And this is the key to why.
A Santorum candidacy would probably just be a longer version of the Sarah Palin section of the 2008 election, with actual sentences this time. Only difference is Palin was a genuinely magnetic figure–whether you believed she walked on water or correctly believed she was a completely ignorant trainwreck of a person, she commanded serious attention. Santorum, though, is just a sad, bitter man who can’t get over losing in 2006, has preserved the particular fights he waged at the time in amber and wants to fight them again and again, ad infinitum, as well as refighting a lot of older ones. Scattered message discipline is the hallmark of an underfunded, ad hoc political campaign, which again, shades of McCain 2008. But it’s not just that, as Alex MacGillis persuasively argues:
We talk a lot these days about Washington having been overtaken by conservative ideologues, but this is an exaggeration. Many of those glibly parroting right-wing ideology these days—say, Eric Cantor—are mere opportunists. But Rick Santorum is a rare breed—a bona fide ideologue with a fixed and coherent world view. He can’t just switch some button and turn off the social stuff and talk jobs instead. It’s all woven together. “I’m not going to go out and lay out an agenda about how we’re going to transform people’s hearts,” he said today. “But I will talk about it.” The contrast with Mitt Romney, the man who is all buttons and switches, couldn’t be any greater.
Which means that, if Santorum is the candidate, he’s going to be running on a holistic hyper-right worldview that will mystify and alienate pretty much everyone else. That’s much harder for Obama to campaign against, but luckily it will be impossible for Santorum to argue for everything to the electorate. How on Earth is he going to convince Protestants (who outnumber Catholics substantially in America) that they’re not really Christians? That’s not at all a political issue and it’s incredibly poorly suited to our soundbyte media culture to boot. Overall, the Santorum campaign doesn’t believe much in emphasizing one issue over another, modulating the impact of his statements for general public consumption, or even holding back on some of his less popular notions. Which is to say that his true enemy isn’t Romney or Obama, but the very idea of politics itself. This is why the Tea Party loves him, as it’s largely their contempt for the actual practice of politics that drives them, as opposed to the not-at-all political Great Statesmanship of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, men who were so morally pure and leader-y that they completely dominated all opponents and got every single thing they wanted when they wanted it due to that awesomeness, and none were known to make a bad call ever. It’s a complete fantasy, of course, but seductive to a lot of people on the right and some on the left too. This is why Santorum would be completely hopeless in a general election (and, God forbid, as president).
There are a lot of people out there who believe that Mitt Romney is basically a decent person with dignity and decency and everything, and that he just doesn’t think that elections ought to be taken seriously. It’s hard to reconcile a concept of Romney with dignity to this:
With just over a week to go before the Michigan primary, ABC News reports Mitt Romney “is enlisting the help of one of his highest-wattage surrogates: Donald Trump.”
“The real estate mogul is preparing to spread his pro-Romney, anti-Rick Santorum message in a series of radio interviews this week on local stations from Traverse City to Detroit.”
Is this going to convince anyone to vote Romney? Probably not. Nobody’s ever pegged the Donald as having the common touch, and aside from his ongoing birther fixation there’s little there for working-class white conservatives to have much of an interest in there. It would be one thing if Romney were trying to steal the New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut primaries away from Santorum, but Trump has no connection to Michigan or Ohio, he’s just the guy who says “You’re fired!” on the TV to everyone not in the Tri-State Area. Hard to see how he helps Romney, and it could even backfire by making him less credible with elites.
Does this reek of desperation? Of course, but Romney’s been wearing that scent so long it might as well be his cologne. And I do think there’s a fascinating angle here. Back when Romney was the unchallenged frontrunner, he declined an invitation to participate in a debate hosted by…Donald Trump, basically saying it was beneath him. Both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum agreed to participate. But, now that pretty much everyone in America has turned on poor old Mittens, he’s decided that acknowledging the unbearable orangeness of being is now hardly beneath his dignity, and failed alternative football league founder Trump is now cheerleading for the candidate who publicly snubbed him, against one of the two guys who never did, and who additionally is the one whose style he most resembles. How confusing.
