Not if it took political capital to do so, says Philip Klein, which it would.

Some of Romney's many policy reversals have been overlooked in this campaign as old news, so I'll just provide a brief refresher. Romney ran for statewide office in the Massachusetts twice, in 1994 and 2002, as a pro-choice candidate, only to become publicly pro-life in 2005, just as he was gearing up to seek the GOP presidential nomination instead of seeking a second term as governor of the liberal state. During the 2008 campaign he attacked various opponents for being for gun control, amnesty and campaign finance reform. Yet at earlier points in his career, Romney supported the federal "assault weapons" ban (and signed a state ban as governor in 2004), called the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform "reasonable" and "quite different from amnesty" and supported campaign finance reform measures far more draconian than anything in McCain-Feingold. During this campaign, he's spent the last few weeks attacking his opponent Texas Gov. Rick Perry for criticizing Social Security too harshly, because he says it's politically damaging to do so.

Romney, in short, has displayed zero political courage during his career. He has held opposite positions on nearly every issue, with one obvious exception. He still hasn't disavowed the health care law he designed, campaigned for, and signed with a smiling Ted Kennedy at his side. And it happens to be the forerunner to Obamacare. There's no reason to believe as cautious and calculating of a figure as Mitt Romney would stake the crucial first months of his presidency getting into a bruising political battle to repeal a law, when he still clings to its underlying policy ideas.

Klein forgets that Romney also refused to either support, or clearly oppose, the Surge in Iraq. A dicey, dangerous proposition at the time... so Romney punted, again.

There's a cleverness to that. It's good positioning. It's crafty. But Obama was good at political positioning too; positioning is not policy.

I'd sure like to see some more definite stands, rather than a vague pitch about simply bringing better management skills to the table.

Because Perry had not rocketed to instant acceptance as I thought he would, I began considering Romney as an adequate Plan B.

First I considered: Honestly, I don't know what he actually stands for, which is, oddly enough, a good thing, since it at least holds out the hope he'd be more conservative than we might expect him to be.

But then I considered: No, I doubt that.

Personnel is policy, the saying goes. I think it is even more true that political constituency is policy. That is, your base of voters determines your policy, because no politician, save the most courageous or most suicidal, ever thwarts his base.

Obama sure isn't thwarting his base. The Democrats didn't thwart their base when it was clear ObamaCare was very unpopular -- they had a choice between disappointing independents/moderates and disappointing liberal Democrats; we know who they stuck with.

For some time I thought that Romney's General Election Campaign During The Primaries was a crafty one. By already running to the center immediately, in the primaries, rather than waiting to do so until the general, at least there would be no run to the center later, no awkward lurch and flip-flop.

However, it does occur to me that Romney is expressly building a constituency among the most moderate Republicans (including on fiscal issues), with an eye to grabbing up the independent/moderate vote in the general election.

That's a decent enough plan to get elected.

But what happens then, if he should be elected?

In that case is constituency -- his base -- is precisely the don't-rock-the-boat, more-spending-and-less-taxes-too, let's-punt-off-all-these-long-delayed-decisions-to-our-grandchildren-along-with-a-huge-pile-of debt independent/moderate segment that, through its apparent refusal to make anything resembling a clear choice, substantially gotten us into this mess.

What are Romney's actual politics? Down in his heart?

I'm really not sure.

But I do know that a President's politics tend to mirror that of his base constituency. Simply due to the need to have a base.

And while Romney talks up how dreadfully "extreme" Perry's "Ponzi" talk is, he is making implicit promises to his would-be governing coalition: That he will not be "extreme." That he will be... middle of the road.

That he'll do more of the same, but maybe just a little bit better, and will not seek drastic, controversial (!!!) reforms, but rather tinker a bit to get us through the next four years or so.

Posted by: Ace at 02:25 PM | Comments (653)
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I personally didn't cover the "Obama has a problem with strong women" story because, well, this.

