Disposal Day #123: The gloves are off starting . . . now

STORY #1: Blue-state blues

It just occurred to me that aside from routine sniping about Romneycare, the only person who really targeted former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) about his record as governor of Massachusetts was former Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-UT). He frequently made hay out of the fact that Massachusetts was ranked #47 in job creation while Utah was ranked #1. How that doesn’t get more airplay, I can only attribute to ad budgets. But President Obama’s re-election campaign is ready to make the same attacks.

This is going to be where they can land the most punches. Romney rarely speaks of anything he accomplished as governor, except for appeals to states’ rights when defending Romneycare (and he’s always on defense about it). He left office after one term, for which opponents can either credit opportunism or giving up. And since people like that Romney has business experience, even if it’s not necessarily good business, they will need to know how he operates as a government executive. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

STORY #2: 触发器

According to Babelfish, the above characters are what happen when you translate the English word “flip-flop” into traditional Chinese. (Translated back into English, they mean “trigger.” Fascinating.) The question is, did Romney do that when he promised to get tough on China for currency manipulation? The Obama campaign charges that his book No Apology castigates them for tariffs on certain Chinese products, even though the label of “currency manipulator” would lead to sanctions, which are more punitive.

Perhaps what Romney meant is that tariffs aren’t tough enough and don’t compel the Chinese to clean up their act as sanctions might, while at the same time running the risk of shutting American manufacturers out of that market. Or perhaps he just hasn’t connected the dots between tariffs and sanctions. I’m actually more inclined to go with option #1. But if he thinks sanctions are going to solve much, well, HA.

STORY #3: It’s all about meeeeee!

Are you shitting me? “Mitt Romney says that if elected Congress should wait until he takes office to block automatic spending cuts and to keep tax cuts from expiring.” Meaning: “Hey, guys, can you wait a couple of months to do your job? Ann hasn’t picked my drapes yet.” Does he think this is Canada? In which there basically is no government until the prime minister settles in? I really hope the Obama people bring the mockery over this absurdity, because he sure needs it.

Booker v. Washington

If you’ve never read Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s tweets, you should; the man is endlessly entertaining and never short of an opinion on national issues. (Keeping his options open?) That became a negative for his Democrats yesterday. He has a problem with President Obama’s re-election campaign taking shots at former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) past at Bain Capital. Republicans love that. All Booker has to do is say “Fuck off” to the GOP and he’ll win my seal of approval. (UPDATE: He did.)

The quote:

I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people invest in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses.

Not very articulate, but the point is made. The trouble is that it’s not at all below the belt to question how Romney’s history at Bain makes him an economic savior. Maybe Obama administration economic adviser Steven Rattner is correct in saying that it was never Bain Capital’s job to create jobs, but to generate profits. But what good will that do for a president? Given Massachusetts’ 47th-place ranking while Romney was governor, does he know how to help businesses without outsourcing, automation or slashing salaries and benefits?

That’s prong one of my argument: The substance of Booker’s argument does not stand. Prong two is how the Obama team responded. Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod insisted that Booker was “talking about the general tenor of the campaign.” That was certainly a part of it, but it’s pretty evident from the above quote that Booker was also coming to the defense of Bain-style private equity. How can you miss that?

Axelrod does himself and his campaign no favors by jumping on every Democrat who criticizes a strategy or policy of theirs in public. The two-party system has always allowed for more ideological diversity than multi-party system (trust me, I’m Canadian – I know), and thus you’ll never have a completely coordinated message. I’d be more inclined to give Axelrod a pass for this if I didn’t think the conditions (i.e. Obama’s record) were ripe for this to become a habit.

And as for Booker: The way a candidate’s economic worldview was shaped is kind of important, especially when recovery is so anemic. I wouldn’t trust Romney to help anyone outside his base, and so far he hasn’t provided any reason to believe otherwise.