What can we conclude from all this? I think (1) that Donald Trump has no memory and is making it all up as he goes along, and (2) that while I do agree that Romney is probably not a horrible person deep down, the depth of his tragic flaw (i.e. an insatiable desire for power) is practically Shakespearean, and the few scruples that he still has today will probably be out the door in a few months if things get desperate enough. He’s like Francis Urquhart without the wit and humor.
I really never thought I’d see the day when the Republican Fake Outrage Machine would try to score political points by slamming Democrats for tweets they find offensive to gay people. I mean, aren’t they the ones who are always bitching about playing the race card and the gender card? Remember all the fooferaw over Sarah Palin saying that criticism of her was sexist?
Read it and weep at the irony:
Republicans are calling for an apology from President Barack Obama’s campaign manager over a tweet they argue is offensive to the gay community.
On Wednesday, Jim Messina sought to call attention to an article by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, in which Milbank argued that Republicans will alienate gay voters by opposing gay marriage and giving the cold shoulder to a gay judge Obama had nominated.
“Line of the day from WAPO’s Dana Milbank: ‘The appletini? It may be the only thing Republicans have left to offer gay people,’” Messina tweeted.
Republicans are jumping on the tweet in order to garner much needed support from the gay community in preparation for the 2012 elections. As The Hill reports, Eric Schwanzheim, executive director of the conservative Gay Leadership Network issued a statement in response to Messina’s tweet:
The fact that the campaign manager of President Obama’s reelection campaign thinks it’s appropriate to disseminate insulting jokes about the gay community is a perfect example of the kind of empty rhetoric that characterizes this White House’s so-called outreach to gay Americans. We demand that Mr. Messina immediately apologize and we ask that President Obama disavow his campaign manager’s ridiculous statement.
Messina has drawn attacks from other Republican leaders as well, who did not appreciate his quoting of Milbank’s column. The Republican National Committee’s political director, Rick Wiley, also took the opportunity to berate Messina, calling the tweet “ridiculous.”
Messina responded to the attacks Wednesday afternoon. “Tweeting someone else’s words caused a stir, but the GOP is on the wrong side of every gay voter priority,” he tweeted. His tweet included a link to an Obama strategy memo titled, “Republicans Seal Their Fate with Gay Voters in 2012.”
The appletini remark made by Milbank and quoted by Messina actually had its origins in a speech by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), however. During a Senate hearing Tuesday, Republicans attempted to block the confirmation of Jonathan Smithberg, who would be the first gay judge to serve on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who delayed the confirmation, Republican senators who had the opportunity to override Paul’s filibuster chose not to. Instead, McCain, took to the Senate floor to highlight important details about the state of Arizona.
“The cranberry juice in your cosmo this month almost certainly came from Arizona,” McCain said, according to Milbank. “It’s also believed that the appletini has its origin in Arizona.”
The GOP has had a strained relationship with the gay community over the years and is seeking to show gay voters that it does care about them, despite opposition by Republicans on key issues such as gay marriage.
Ok, so of course I’m just kidding. That quote is from a real article but I just replaced references to “Latino” with “gay”. For extra fun, imagine using the word “African-American”.
Isn’t it amazing how Republicans only seem to care about minority issues when they’re trying to drive political wedges and not when it comes to, oh I don’t know, trying to actually solve minority issues in our country?
We now see Mittens’s brand-new plan to dispatch Rick Santorum:
First, he’ll be compared to President Obama: “He’s never run anything. The biggest thing he ever ran is his Senate office.”
Second, he’ll be painted as a creature of Washington: “They’re going to hit him very hard on earmarks, lobbying, voting to raise the federal debt limit five times. The story of Santorum is going to be told over the next few weeks in a big way.”
Okay, maybe not so much on the brand-new part.
