Canadian Cincinnatus

Steve Schmidt: the reason John McCain lost

One of the reasons I had so many reservations about Mitt Romney is that I feared, being an establishment moderate, he would run the kind of gentlemanly loser campaign that John McCain ran in 2008. With the exception of picking Sarah Palin as the running mate, McCain’s campaign did everything wrong. And it even managed to mismanage that one success: after Palin’s firebrand acceptance speech - the one that propelled McCain ahead of Obama in the polls (for the first time in months) - the McCain campaign hid her away but did nothing to prepare her while she was sequestered. The architect of that defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory debacle was the bullet-headed Steve Schmidt.

For this reason, I was much interested in this expose article on Schmidt at Big Journalism. A very informative article that deserves to be read in its entirety.

For some background information, check out Schmidt’s wikipedia entry. This is what it says about his early campaigns:

In 1995, Steve Schmidt managed the unsuccessful campaign for Kentucky Attorney General of Will T. Scott, who is now Deputy Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court [in other words Scott was good, his 1995 campaign run by Schmidt just sucked]. This Kentucky campaign's advertising strategy was featured in the second edition of George Magazine. In 1998, Schmidt ran California State Senator Tim Leslie's unsuccessful race for Lt. Governor of California. Also that year, he was the Communications Director for California State Treasurer Matt Fong's unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer [I remember this campaign; Fong was widely viewed as having a credible shot at unseating Boxer]. In 1999, he was the Communications Director for Lamar Alexander's presidential run, leaving in June when the campaign reduced its senior staff.

You will notice that the two things common with each campaign: Steve Schmidt, and the fact that his employer lost. While it is true that he led Arnold’s 2006 successful gubernatorial campaign, this was accomplished when Arnold was at the apogee of his popularity. As far as I am able to determine, this has been Schmidt’s only campaign victory - ever.

I agree with Moe Lane, who said:

The faction of Team McCain represented by Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace should not be allowed anywhere NEAR a Republican Presidential campaign for the rest of their lives.

Hear, hear. Steve Schmidt is the John Tory of American politics.

The George Zimmerman – Trayvon Martin media fiasco

Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, reports what the far-left Mother Jones magazine says about the media circus surrounding that killing in Florida: 

KEVIN DRUM AT MOTHER JONES ON NBC’S ZIMMERMAN DECEPTION: “This is now fated to be Exhibit A in conservative charges of mainstream media bias for about the next century or so. And who can blame them? What a cockup.”

Specifically, what Kevin Drum was referring to was the police dispatch tape of Zimmerman’s 911 call that NBC had edited. This is what they did:

To refresh our memories, here’s what transpired during the call and is recorded on the audio:

ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he’s up to no good, [begin ellipsis] or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic? [end ellipsis]

ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

And here’s how NBC’s “error” rendered that sequence:

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black,” Zimmerman told a police dispatcher from his car.

You know, I think this kind of thing used to happen all the time but there was nobody to notice. The difference these days is that now there is an alternate media, as well as conservative activists who understand political war and know how to push back.

 

Because the mainstream media is not used to that, they end up being caught flat-footed and exposed.

 

What Mitt Romney should do if the Supreme Court cans Obamacare

If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare or the individual mandate, this will be a grievous blow to President Obama. Pace Democratic strategist James Carville, who opined that a Supreme Court loss for Obamacare would actually help Obama’s re-election prospects because it would give his followers something to rally around (reinstating socialized medicine), it would hurt Obama. A lot. As unpopular as it is, Obamacare remains President Obama’s signature achievement. If that gets declared unconstitutional, he will look impotent and incompetent – not attractive qualities in a leader. Political strategist, Dick Morris agrees.

But if Mitt Romney wants to be more than a passive recipient of good news, he has to do more than pop the champaign cork - particularly with the spectre of Romneycare in his past. If he wants to hits the ball out of the park he has to articulate an alternative. Because that’s what real statesmen do: they lead the way forward. A “I’m not as bad as the other guy” candidate - which is what he is now - will never attract more than tepid enthusiasm, regardless of how favourable the electoral environment is.