Accepting the sex factor

The last couple of times a centrist candidate who I liked came in third or worse in an important election, I tried to look beyond them for reasons why. The voting system, maybe? The influence of special interests? The pandering? Yes, one or more were there in varying degrees. But the usual response I got from other centrists came down to one factor: retail politics. Or, more accurately, the lack of the candidate’s ability to use it.

Now, generally, I prefer to keep promotional efforts to a minimum and let a product, service or candidate attract customers, users and voters on its own merits. Sadly, this has yet to work in an election. The “If you build it, they will come” mentality is simply impractical in today’s politics. In the age of the rapid-fire media, they have to know it’s there. And if they already know it’s there, they have to know it’s capable of staying there. So perhaps it was inevitable that I’m finally devoting a post to this thesis statement: Centrism isn’t sexy enough.

True, sexiness in a candidate or de facto spokesperson has never been a high priority for me. But I have indeed noticed that the typical token centrist – experienced, highly educated, wonkish, mature – has a hard time distilling his high-minded policy ideas into clear, simple words. He comes off as if he’s constantly lecturing you, which, I have theorized, is why he turns off voters outside of a faithful few. This way, he could be concise and have the intellectual heft to back it up when asked by intellectuals.

There’s also a distinct lack of pathos among centrist politicians. This is my least favorite of Aristotle’s modes of persuasion – yes, I studied rhetoric – but you can’t deny that it works. The most successful movements have spawned from the ability to combine emotions and ideas into political values. It demonstrates a deeper level of understanding than nuts and bolts. We need bring it down to “We’re all mad as hell – now let’s do something about it!”

Finally, centrism needs an identifiable figure. It needs to be humanized. It needs someone who is smart, funny, patriotic, plainspoken, unapologetic (unless the situation genuinely merits an apology) and capable of being the adult in the room. And, for purely aesthetic reasons, someone who is all of these plus young and attractive would be the best choice. Participants in the emerging centrist infrastructure need to find such a person and put them out front.

Once we make up for our marketing deficit, everyone else’s attention deficit has a much better chance of being filled in. We know we can beat wingers at the policy game. But for the non-policy crowd, it’s time to start kicking their asses at the politics game.

Romney’s Sissy Souljah moment

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), and if history is any indication, you’ll be reading that sentence a lot before (and possibly after) Election Day. A week or so ago, the host of the show I produce and I were talking about Romney’s absence of a “Sister Souljah moment“: a single instance of him calling out the crazies on his own side and proving he really does have standards for who speaks for his campaign. Up until recently, any opportunities he might have had for such a movement didn’t have a specific voice, face or name. It did this week, and he ignored it.

You’ve probably already heard what “aging rock star Ted Nugent” had to say about President Obama at the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) meeting, and I don’t think it bears repeating here. Look it up yourself if you want. Nugent has endorsed Romney, although this is another grudging “meh” endorsement; if he had it his way, he’d vote for Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), which speaks volumes about his priorities in a candidate. Naturally, Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul was compelled to comment:

Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from. Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.

Fascinating, Ms. Saul. Truly groundbreaking insight thar. Tell us more about Romney’s belief that we should all make our beds every morning and wash our hands after using the toilet. Or, better yet, go back to whoever your PR instructor was and slap them for not teaching you about the importance of two-way communication.

Whether or not whatever move would have an appreciable effect on Romney’s poll numbers is immaterial. A strong denunciation of Nugent’s remarks would be perhaps the first time that independent voters could start believing that he wasn’t a complete invertebrate. If a high-profile party hack who endorsed you in public is being investigated by the Secret Service, even if they get cleared, you’d better start asking yourself if it’s worth it to be associated with them. Does Romney really want the votes of people who think like Ted Nugent?

Even though the idea of this spineless excuse for a man becoming president fills me with bile, I take comfort in the fact that keeping track of all the people to whom he has to pander will eventually cause his frontal lobe to overheat and explode.

Rick Santorum, tobalist-in-chief

Remember tobalism? It’s a word I kinda sorta invented to give an -ism to the “there oughta be a law” movement, in which citizens can write their own legislation for congressional consideration. That I support, since the worst of those ideas can be cast aside with the greatest of ease. Not so if the person making them is president of the United States. With his latest stab at tobalism, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) proved once again why he should not be that person. (Good thing he won’t be.)