Now, if there really was a hostile environment to women, that’s terrible. But I’m just going to go out on a limb and offer the insane theory that if you had to pick the group of people most prone to complaining that they’re being ignored and disrespected, you would probably pick a bunch of Democratic political staffers, lawyers, academics, apparatchiks and wonks, no? You’re telling me that if you had gone to the staffers who were African-American, or Jewish, or gay, or not from Chicago, or some other demographic distinction, and asked them, “Does the president listen enough to you and people like yourself, or are you sometimes snubbed?” it wouldn’t be that hard to generate some tales of indignation and woe? For a bunch of these folks, their entire worldview is based upon the patriarchy and the establishment keeping them down, and they can’t suppress those instincts of victimization just because they voted for the new boss. I suspect that upon entering the White House, a lot of folks find that their egos simultaneously swell and get more fragile. Then they’re put in a high-stress environment, where any error reflects badly on the munificent Sun-King, working extraordinarily long hours, convinced that the future of the country and/or liberalism depend on every move they make. Throw in a walking harassment-lawsuit-waiting-to-happen like Rahm Emanuel in a key role of leadership and you have the single most combustible working environment since the Hindenberg.

I am perfectly willing to believe that Obama has a woman-problem. But then, the stories of woe here come from Mao-enthusiast Anita Dunn, and Christina Romer, who was very butthurt that she didn't get called on enough personally for her opinion.

You know, you've heard that complaint -- that girls in school need to be called on, because they're shy, whereas boys are aggressive and not afraid of looking foolish.

I didn't know this principle extended to 50 year old women working as senior economic advisers in the White House.

At one point does the Weepie Suzy Brigade stand on their own, without special doting by Teacher? And if they never quite do -- is that "society's" problem or their own?

There's no crying in baseball. Seriously, there's not.

By the way, Geraghty notes:

Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor at The Atlantic, finds Treasury Secretary Tim Geither had some harsh words for his one-time White House colleague and Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer, calling her “of no value on policy issues” of “financial rescue.”

Hey, hey, Timmy, take it easy on her. ItÂ’s not like you corrected that infamous chart on how the stimulus would affect the unemployment rate.

Oh right, she was responsible for that chart.

So what we seem to have here are a bunch of Obama staffers accusing each other of uselessness and incompetence.

Can't they all be right?

Meanwhile, only 36% of men support Obama now, an all-time low for him on Gallup.

Women aren't lovin' him either, by the way:

Last week, Obama’s approval among women was 43 percent in the Gallup poll, seven points higher than his approval among men—but still only 2 points above Obama’s all-time low among women, which was 41 percent, the level it hit in the week that ended Aug. 28.

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (294)
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Two big things in this Verum Serum post, and I can only steal one.

The June issue of the Journal of Health Policy, Politics, and Law weighs in on whether the public option of ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse designed to destroy the private health care in favor of a Britain-style single (government) payer system.

You'll have to click over to find out where these authors come down.

But below is a brilliant video from Verum Serum on this issue.

You been had. Bamboozled. Run amok.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:11 PM | Comments (281)
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Or, at least, it was time to panic.

After noting that the world economy is in truly dire straits, Meade notes that few seem able to understand this.

Trying to follow the US discussion from Tel Aviv, IÂ’m impressed (as is so often the case) with its political and insular focus. Will the worldwide economic crisis help or hurt President ObamaÂ’s chances for re-election in 2012? Which political party is gaming the crisis best, and so will gain more or at least lose less voter support in the polls?

These questions have to be asked I suppose, but given what is going on in the world right now they are trivial. It is almost as if on December 8, 1941, the press was filled with speculation about whether Franklin Roosevelt’s chances for a fourth term were helped or hurt by the attack — and whether GOP hopes to pick up more seats in the 1942 election would have to be put on hold.

The political speculation is worse than useless at this point. Global economic events are moving so rapidly that we have no way of foreseeing the economic environment for next year. It will probably not be very good, but how bad it will be and how it will look to voters cannot yet be foretold.