For a vision, he could do worse than follow the proscription given by Investor’s Business Daily:

• “End the tax discrimination against individual insurance buyers. 

• Let consumers buy plans across state lines, giving states an incentive to rein in their out-of-control benefit mandates.

• Let small groups establish association health plans to get benefits of scale.

• Ease the rules that are choking off the medical savings account market.

• Reform the nation's tort laws.”

In politics he who frames the debate, wins the debate. If he talks positively about the future, with concrete proposals, Romney will leave Obama in the dust, fumbling on the roadside with his broken-down, Rube Goldberg contraption.

 

How to make sure Obamacare is struck down universally

The votes have been taken and the decision made in the Supreme Court of the United States, but those votes can still be changed before June. As one would expect, the Democrat appointed justices have likely voted in favour of  Obamacare; four of the Republican appointed justices have likely voted with the U.S. Constitution, and therefore against Obamacare; with the Republican appointed Justice Kennedy being the sole swing vote. Reading some of the questions from Justice Kagan makes it clear that she sees her appointment to the SCOTUS as a political appointment. This is probably how each of the Democrat appointees see themselves.

There is a simple method that, if publicly announced, could make the defeat unanimous. The trick is to make it obvious to everyone, including the SCOTUS, that the "Individual Mandate" can be used by later governments in a way that they haven't considered.

President Romney's first term may suffer from an unexpected crime spree resulting from the "Individual Mandate" to buy health insurance, and the inability of poor Americans to pay for the insurance or the IRS fines for non-purchase. The nearly bankrupt Treasury would also find it difficult to increase funding for law enforcement. A simpler solution might be to invoke the "Individual Mandate" and require all Americans to buy a handgun. Clearly 100% ownership of handguns would reduce violent crime and break-&-enters to near zero. To make this measure universally effective, anybody who refuses to buy a handgun could be imprisoned, thus guaranteeing their safety (and healthcare).

An argument like this would be far more effective at convincing the justices to overturn Obamacare than the example of Americans being forced to buy broccoli or Chevy Volts.

 

guest-post by Wiseguy

 

The left showers Dick Cheney with the compassion and tolerance that they are famous for

As most of you know, former Vice President Dick Cheney received a new heart in a transplant operation on Saturday. Here is a sample of the tweets that lefties made in reaction to the news that Cheney’s operation was successful and that his recovery is going well:

“Whoever donated their heart to dick cheney: fuck you,” tweeted @yokelesy.

“Cheney’s black soul keeps rotting out his heart. Fuck that bitch,” @SolidGlo. 

“Why in the contumacious fuck are we wasting a perfectly good heart on dick cheney?” tweeted @mr_senor_pete

“I’m glad Cheney survived his heart transplant because I’ve always wanted him to die in a horrible fire,” @Jedimasterbator tweeted.

“Also, bummed Cheney didn’t die. Might go celebrate Bulls win / mourn Cheney’s survival with beers,” offered @mybandowen.

“Angry villagers have gathered outside of Inova Fairfax Hospital with torches and pitchforks demanding the monster be put to death! #cheney,” tweeted @HVonHankelton.

“Fuck you, Dick. Cheney,” tweeted @winelibrarian.

Something to keep in mind the next time the left lectures us Rush Limbaugh’s intemperate remarks.

No word yet on whether President Obama will invoke the Sasha and Malia rule on these twit(erer)s.

 

Mitt Romney can’t close the deal, but here's how he could

Try as he might Mitt Romney can’t seem to convince conservatives that he is one of them, and he appears to be at a loss as what to do about it. His recent defeats in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries is a testament to that.

Of course, skepticism about Romney originates from the fact that his deepest convictions have tended to align with those of the voters he needs to convince at the moment. This coincidence leads people to believe that he is just shining then when he agrees with them. As Dick Morris said in The New Prince: 

 “When a candidate takes an issue position in the thick of controversy, voters feel that is the most reliable indicator they have of his true essence. Voters know he has chosen sides. They know the controversial position will make him enemies and alienate interest groups. The issue position becomes a form of symbolic speech, telling us what the candidate is all about. (p. 33)”

Suffice it to say, Mitt Romney has never done this, which leads many to doubt that he will dismantle Romneycare like he says he will. Romneycare, ooops! I mean Obamacare.