I’ll just quote the man himself on his take on the use of teleprompters by national candidates, as it is, after all, very important for us to “hear what’s in [his] heart”:

See, I always believed that when you run for president of the United States, it should be illegal to read off a teleprompter. Because all you’re doing is reading someone else’s words to people. . . . You’re voting for someone who is going to be the leader of our government. It’s important for you to understand who that person is in their own words, see them, look them in the eye . . . hear what’s (in their) heart.

To his credit, Santorum has made a point of not using teleprompters himself – some of the time, anyway. I have a very hard time believing that a former U.S. senator and conservative speaker has never used one before. That would be the only circumstance under which he would fail to see the value.

As a TV producer, running a teleprompter is part of my job, as is writing some of the copy that the host of my show reads on air. Producers do that because the hosts often simply don’t have the time – not as little as a political candidate, mind you, but it can be tight. When we write those words, we are constantly mindful of the host’s preferred tone, word choice and framing, and they have the final say over what ends up being read. It’s hardly as if they’re completely out of the speechwriting equation, as Santorum appears to be suggesting.

It’s enough to dismiss Santorum’s preference for banning prompters for presidential candidates on technicalities. No such law is necessary, and would be within the purview of national party committees, as opposed to the federal government. But why should a candidate spend up to three hours writing a speech him or herself when outsourcing the work to an employee has basically the same effect? Especially when those three hours could be spent meeting voters face-to-face?

I should add that banning a piece of technical equipment would solve nothing if the candidate comes up with another round of panderiffic schlock on his or her own. And I’m sure Santorum could tell us all something about that.

Newton L. Gingrich, will you please go now?!

It’s pretty easy to tell a good speech from a doozy within the first couple of sentences. Observe, if you will, the halting tone, unchanging facial expression and general aura of discontent as former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) gets off his first few insults at unspecified elites during his “victory” speech in Atlanta yesterday. Out of 10 states, he only won Georgia, and was absurdly proud of this given that he was from Georgia and they wouldn’t have picked anyone else. (But wouldn’t it have been awesome if they had? That would have made my night.)

Let’s go through this verbal diarrhea of a speech point by point. First, his contention that “Republican elites” were actively conspiring against him. True, the GOP establishment is embarrassed that he was ever a member of it. Nonetheless he was a member, and only people who are completely ignorant of the politics of the 90s will take Gingrich’s us-against-the-world rhetoric with less than a box of table salt. Why would they need an active conspiracy (his forté)? He’s enough of a bad candidate on his own.

Second, the self-denial. No, Gingrich is not the candidate of Wall Street, but he is most definitely the candidate of K Street, and Fremont Street to a lesser extent. Yes, Gingrich’s campaign is about big ideas, but moon colonies and single-handedly lowering the price of gas aren’t the kinds of ideas that make people take you seriously. Yes, Gingrich was polling very well in December, but it’s already March, and out of 10 states last night, he won one. And it was the inevitable one. Spare us.

Third, his talents as a speaker. For someone whose title was once Speaker, he really sucks at it. I’ve often compared Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) to that guy who mumbles to himself on the bus, but at least he sounds coherent most of the time. Gingrich’s speech as just “mumble mumble Wall Street mumble mumble elites mumble mumble YOOOUUU.” Also, I get the impression that Gingrich is a man who likes to speak off-the-cuff, but he desperately needed a script; he has no idea how to structure a speech. There is a technique involved.

Gingrich can avoid reality all he wants, but once the media starts waiting for you to quit, it’s time to quit. That’s the point at which you can never get back any momentum you once had. And he has more to lose by not dropping out now. Paul will never lose his faithful and can be in Congress as long as he wants. Gingrich just has his personal political infrastructure. They may stop listening to him if he persists with his delusions.

It says a lot about a man who doesn’t vote in his state of residence when he doesn’t get his way. What is he, five?