More to the point, we need policy discussions more than we need political ones. This is not just about how big the deficit should be; it is about whether the international financial system will survive the next six months in the form we now know it. It is about whether the foundations of the postwar order are cracking in Europe. It is about whether a global financial crash will further destabilize the Middle East and, if so, what we and the Europeans are going to do about it. It is about whether the incipient signs of a bubble burst in China signal the start of an extended economic and perhaps even political crisis there. It is about whether the American middle class is about to be knocked off its feet once again and indeed whether the middle class as weÂ’ve known it will survive. It is about whether sovereign governments can still underwrite economic performance and financial stability in the leading economies of the world.

This is an example of the foolish politicking Mead finds so parochial, but I do remember in 2007 that the media was quite insistent that the housing bubble burst was Very Big News which would portend Very Bad Things. That's not to say they were biased in that reportage. They got that right. And even as the bubble burst, I doubted them on their claims of serious economic fallout.

They were right; I was wrong.

But I would suggest that George W. Bush was the sort of president they didn't mind reporting bad news about. While they are very protective of, and optimistic about, the current resident of the White House.

It could be that we're not getting the true situation from the media because the media has very emotional, very irrational reason to not want to believe it themselves.

And thus what is actually a worldwide catastrophe in progress is demeaned as a mere political hurdle for Obama to overcome, maybe with a really good speech, maybe with a drop-in-the-bucket "stimulus."

And regarding politics: I do not know for certain what the next president would do, usefully, to improve the situation.

I do know that one man is singularly unqualified to occupy the most important office in the world during that 3 a.m. emergency call.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (248)
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A lot of zeros in a trillion. Hard to comprehend. The Gainesville Tea Party simplified the debt issue by chopping 8 zeros off all the numbers - creating family sized dollar amounts.

Why S&P Downgraded the US:
U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $1,650,000,000,000

National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent [April] budget cut: $38,500,000,000

Let’s remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt (this year) on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Budget cuts: $385

Looking at it this way, there are few serious politicians in DC working on the problem.

(Published out of draft by Ace).

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:27 AM | Comments (120)
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The DOW is down 400+. And it seems to me that these sectors...

The worst performing stock market sectors mirrored the sell-off in global commodities markets, with materials down 4.6 percent and energy stocks down 4.1 percent.

...tend to most predictive of near-future economic activity.

...

The selling in risk assets picked up momentum after the Fed's statement Wednesday, in which it characterized risks to the economy as "significant" and noted that "strains in global financial markets" (or Europe) could be a catalyst. Then overnight, a preliminary China manufacturing data showed moderating growth.

Obama benefactor George Soros says we're already in a double-dip.

Not only that, he's pretty sure it's Obama's fault.

Kidding. Of course it's the Republicans' fault.

Asked by CNBC if he believed the US risks falling into a double-dip recession , Soror said: "I think we are in it already."

"We have a slowdown and basically a conflict about whether the rich ought to pay taxes to create jobs or not and there was a deal in the making which would have balanced the budget over the long term, but would have allowed short-term fiscal stimulus, which would have been the right policy," Soros said in an interview late Wednesday.

"That was rejected, it fell apartÂ… so it will come to the electorate next year to decide what they want," he added.

Because of course the last stimulus worked so beautifully.

Thanks to RDBrewer.

Is it time to panic?

Or... did many miss their chance?

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (287)
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A new bridge is usually the sort of thing I support. The government ought to be doing this sort of thing.

But does a proposed Ohio-Kentucky bridge have anything to do with jobs "right now"?

In his address to Congress earlier this month, President Obama singled out the bridge as example of one that “needs repair.” White House press secretary Jay Carney echoed this line last week. “It’s pretty clear that this bridge could benefit from a little repair and renovation,” he told reporters. But local authorities are already on the case. They have been working for nearly a decade on a plan to replace the bridge with an entirely new structure, part of a broader initiative to alleviate vehicle congestion in the area.