On Wednesday’s lunchtime video, Dick Morris explained how Romney could earn their trust. He advised Romney to stop nitpicking Rick Santorum and start going after Obama on the issues of the day. After all, Santorum isn’t their bogeyman, Obama is.

He gave a number of examples of current events that would make perfect subjects for Romney’s speeches. To name two: Obama is planning on giving US anti-missile secrets to the Russians, and the CBO just announced that the projected cost of Obamacare will be double what Obama said it was. One item I add to the list was a headline on Drudge Report on Tuesday: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta required, on his recent visit to Afghanistan, that US forces be disarmed in his presence when he spoke to them. The US Secretary of Defense is afraid of his own soldiers! Why isn’t Romney - and indeed every other Republican – making hay of this?

And what about misogynist Bill Maher donating $1 million to Obama’s super-PAC? Why isn’t Romney on the air every day demanding Obama return his money? I don’t think he mentioned it at all. That this outrage is an issue is only thanks to the alternate media, who are doing Romney’s work for him.

There is a steady of stream of such stories and they are waiting for somebody, anybody, to use them. 

The alternate media wins the Rush Limbaugh – Sandra Fluke skirmish

It is said by political strategists that he who frames the debate, wins the debate. Therefore, the ability to reframe the debate when you have been ambushed is a critical survival strategy.

Back in the old days,  it would have been a slam-dunk: Rush Limbaugh would have lost and the left, backing their agent Sandra Fluke, would have won. The debate was framed by them and it would have been won by them.

But, unfortunately, it no longer is the good ol’ days. Enough people in the alternate media get politics. That is, they understand how political battles are fought and won. More importantly they understand how they are not won: with apologies and appeasement. 

They took the Malia and Sasha standard that President Obama applied to Rush (i.e. don’t say anything in public discourse that would offend his daughters) and threw it back in his face.

Alinsky’s fourth rule states: “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.” As an old community organizer, Obama knows this, or should. But he was wholly unprepared when conservatives started demanding that he return the $1 million that Bill Maher donated to Obama’s super-PAC, because Maher has repeatedly and publically called Sarah Palin “a boob”, “a bimbo”, “a twat” and “a cunt”. Remember the Malia and Sasha rule, Barry, and hand back the loot. You hypocrite.

Debate reframed. 

Way to go, alt media!

 

Social conservatives must look forward not backwards

A very interesting article by the invaluable James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal about the viability of social conservatism, both today and in the future:

“If liberal baby boomers stubbornly refuse to see the damage that their idea of "progress" has wrought, what about younger generations, for whom the sexual revolution was an inheritance, not a choice, and therefore perhaps not an essential component of personal identity, even among those on the left? Suzanne Venker, niece and co-author of the great antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly, is pessimistic, based on her reading of recent articles by two 40ish feminists:

In the widely read November 2011 Atlantic cover story, entitled "All the Single Ladies," singleton Kate Bolick declares that "it's time to embrace new ideas about romance and family--and to acknowledge the end of traditional marriage as society's highest ideal." . . .

Bolick's "All the Single Ladies"--which has been "recommended" 51,000 times on Facebook--is being made into a television series. So now the young people of America will get this message crammed down their throats every week. That should make for some good partnerships down the road, don't you think?

Indeed, Bolick is in good company--not just with Hollywood but with like-minded pontificators such as Hanna Rosin, who wrote a similar article last year called "The End of Men"--also in The Atlantic, and also widely read. The online version of this article incorporates a video in which Rosin (and her daughter) conclude, while sitting at a table opposite her son and (very emasculated) husband, that "girls are better than boys."

We see it differently. Having read the two Atlantic pieces, we find reason for encouragement in both. It's true that Rosin's video is deeply disturbing...

Yet she does acknowledge that the unbalancing of relations between the sexes has produced social problems:

It is fabulous to see girls and young women poised for success in the coming years. But allowing generations of boys to grow up feeling rootless and obsolete is not a recipe for a peaceful future. Men have few natural support groups and little access to social welfare; the men's-rights groups that do exist in the U.S. are taking on an angry, antiwoman edge. Marriages fall apart or never happen at all, and children are raised with no fathers. Far from being celebrated, women's rising power is perceived as a threat.