This pretty weak stuff. Considering that the GOP base largely thought Sarah Palin was entirely qualified to be president (even better qualified than Barack Obama, in their minds), the first point is likely to fall flat altogether. Which is to say, what they see as their best ammunition is going to miss the mark entirely. Furthermore, earmarks and the debt ceiling are entirely ephemeral issues that Republicans seized on for tactical reasons, but there’s not a deep reservoir of concern for (or even a basic understanding about) these issues among the GOP base (or among the general electorate either–remember how McCain flogged the earmarks in 2008?). Rick’s lobbying career might hurt him a bit, but unlike Gingrich he didn’t work for any obvious conservative bogeymen so one wonders how effective this will be. Romney’s prospective attacks on Santorum are interesting in that they don’t attack his point of strength (he is perceived as a sincere and authentic conservative culture warrior), but are trying to persuade voters that Santorum is weak where Romney is strong. But if these voters truly valued executive experience and capability to handle the job more than being a “true conservative” then they’d all be Mitt men (and women) now, wouldn’t they?
If this is the best Mitt has, he might as well just drop out now and end the pain. Santorum will command a lot of attention in Michigan, and his main problem in going after Mitt is where to start because there’s so much for a culture warrior to go after. Seriously, this is an actual problem since he has to have a throughline for his criticism, as he can not bombard the electorate with disconnected negative information. Going after Mitt’s past support for Planned Parenthood would be the natural place for him to start. It’s timely at the least.
It is surreal to me that these people have to ask themselves, “How do I defeat a resurgent Rick Santorum?” It speaks to Romney’s wretchedness as a candidate, to be sure. But the problem with Santorum (as opposed to Gingrich) is that Romney destroyed Gingrich by making Newt out to be a hypocrite and a phony conservative, which was easy since Newt was both. In other words, Romney beat Newt because Newt is one of the few less authentically conservative candidates than he is. Santorum, though, is not obviously either of these things–he’s obviously a creep but that’s no demerit in this case–and Romney’s campaign seems to be visibly flustered on the question of how to deal with this situation. It’ll be interesting to see how they do.

Romney, Summering In Florida
Grover Noquist made an interesting argument for why Republicans should elect Mitt Romney in a recent speech at CPAC:
All we have to do is replace Obama. … We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.
So what is Norquist’s fundamental requirement for a Republican President? Apparently: doing what he’s told:
Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.
David Frum scratches his head:
This is not a very complimentary assessment of Romney’s leadership. It’s also not a very realistic political program: congressional Republicans have a disapproval rating of about 75%. If Americans get the idea that a vote for Romney is a vote for the Ryan plan, Romney is more or less doomed.
To date, sad to say, Romney has worked hard to confirm this image of weakness.
Nobody wants a president who acts as the passive instrument of even generally popular groups like labor unions. (Did you know that—despite decades of declining popularity—unions still have an approval rating of 52%? I didn’t until I looked it up.)
But a candidate who appeases the most disliked people in national politics? That guy will command neither public affection nor respect.
via Sully
From TPM:
On the issue of religious liberty, Obama finds himself in more comfortable territory. His policy tweak placated Democrats and moderate Catholics who had voiced concerns, without alienating his constituencies that championed the original rule. The accommodation also makes it more difficult to argue in court that the rule substantially burdens religious freedoms.
If the debate becomes about contraception coverage, it has the potential to drive a wedge between the GOP. For instance, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have in the past championed a birth control mandate similar to Obama’s, and were in no rush to exempt religious groups. Even prominent conservatives like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) have voted for legislation that included a contraception mandate in federal employee health care plans.