Llore un río para mí, princesa

To any American who has ever complained about seeing product directions in languages other than English, let me draw your attention to this, this, this and this. You think a few lines of Spanish on your box of cake mix is irritating? Try living with two official languages of business when you and almost everyone you know speaks only one. While Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) approximates having the right idea when he talks about making English the official language of the U.S. government, he has no idea what bilingualism is really like.

Actually, it was a voter of Iowa’s Cerro Gordo County who complained about it first, specifically referring to his plight of “seeing the directions on every single product on every single shelf of every single store written in four languages.” I imagine living in a place called Cerro Gordo (“fat hill”) County may also have stuck in his proverbial craw. It’s no surprise that Perry agreed with him, considering what a hard time he has getting through a sentence in English, even.

The voter in question is unnamed, but should he be reading this, I would like him to tell me how often he has encountered the following:

• job postings that suit you perfectly until you see a requirement to speak both English and Spanish
• voice mail recordings that make you wait twice as long to leave a message because they give you the away-from-phone-name-number-short-message crap in both English and Spanish
• a human on the other end who works in a largely Spanish-speaking setting and can barely understand your English
• headlines about ridiculous lawsuits, protests, policies and denunciations designed to enforce bilingualism
• qualified political candidates dropping out of elections after being shamed for only speaking English

That’s what you’d get if there were two official languages in America. As it stands, there are none. Individual states and cities supply government communications in whichever languages make sense for their respective populations, and only nine offer driver’s license exams in English only, not including Texas. Yet the only evident problems with that are the people who haven’t learned to speak English well yet.

I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who came to America and didn’t expect that everyone would speak English to them, unless they intended to be particularly insular. If Perry is so concerned that new immigrants will stop believing this all of a sudden, he must be willing to avoid unfunded mandates and pair making English official with new funding for English-language training. But if his biggest annoyance is a bit of Spanish on a box, he’s going to love dealing with Canadians.

Answering our critics, again

It has come to my attention that two individuals of right-wing stock have been spreading nonsense and tomfoolery about centrists, moderates, independents, No Labels and so on and so forth. While one of these individuals is a mere talk radio host whose shtick grows ever more tiresome by the day, the other is a Supreme Court justice and must be taken more seriously. However, lest any misconceptions spread, I here beg leave to respond to both.

First, a Mr. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, one who has never been known to be short on opinions himself, had this to say about adherents of the No Labels mission: “. . . they don’t want to have a point of view. They don’t want to have an opinion.” No Labels has responded by extending to Mr. Limbaugh the proverbial yellow flag, indicating a warning. Though I do not recall an instance of them giving someone a red flag, I can only assume it means “dead to us.”

Well, Mr. Limbaugh, you are incorrect. I’m sure hearing that all day gets rather tedious, but it bears repeating. In fact, we have plenty of opinions and can get quite feisty in defense of them. The difference between our two sides in this instance is that we arrive at our opinions on an individual basis, as opposed to choosing an ideology and moving in lockstep with it at all times. I hope this has afforded you some clarity. Feel free to ask if you need any in the future.

The second individual, Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, is kinder, but equally unobservant. According to Scalia, Americans who are concerned with congressional gridlock simply fail to understand the nature of the U.S. political system. As he points out, it was designed to make legislation difficult to pass, thus ensuring quality.

With all due respect, sir, we understand it perfectly well. Many of us have studied the American political system extensively; some of us have even lived in countries with faster but less effective systems, such as Canada. We are very fond of quality legislation. We are not fond of members of Congress ignoring quality for the sake of making partisan points. This is something we can all agree is a problem, is it not? I understand, also, that our system prevents you from doing much about it in your role as justice, but at least take our worries seriously. We at least hope that our judiciary is in touch with the moods of the public it serves.

I hope this has been an enlightening read for you all. And to those of you who have noticed that today’s column sounds little like the Jess you know from casual conversation, let me sum up the above treatise by saying: Shut up. You’re stupid.

