which are constructive are still ok.

    Such as: the ruddy fool had better start building a narrative as to why people need to vote for him (rather than just against Barry)  if he wants to give himself a somewhat safe margin, and he’d better think long and hard about the pitfalls of doing anything that might remotely remind people of any similarity to the other guy  (he isn’t Reagan, but he’d better start studying just how Reagan pulled it off against Carter — this election won’t be the same of course, but it could have some similar moments)…and tell his wife to cool it with the MS messages (yes, yes, horrible disease and a pity and all that — but she needs to quit bringing it up all the time or it will backfire; if the campaign is going to use her, which they have said they would, then she’s going to have to start implementing the “gracious and common touch”).  And finally: the “Obama thanks you for your vote” thing should have ceased months ago; it’s gone skunky from too much exposure.

    That’s for Mitt and his supporters.  For those who are just voting, my two cents are above (and much more heartfelt).

  25. Bob Belvedere
    July 9th, 2012 @ 8:20 am

    Why would he waste his time having a crush on Dash Riprock’s recycled hair?

  26. Bob Belvedere
    July 9th, 2012 @ 8:25 am

    I think, however, Adj, that he has to fight back harder against La Cosa Obama’s attempts to define him.

  27. Quartermaster
    July 9th, 2012 @ 12:30 pm

    ZerO is thrashing around trying to find some way to define Mittens without simultaneously pointing at himself. He’s having a hard time at the moment, but when the low info voter starts paying attention the calculation will change dramtically and Mittens better be ready to flay ZerO or he will lose.

    It would be even better, however, if Mittens were alreadt flaying ZerO. He’ll have a very hard time after labor day if he isn’t already in the groove by then.

  28. Pathfinder's wife
    July 9th, 2012 @ 2:26 pm

    Have you been paying attention to the regular news media? (where, by the by, most people get their info)

    They’ve already started laying the framework — just by suggesting things (  “La calunnia e un venticello”? gives you an idea).

    Mitt doesn’t necessarily need to go negative (in fact, that might backfire) but as Bob said above: he needs to get out there and start setting a positive narrative for himself concerning why people should vote for him rather than just against Obama.  And because “la calunnia” must have a tiny kernel of truth to be really effective, he needs to work on his image a wee bit — man for the people if not of them….

    Ach, what’s the use.

  29. McGehee
    July 9th, 2012 @ 5:04 pm

    I was just quoting from “Mitt Romney’s Hair Facts.”

    Mitt Romney’s Hair’s tears can cure cancer. Unfortunately, Mitt Romney’s Hair never cries.

  30. Tennwriter
    July 9th, 2012 @ 6:34 pm

    You can slap Romney around, but you can’t say ‘he’s as bad as the other guy’, if I understand right.

  31. Pathfinder's wife
    July 10th, 2012 @ 9:12 am

    …nope, I think if you get too slappy happy you can get it too, maybe

    When all else fails just say something about his hair — which is perfect.

    It once cured a blind woman, and a picture of it in all its glory caused an entire enemy battalion (no, division) to lay down its weapons and beg forgiveness.
    –from: Romney Hair Facts, Vol. 3

  32. Pathfinder's wife
    July 10th, 2012 @ 9:20 am

    Oh ye of little faith and much hair hatin’:

    At a fundraiser/ice cream social in Minot, ND Mitt Romney’s hair (au naturelle for a change) caused all the females in the crowd (including Barbara Ann, the county fair champion, dairy division) to break into multiple, earth shattering climaxes — which considering the location became a national emergency (and may have caused some unplanned conceptions, which Mitt, being the family man, is never for).  That is why Mitt now never goes out in public without hair pomade (or as Mitt’s inner circle likes to call it: pompador prophylactics).