If the middle three sentences of that paragraph are accurate, then so is the perception Rosin describes in the last sentence. It is a good sign that a left-wing feminist like Rosin can acknowledge the problem.

As for Bolick, her agenda seems to be therapeutic more than political. At age 29, she dumped a boyfriend--who was, in her telling, a perfectly decent, attractive guy--because "something was missing." A decade later, she realizes that her expectations were unrealistic and her prospects of marriage are slim.

Now she wants society to change in order to assist her in rationalizing away her regret. ... That's not politics, it's self-absorption.

Here is a prediction: Even if Rick Santorum is not the next president, and even if Barack Obama crushes him in the general election (the latter, though not the former, is a big if), social conservatism will continue to grow in size and importance over the next couple of decades. That is to say, if Santorum loses, it will be in part because he is ahead of his time.

The social dislocation caused by feminism and the sexual revolution demands a political response, and so far the left has nothing to offer apart from bankrupting the country with more entitlements. It's encouraging to see a youngish left-wing feminist like Rosin have an inkling that there's a problem, but until the left starts thinking creatively about solutions, which will require a reconsideration of orthodoxies that date back to the 1960s and '70s, the social right will be the only game in town.”

I think this is about right. These days, social conservativism is mostly a reaction to the Sexual Revolution, and the great damage to society that it caused: plummeting birth rates, the breakdown of the family structure and the rise of fatherless families. Social conservatives just want is a return of the stern Calvinist elders of New Rochelle, circa the Dick van Dyck Show.

But, in spite of these modest goals, so-cons have been politically inept to a comical degree. All they seem to do is repeat preach-the-choir arguments like “it’s against morality” and “it’s against my religion”. Swell. The problem is that for many voters, the sexual freedoms of the 60’s are not against their morality or religion. They are perfectly fine with that stuff, even if they don’t exercise those liberties. So what do you say to them? How do you convince these voters that you do not embody H. L. Mencken’s definition of a Puritan: “somebody with a brooding fear that somehow, somewhere there is somebody out there having fun.”

To win them over, social conservatives must first recognize that there is no going back. So-cons are often accused of wanting to go back to the 1950’s world of Ozzie and Harriet. Many will reply, so what’s wrong with that? 

What’s wrong is that the 1950’s begat the 1960’s. And I don’t want to go back to that.

It has to be acknowledged is that the New Morality was partly a reaction to real social problems that then existed: the chief one being bored housewives. Historically, women were not bored. Traditional families worked together doing farm labour: mother, father and all children over 7. However, by the 50’s, the economy had advanced to the point where many women were underutilized; like Betty Draper in Mad Men, sitting around nervously smoking and popping tranquilizers while her husband is away all day taking on the world. Women needed to get into the workforce en mass, and to accomplish that, their political and social status needed to be raised considerably.

Nevertheless, a lot of the moral changes that accompanied feminism were wildly destructive. Dispassionate, analytical arguments detailing the societal destruction created by the flower child ethos exist, but you need to seek out the writings of people like Charles Murray, James Q Wilson and Theodore Dalrymple to find them. Obviously, the reliably left-wing MSM ignore this stuff as a matter of course, but to a large degree so do the spokesmen of social conservatism! They are too busy counting f-bombs on Howard Stern to make compelling arguments.

I think Taranto is right: if Santorum loses because of social conservatism, it is because he is ahead of his time; but I think he wouldn’t be ahead of his time if he spoke in terms understandable to the average secular American rather than via a religious devotion that those voters simply lack. 

 

Strategist Bill McGurn on Mitt Romney’s cheap Florida win

Normally I consider Bill McGurn to be the kind of establishment, RINO political strategist who I instinctively distrust, but Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal he hit the nail right on the head:

“Even before the voting has begun in Tuesday's primary, polls show Mitt Romney with a comfortable lead. If the former Massachusetts governor wins by a respectable margin, it would be completely understandable to take it as confirmation that he needs to stick with his campaign strategy.