Pfeiffer told the Enquirer that passing the president’s jobs bill would put unemployed construction workers to work right away on infrastructure projects across Ohio and Kentucky. The term “shovel-ready” comes to mind. However, there is nothing “shovel-ready” about the Brent Spence Bridge. Analysis on the project began only recently, and the Federal Highway Administration has yet to open the issue to public comment. Even if all the necessary funding were in place (which it’s not), the FHWA estimates, the earliest possible start date for construction on the project would be 2015, with a completion date in 2022.

...

President Obama himself admitted that one of the flaws of the stimulus package was the fact that “shovel-ready wasn’t as shovel-ready as we expected.” And yet here he is touting efforts like the Brent Spence Bridge replacement as an example of an infrastructure project that could “put people to work right now” and get the economy growing again. Can Obama really blame members of Congress, including a number of Democrats, for being a bit skeptical this time around?

I'm not sure if Obama has in mind the replacement bridge, because he speaks of repairing the old one. Maybe this is his way to cover and fuzz the claim up.

But even a bridge repair is not shovel-ready. In fact, I can't think of a less shovel-ready thing than a bridge repair, which will require months of planning. Fixing a bridge which is currently in use would require a lot of traffic planning, wouldn't it? And engineering plans, and so on.

These are all mid-range projects, somewhere between two to four years away. It is simply a demagogic lie, and an absurd one, given that he's told it before and has now eaten crow, to insist that major civil engineering projects requiring at least a year of surveying and planning are ready to produce jobs "right now."

By his own ever-optimistic projections, we'll be out of this rough patch of economy by then, anyway. (Riiiight?) So the stimulus aspect is missing, once again.

Incidentally, if he were at all serious about fixing this bridge, he could have, erm, included it in the first "stimulus" package. (In fact, $0 was devoted to the bridge last time 'round.)

If he had, then the engineering and planning work would have been done by now, and, in fact, men would be ready to start welding on the project.

But he didn't. He just assumed that this would be a normal recession, fairly brief, and that the natural business cycle rebound would ride to his rescue in short order, and then he could take credit.

So he didn't bother planning for a three year recession. Even though he's Professor Science and everything.

But this time -- O!, this time. This time it's shovel ready.

Fired up, ready to go.

More: He was, in fact, just fuzzing up what he's talking about.

The current bridge does not need repairs -- it needs another bridge nearby to handle traffic congestion.

So, apparently Obama was talking about a new bridge, which he's willing to sell you, sometime around 2015, assuming everything goes according to plan.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (142)
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Newell's testimony was said even by Democrats to be "frustrating," which is a euphemism for "unhelpful," which is itself a euphemism for "evasive."

Ah. Well, now he'll fix that with a "supplemental statement" to the record.

Prepared with significant input from his lawyers, I assume.

“After taking time to reflect and review my testimony from the hearing on July 26, 2011, I realize I could have given clearer, more complete and more direct responses to some questions,” former Special Agent in Charge William Newell said in a 12-page document submitted to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and obtained by Fox News.

In a “supplemental statement,” Newell insisted agents did not knowingly allow thousands of weapons to reach criminal hands. Any concerns raised over the program were never voiced to appropriate authorities, he said, and only once did higher-ups tell agents not to arrest a suspect -- when the safety of the agents was in jeopardy.

He tried to emphasize his points during the July hearing, but even Democrats then described his testimony, under oath, as “quite frustrating.”

Of nearly 2,000 weapons sold to suspected “straw” purchasers over several months, the ATF was notified in time and able to monitor the purchase of only 325 firearms, Newell said. In fact, of the 2,000 weapons sold to suspects, 400 of them were sold before “Fast and Furious” ever launched. Still, Newell acknowledged ATF “was able to proactively and lawfully” seize only a third of the 325 weapons under ATF surveillance.

“With 20/20 hindsight, I now see that I should have conducted more frequent assessments,” Newell said in his filing. “With more regular assessments I could have articulated to my staff the need to be proactive in ascertaining the quantity of guns being purchased that we were not able to intercept.”

He claims he could not track the guns that showed up at the Brian Terry murder later, because tracking only occurred once the ATF had been made aware of the sale, and the ATF was not so notified until three days later.