What’s amazing about this battle, politically speaking, is that it really is win-win for Democrats. There’s literally nothing they can do to screw it up that I can see. If Republicans don’t introduce any bills to stop the mandate that employers offer contraceptive coverage, the media will lose interest and Democrats win. If Republicans do introduce them and they fail, as is highly likely, Democrats win even better. If Republicans somehow manage to hold together their entire caucus and peel enough Dems off to force it through, then they’ve shut down contraceptive access and have to get that thrown back at them in November. Democrats still win, probably the most in this scenario. It’s hard to imagine why Republicans were drawn to an issue that combines terrible politics with rampant, obvious insincerity (I mean, if Eric flippin’ Cantor supported the concept…). If, as they say, the field of battle is the biggest determinant of who wins, this field is poor indeed for Republicans. My guess for why it became a thing is that it was a combination of timing–it came along right when they needed something new to keep the dittoheads in a lather about–and that this issue hits too many pressure points (Regulation! Church and State! Damn Planned Parenthood!) for them to wisely lay off. But they didn’t, so now they’re defending the unpopular and arcane positions of a minority denomination that many of their party’s biggest religious supporters regard as little more than a glorified cult. Boffo work there, Boehner!
I can’t get over how dumb this thing is. They’re “winning” this battle in the same way John McCain “won” every week in 2008. Their case is all over cable news and the op-ed pages, but every poll shows that it’s not hitting home with the public. And why should it? The only people who care with the Catholic Bishops think are Catholics, and even they favor the rule. To appeal to the moral authority of an institution that has spent the last decade shredding it is pure fail, and the optics make it look as though Republicans are merely doing the bidding of the Bishops, which is not exactly a favorable image to the 75-80% of the public who aren’t Catholic (and a substantial part of those who are). I can understand why they’re doing it–as I said, the issue does hit an awful lot of pressure points for today’s right–but it’s so poorly advised I can barely believe it is happening. This is why fanaticism can be a weakness.
Emily Hauser has a darkly humorous response to Pete Hoekstra’s sinophobic ad:
After all of this (and the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-poor people, anti-union, anti-anyone-not-white-male-straight-and-wealthy palaver as well) clearly, the Asians were next up.
I was going to call the post forming itself in my head:
“Dear Asian-Americans – Look out, I think they’re coming for you.”
I will admit, however, that I was stymied by an inability to figure out just what the slurs might be. It’s the burden, I suppose, of being the “model minority” — you face discrimination and othering and bigotry, but it comes wrapped in words that are meant to sound like compliments. “Good at math” being one example. “Tiger mom” being another.
AND THEN THEY FREAKING CAME. And good lord, how could I have been so stupid? [...]
They are Chinese, but in a really oddly Vietnam-y way, one which will remind you that not only are they Not American, they are Inscrutable, and Peasant-y, and Very Very Dangerous.
They are also oddly interchangeable, because the scuttlebutt is that the woman featured in Hoekstra’s ad (in which she says she’s Chinese in pidgin English while bicycling along a rice paddy in a conical hat) isn’t even Chinese-American. It’s just scuttlebutt at this point, but I would be willing to bet that Hoekstra’s campaign didn’t necessarily make a point of looking for an authentically Chinese-American person to use for race-baiting purposes.
Soooo, it’s been a super long walk to get here, but:
Dear Asian-Americans: I am so sorry that I didn’t warn you about the GOP. I could see it coming — I just had no idea how fast the Racism Train was running.
What’s exceedingly strange about this is that the Asian-American community has historically been friendly to Republicans. Many of the older Japanese people I’ve known never forgot that it was a Democratic president who sent them to internment camps during WWII (and a Democratic governor who carried out the legwork, at least initially). To be sure, Asian-Americans comprise a lot of legitimately different groups who don’t all think alike, of which the Japanese are only one, but during the ’70s and ’80s, these communities were drawn to the GOP over anti-Communism, social conservatism, and a culture of frugality, which (among other things) powered Sam Hayakawa’s successful Republican Senate campaign. This book goes over all of this in much more detail for those interested.
