Stephen. M. Walt, reflecting on the secret video showing Mitt Romney saying that would ‘kick the can down the road’ when it comes to dealing with the Israel-Palestine issue, says something that has been puzzling me too.
Here’s what struck me about this latest incident. Romney is not a stupid man, whatever one might think of his political views or his awkward public persona. He is also a man who has been running for president for more than five years. He has done nothing else in that entire period: He was already wealthy and didn’t have to work, and his children were grown. He could spend most of his time mastering the issues, and he could have invited virtually anyone he wished to come in and brief him on any topic he thought was important for a future president to understand. He’s had more than enough time to learn the ins and outs of our economic situation, to study the pros and cons of alternative approaches to health care, infrastructure development, and the like, and to bone up on tricky foreign policy issues like relations with China and Russia, counter-terrorism, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At this point, there is simply no excuse for his not having clear and defensible positions on these vital issues, and more. It’s called doing one’s homework.
There’s also no excuse for Romney not knowing how to talk about these issues in a way that conveys a sophisticated awareness of where the minefields are. Somebody who really understands our tax system and the nature of government entitlements doesn’t tell donors that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes and imply they are just mooching off of everyone else.
Walt speculates on possible reasons for this.
They don’t just expose the ignorance of a man who’s spent his entire adult life protected in the bubble wrap of wealth, privilege, and intellectual conformity. What they reveal is either 1) enormous and inexplicable ignorance, 2) a smug and cynical willingness to say whatever he thinks each audience wants to hear, or 3) the iron grip of a world-view that is impervious to evidence.
My explanation is slightly different. Romney has always been rich and wealth tends to bestow an undue weight to the things that such people say. I recall an article where a woman at a party observed how people clustered around a rich person and treated his words with a great deal of respect even though the things he was saying were trite or even wrong. Maybe as a result of such fawning behavior of those around them, rich people start thinking that they have within them an inexhaustible fount of wisdom that enables them to arrive at good judgments without doing any actual thinking or studying.
This would also explain what conservative commentator Byron York has noticed, that despite being behind in the polls, Romney seems to be cruising along with a remarkably relaxed campaign schedule while Barack Obama is the one who is campaigning like he is behind.
These are the behaviors of a person who has never really had to work hard at anything.
He’s Mitt Rmoney?
So everything pretty much then?
Although he does have tens of millions in the bank to help him fix that.
(But some things cannot be fixed eg. personality, ethics, brains.)
What’s the matter with Romney?
Entitlements.
He thinks he’s entitled to the Presidency because he wants it.
Although I saw an alternative suggestion yesterday: Mitt Romney moved into a leadership position in the Republican Party, has mortgaged their future to the hilt, is in the process of sucking out its assets for his personal aggrandizement and will leave behind an indebted, broken shell of an organization.
He’s campaigning Bain-style.
BlueGal, from the Professional Left Podcast, has put forth the theory that Mitt Romney doesn’t really want to be President. He’s mostly doing this so that a future Mormon who actually does want to be president will have an easier time of it.
So this half assed approach, it’s part of the plan.
Something else is going on here. Willard’s father was very much a Horatio Alger figure who started with very little and ended up with a lot. IMO his remake of the Michigan constitution is a mess and I would never have voted for him, but he seems to have been a decent enough man as captains of industry go. The son, however, was a mean little bully at Cranbrook (note that he needed a gang to go after the allegedly-gay kid he attacked) and is now the incarnation of “sense of entitlement.”
Are there any socio- or psychological studies of the second generation of newly-rich US families (the analogues of the novi homines of a former empire)? Might make interesting reading for those who keep an eye on Mittens.
To paraphrase my coworker, it seems like Romney thinks this a just another promotion. And not even a promotion he seems to care all that much about. Probably his previous advances came fairly easily to him, so what reason does he have to assume this will be any different?
Romney’s a classic CEO. He doesn’t think he needs to do any work, he has PEOPLE to do that for him. He surrounds himself with yes-men to tell him whatever they think he wants to here. He doesn’t think he’s ever made a mistake in his entire life. When something goes wrong, he blames the messenger, blames “the little people”, which is to say the 47%, and eventually finds a fall guy.
My take is that he is out raising money, which is something he does well, as opposed to campaigning, which he does abysmally.
Remember that Mitt Romney’s stated views have changed DRAMATICALLY from 6 years ago. He is still adjusting to his new far-right beliefs, so it’s understandable that he might be a little confused about their implications in obscure areas like foreign policy or domestic policy.
Works for me.
If he needs some money for his leveraged buyout of the Teapublicans, I can raise a lot.
From the OP:
Robert Burns talked about this type of person some two hundred years ago:
Oh, that Burns! Always has the right poem for any occasion.
And whom did he invite to advise him? Folks like Robert Bork on legal issues, and John Bolton on international relations. As Forrest Gump says, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
“1) enormous and inexplicable ignorance, 2) a smug and cynical willingness to say whatever he thinks each audience wants to hear, or 3) the iron grip of a world-view that is impervious to evidence.”
Correct answer:
All of the above.
Corvus@4: Thanks. I,ve been trying to think who Romney put me in mind of and, as you point out, it is of course Rex.
My guess, for what it’s worth, would be that he’s constrained by the current thinking of the Republican Party. If he is to lead them, he needs to start where they are.
Just a thought.
I’d say Number 2. David Brooks had a good comment on the News Hour last week. He said that you just can’t fake enthusiasm for a cause that you don’t share. When you try to fake it, you just end up sounding like an idiot.
The advice that both Shields and Brooks had for Romney was to pick something he actually believed in, and make that the centerpiece of his campaign. Even if he lost, then, he’d be able to tell his grandchildren that he stood up for a good cause. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that he no longer remembers any of the things he actually once believed.
The advice that both Shields and Brooks had for Romney was to pick something he actually believed in, and make that the centerpiece of his campaign.
Be careful what you wish for. If he did that, the centerpiece of his campaign could well be “let’s all gang up on the faggots and have a good laugh about it afterwords. (Trust me, I’ll be leading from behind all the way…)”
You mean like David Brooks did in 2008 when he kept his reservations about Sarah Palin to himself?