But... the ATF is also telling these dealers just to let the guns walk. How can the ATF possibly think about tracking the guns when they've ordered dealers (against their own judgment) to sell them without any hassle?

Newell's claim is that the ATF couldn't have tracked the guns, due to circumstances; but those circumstances were created -- intentionally-- by the ATF.

He doubles down on the claim that he knew of no problems, none at all, with this bizarre operation:

In his new filing, Newell also tried to push back on suggestions from whistleblowers and others that ATF agents had repeatedly raised concerns about “Fast and Furious,” insisting he was “unaware” of any such concerns until they were voiced publicly on TV.

“To me, the stark absence of contemporaneous documents voicing concerns to supervisors over 'guns walking,' establishes quite convincingly that concerns over alleged 'gun walking' were not raised with the appropriate supervisors in the Phoenix Field Division during the operational phase of this investigation,” Newell said in his filing.

In addition, he said there is a “well-established process” for voicing concerns to ATF's Internal Affairs Division or Office of the Ombudsman, and, “To the best of my knowledge, at no time during the operational phase of the ‘Fast and Furious’ investigation did any of the whistleblowers contact [them] with concerns regarding the investigation.”

Posted by: Ace at 10:18 AM | Comments (83)
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A great read.

As Andrew Stuttaford writes:

This magnificent Spectator polemic by Peter Oborne (the author of two of the finest books on recent British politics in recent decades: The Triumph of the Political Class and The Rise of Political Lying) and Frances Weaver on British supporters of the euro is a must-read, and not only for Brits. In just a few paragraphs, the authors offer up a classic example of how the groupthink of a small elite clique in media, politics and the corporatist establishment can distort and suppress debate and set a country — any country — on the path to disaster. And yes, U.S. immigration policy since 1965 comes to mind.

Although there are many villains, the BBC is one of the most blameworthy:

As Rod Liddle, then editor of the Radio 4’s Today programme, said: ‘The whole ethos of the BBC and all the staff was that Eurosceptics were xenophobes and there was an end to it. The euro would come up at a meeting and everybody would just burst out laughing about the Eurosceptics.’ Liddle recalls one meeting with a very senior figure at the BBC to deal with Eurosceptic complaints of bias. ‘Rod, the thing you have to understand is that these people are mad. They are mad.’

In truth the Eurosceptics were only too sane. Politicians like Margaret Thatcher, John Redwood, David Owen, William Hague and Bill Cash were mocked — often very cruelly — at the time. But they grasped with stunning clarity the problems the euro would bring. They deserve full credit for their courage and foresight today, and our gratitude too.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (141)
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Of the myriad problems with socialism, one is this: People take good care of their own money. They earned it, they sweated it. They are reasonably careful about how they dispose of it.

When bureaucrats have millions (even billions) that is nothing to them but numbers on a piece of paper, do they exercise the standard of care that people do with their own blood sweat & tears property?

No, they do not.

Former employees of Solyndra, the shuttered solar company that exhausted half a billion dollars of taxpayer money, said they saw questionable spending by management almost as soon as a federal agency approved a $535 million government-backed loan for the startup.

A new factory built with public money boasted a gleaming conference room with glass walls that, with the flip of a switch, turned smoky-gray to conceal the roomÂ’s occupants. Hastily purchased state-of-the-art equipment ended up being sold for pennies on the dollar, still in its plastic bubble wrap, employees said.

As the $344 million factory went up just down the road from the companyÂ’s leased plant in Fremont, Calif., workers watched as pallets of unsold solar panels stacked up in storage. Many wondered: Did we even need this new factory?

“After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right,” said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. “Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.”

The Washington Post makes news (I think) as regards the status of that second loan, for $469 million-- they say it was never approved.

We need to see those documents and emails, the ones concerning this second loan. Because I have a feeling they say something like: "This company is a bad risk and the first tranche of loans never should have gone out, let alone this second tranche."

Posted by: Ace at 09:05 AM | Comments (168)
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