Really, though, Asian-Americans are some of the most natural Republican voters outside of their base that you could possibly imagine. It’s amazing that they’ve lost them. California has one of the highest concentrations of Asian-American voters in the country, and Meg Whitman only managed to win 39% of them in a really, really good Republican year (in context, she won about 1/5 of Black voters too, so that 39% is undoubtedly inflated by a fair amount from normal circumstances). That their political support for the GOP has eroded is probably why Republicans are feeling free to lash out as they have, but what’s worth remembering is that Republicans have typically not really tried much Asian racebaiting. It’s much harder to run a Lee Atwater sort of strategy against a generally prosperous minority group, after all, and one whose stereotypes resist being wrongly labeled as lazy, stupid bums. Honestly, the more natural bigoted approach for that would probably be some kind of ersatz anti-Semitism, which is basically I think what Hoekstra’s ad is, with the sneaky foreigner who’s also portrayed as ignorant and foolish (but mostly moneygrubbing). I think that’s the hidden resonance here. Nothing is ever new in this game, my friends.
Not that it matters much in the long term. Hoekstra is a marginal political talent who was a punchline in Congress and lost a gubernatorial primary in 2010 to a complete unknown, and I fully expect him to lose again this year. He’s one of those candidates that Republicans repeatedly try to foist on blue-state electorates that want no part of them, like three-time loser Dino Rossi (remember him?) in Washington.
I think that one of the first personality traits to get killed off once you go into politics is the capability to maintain perspective. I remember being amazed during the Clinton years at how much anger, ink, hatred and venom got directed at “WELFARE!!11!!!”, considering how relatively small “welfare” spending really is.
Well, history loves to repeat itself.
The latest social welfare program that conservatives are using to drop easily understood racist dog whistles to their mentally ambulatory brownshirts is food stamps – the federally funded program to enable black people to gorge themselves on fried chicken and orange drink provide the barest minimum of nutrition to poor people in their time of need.
How much does this lavish government largesse cost us?
A program that provides only, on average, $133 per month [!!] to families barely getting by?
A program where half of the recipients are children?
Answer: Less than 2% of our entire federal budget:

So let’s all try to keep a little perspective.
Just imagine what we could achieve if people like Newt Gingrich directed their energies toward improving the nutritional health of our children instead of demonizing their lazy, shiftless, handout-taking parents…
…
I know, I laughed just then too.
“If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, I would give them a shot of estrogen.”via
Say what you will about Republicans but you have to hand it to them for perfecting the art of up-is-downism.
Take the latest kerfuffle over the Komen Foundation’s yanking of support for Planned Parenthood.
First you bring in a new VP dead-set on defunding Planned Parenthood and craft a new policy with the specific intent of having it only apply to Planned Parenthood:
[T]hree sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new “no-investigations” rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization’s new senior vice president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is “pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.” (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.)
Then, once you’ve executed your plan to drop Planned Parenthood funding for political reasons and cause a holy shitstorm by doing it, you run to your Facebook page, clutch your pearls and accuse your critics of politicizing the issue:
Grant making decisions are not about politics–our priority is and always will be the women we serve. Making this issue political or leveraging it for fundraising purposes would be a disservice to women.
It’s the same old tapdance they do when it comes to Republicans saying racist shit:
- Republican says some racist shit.
- People who don’t like racist shit call the Republican out on saying racist shit.
- Said Republican clutches pearls and decries the mean people who are playing the race card against him.
So it is and so it shall ever be.
Great observation by E.D. Kain:
Romney won tonight, and I suspect that Palin picked the losing team on purpose. She plays the underdog well. This way she can be in that seat regardless of whether its Romney or Obama in the White House next year. The perpetual underdog, forever whining at the margins. She’s shrewd enough to see what Newt’s campaign represents – the resurgent grassroots conservatism that is propping it up; the remnants of the anti-establishment Tea Party, or at least that sentiment. It’s a sentiment of loss – of preservation against all odds.
See, Palin doesn’t want to win. She doesn’t even want her guy to win or her cause to win. There’s more to gain from losing. That’s her entire shtick, and she knows it.