It would also be a colossal mistake.

At least since South Carolina, Mr. Romney has been laboring under the assumption that his most serious challenge is to defeat Newt Gingrich. It's not. Mr. Gingrich's viability after months of also-ran status owes itself almost entirely to Mr. Romney's glaring weaknesses. The governor's challenge is not merely to best Mr. Gingrich but to do so in a way that addresses those weaknesses.”

“Even before the voting has begun in Tuesday's primary, polls show Mitt Romney with a comfortable lead. If the former Massachusetts governor wins by a respectable margin, it would be completely understandable to take it as confirmation that he needs to stick with his campaign strategy.”

“At least since South Carolina, Mr. Romney has been laboring under the assumption that his most serious challenge is to defeat Newt Gingrich. It's not. ... The governor's challenge is not merely to best Mr. Gingrich but to do so in a way that addresses those weaknesses.

Ronald Reagan always understood that ideas were more potent than invective. Nor was he above looking to others for those ideas. The across-the-board tax cut he made the heart of his 1980 campaign was largely the work of a then-obscure congressman from upstate New York named Jack Kemp.”

There is only so much that one can accomplish with negative attack ads. While they certainly have their place in scaring the undecided voters into your column at the last minute, all truly successful campaigns begin with a strong, compelling positive message. 

This is because a completely negative campaign will repel voters from you as well as your opponent. The reason the Florida primary had a low turnout was because a pure negative campaign is a negative sum game. Dick Morris has made much the same point.

When going up against Obama in the general election, negative ads will work a bit - to bring items like Solyndra and Fast and Furious to the attention of the disengaged voter who has been kept in the dark by the main-stream media. But if negative ads are allowed to dominate the way they did in Florida, the Republican nominee will be making a big mistake. Obama has inherited a lot of good will from the American people by virtue of being the first black President. The American people want the first black president to succeed. They feel it is their patriotic duty to help him succeed. This is what is holding up his polling numbers in such a dismal economy. If all he does is slime President Obama, the GOP candidate will be working against this dynamic – and making himself a hated figure.

 

GOP should not ignore Ron Paul voters

It is easy for conservatives to dismiss Ron Paul. He holds a number of positions that are well outside of the conservative mainstream: isolationism, drug legalization, and a general anti-government stance that is too pure to be sellable to the electorate at large. So therefore the Republican nabobs think: he’s a nut, his people are mindless zombies, he’s got a low glass ceiling in the primaries, let’s forget about him. Big mistake!

As Dick Morris points out in this lunch-time video, the Reagan coalition is a three-legged stool: national security hawks, social conservatives and fiscal conservatives/libertarians; each faction is important because you need all three to achieve a majority. Right now, Ron Paul is the only Presidential candidate who actively courts the last leg of the stool: the libertarians. In the past 15 years, this group has been largely taken for granted by GOP Presidential candidates: by Bob Dole, by George W Bush, by John McCain and potentially now by Mitt Romney.

That so many Republican voters rally behind somebody who believes America was responsible for 9/11, and whose past views have bordered on the anti-Semitic conspiracy kook fringe, shows how this faction of the electorate is sick and tired of being taken for granted and is eager to find somebody – anybody - to represent them.

Ron Paul’s strong second place in the Republican race is a wake up call for the Republicans. If the GOP ignores the libertarian wing much longer it will face of a third party challenger from the right, if not from Paul then from somebody else.

To beat Obama in 2012, the Republicans must take a page from former Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s fourth electoral triumph in 2004. His National/Liberal coalition gained substantially in the popular vote even though the popular vote of his Labour Party rivals did not decline much. Where did the votes come from, if not from Labour? From the minor single-issue conservative parties. He adopted enough of their issues (like immigration restrictionism), that those who had drifted away from the Liberal Party over the years came back home. Had he continued to ignore these voters, saying in effect “where can they go?” those third parties would have continued to grow at Howard’s expense.

To win, Romney or whoever beats Romney for the nomination must provide the voters with enough libertarian policies so that the small-government people feel welcome again in the Republican Party.