A day at the fair

I attended multiple job fairs, political forums and debates in my college years. The only real reason for anyone to attend a job fair in Winnipeg is to collect pens, unless working in a bank, call center or government agency turns you on. Maybe the prospects are less ridiculous in the U.S., but my experience gives me a dim view of the new trend among members of Congress to hold job fairs instead of town halls. In sum: WEEEEEEAK.

The No Labels blog reports that only 44 percent of Congress will be holding town halls during the August recess; 59 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans will not. It is suspected that everyone is nervous about what could ensue, in light of the Obamacare-era hijackings by protesting opponents. That matter is of a lower priority now, replaced by jobs; holding a job fair, therefore, allows the politician in question to look engaged with their constituents and attach themselves to job prospects for them.

It’s an interesting proposition, but what happens when the job market makes a resurgence and something else captures the consciousness? If it’s the environment, will they hold public gardening sessions? If it’s health care, will they hold their events at a blood bank? If it’s defense, will they all go to boot camp? If it’s abortion . . . yeah, we won’t even go there. My point is, this tactic will only last as long as the unemployment rate. I can hear you snarking, but it will drop. Eventually. I promise.

More to the point, this trick – along with the use of workplace visits and teleconferences – does not serve the fundamental purposes of town halls: 1. To have a conversation with many different people at once, who all have one thing in common: the ability to vote for you. 2. To allow all of those people’s perspectives to be expressed in the same room, allowing for their extra consideration and yours. If they want it, anyway.

If politicians are so scared of the risk of rowdiness that they must hide behind a booth for a few hours, so be it. But they at least owe the attendees an abbreviated version of a town hall. A one-hour Q&A session in the middle of the fair will do. Of course, even this will only be successful if said attendees treat the occasion with an equally necessary amount of respect. Maybe they should get protocol sheets at the door.

I feel sorry for any voter who is duped into thinking that a job fair equals action on the part of their representative or senator. The opportunities available at the fair existed already; they’re just being shoved in your face a little more than usual.

Use personal attacks? You lazy ass!

Just over a month ago, I assailed one of President Obama’s two favorite Davids (Plouffe, his 2008 campaign manager) for misreading how Americans react to job numbers. That was enough for a Fail of the Week; this isn’t because, frankly, we don’t know for sure if the other David (Axelrod, his chief political strategist) is or isn’t planning highly personal attacks on GOP presidential candidate, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA). Clarity in the press clearly isn’t as strong a point for this man as it used to be.

The damning quote:

There’s a question of public character. Are you principled, consistent – are you who you say you are? Can you be counted on . . . When he makes jokes about being unemployed or a waitress pinching him on the butt, it does snap your head back, and you say, “What’s he talking about?”

That’s Axelrod, referring to Romney and some of his greatest hits. He makes one good point here: These things matter to voters, especially the ones who can’t be bothered to engage in in-depth policy discussions. (Regrettably, there aren’t as many of those voters as I’d like.) A politician’s persona and sense of humor are especially telling of how they would approach political and legislative business. Countless traits come through, the most noteworthy being reflexivity: taking into consideration the perspective of everyone who might come within earshot of yours.

But if Axelrod actually said the above quote – and it’s his word against that of a journalist who has no evident axe to grind, pun intended – he hasn’t made a case for why one campaign needs to capitalize on the other’s lack of reflexivity. Gaffes such as this speak for themselves, more so than ever in a 24-hour news cycle. The opponent doesn’t have to do a thing.

In an election, personal attacks serve one useful purpose only, if you can call it that: to throw red meat to voters who wouldn’t have gone for your opponent in the first place, but want to see something fiercer from you. To everyone else, they are an unnecessary distraction that, one on top of the other, cheapen the political process, not to mention your ability or desire to run a more sophisticated campaign. It’s clear to everyone that Axelrod can’t win with hope and change this year, but “Romney is weird” is hardly a sufficient replacement.

Any trained primate can plan to throw poop. We expect better from the people who want to lead the country – or at least we did, once.