I can’t remember the last time I wrote anything about Palin, which isn’t a bad thing. But I have to say, it’s been pretty fascinating to vaguely follow what she’s been up to, to follow this downward slope to the end. It’s pretty clear that Palin wants to be famous for being famous, to be a Britney Spears/Kim Kardashian type who was always being buzzed about, whose life has every detail just relentlessly picked apart and obsessed about. That’s why she gave up her post for a reality show that failed. But it turned out that Palin as a person really wasn’t all that interesting, even to people more kindly disposed to her than I ever was. Her talent wasn’t an overpowering personality, it was that she could work people into a constant lather. That was her one skill, and why I figured that a likely unsuccessful Palin presidential run was inevitable. In fact, Palin would have been the biggest “business plan” candidate of them all! She’d be able to work people into a frenzy without having to actually be president, playing to all her strengths and none of her weaknesses. It would have been the smartest possible move for her to make, but Palin turned out to be seriously deluded: she thought her most marketable trait was her personality, and has been abundantly proven wrong. This belated attempt to insert herself into the election feels half-hearted and pitiful by comparison to the old stuff. Almost defeated. Which fits I guess.
Snack Food
This is not the most important metric of economic success by any measure, but still a pretty significant accomplishment nonetheless. Welcome to the recovery. (0 comments)Richly deserved: The Fix suggests Newt Gingrich may be the most unpopular person in American politics right now. A CNN/Opinion Research poll finds 63% of all Americans viewed Gingrich unfavorably, compared to just 25% who saw him in a positive light. And a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows a similar split: 54% view Gingrich unfavorably, ... (0 comments)GOP Voters: 'Can We See What It Looks Like With Huntsman And Perry Again?'
WASHINGTON—Claiming something “just seemed off” with the combination of candidates currently seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for president, voters asked Tuesday if they could see once more what the GOP field would look like with Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry back in the race.
... (3 comments)Romney Still Soulless, Insincere, Greedy Humanoid
This really pisses me off: Well my own view is, it’s a great idea. People who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they’re not using those benefits to pay for drugs. I think it’s an excellent idea. Why not just pass a law requiring HHS employees to just mock people getting their welfare ... (2 comments)E.D. Kain ponders “Why conservatives can’t do pop culture very well“
It reminds me of a post I did back in 2009, “And Jesus Blessed This Nation At Our Founding… Literally“
(3 comments)Official Gingrich-Cain 2012 response to Rick Santorum’s homophobia: “Rick, Rick, Rick. Don’t you know that the anti-gay bigotry only carries water if you have a few failed straight marriages under your belt?” Follow all their other words of wisdom here. (0 comments)Ron Paul Quote of the Week: Honest Rape
Here’s Grandpa Fustypants on rape and abortion:“If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, I would give them a shot of estrogen.”
via (4 comments)Unhinged vagina-shackler on Komen’s volte face:Cancer is Cancer! Aboration is Aboration!
(0 comments)Since it’s Mitt Romney week everywhere, I figured I’d post this op-ed by an ex-Mormon, which is a pretty interesting take at the institutional culture of the LDS church. Not much to say about it, but it’s definitely worth 5 or so minutes of your time. (0 comments)Why Bipartisanship Is Impossible, In One Sentence
When one party climbs back to power by promising action on the economy, does nothing on it, and instead spends literally all its time trying to hurt the other party. (0 comments)New From The Gingrich-Cain Front
Newt rants about cable movies he doesn’t like, and flips out when Herman tries to seize control. Catch all the fun here. And the main site is here, as always. (0 comments)Headline of the Week: Making Rapeanade
Leave it to TBogg:
(0 comments)Rick Santorum Suggests That When Life Gives You Rape, You Should Make Rapeanade Back when I was in junior high and the Clinton Impeachment was going on, I could hardly have imagined that Clinton would be used as an excuse for wrongdoing by Republican leaders. But that’s where we are. Interesting, isn’t it? (0 comments)Catch up with the official Gingrich-Cain “Great Statesmen” series over at @GingrichCain12. (0 comments)Only 65% of White Americans Have a Favorable Opinion of MLK Jr
…with a whimper. Drum is worth reading on this. I think he’s just got to be the most overhyped and overcovered guy who never managed better than third place since…Joe Lieberman? (0 comments)Fine Vintages
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