He’s the base’s strongest candidate, I think. His speech was an artful attempt to put the Republican Humpty-Dumpty back together again. He kept repeating the importance of a conservative coalition. He spoke of bringing economic and social and national security conservatives together one more time. On fiscal issues, he definitely had me. He pledged to keep non-defense discretionary spending one percent below the inflation rate. His best un-Bush line:
I know how to veto; I like to veto.
Nothing on entitlements, of course, which are the main problem. But he certainly seems to understand the centrality of fiscal balance to any conservative coalition. He called Bush’s record "embarrassing." It’s worse than embarrassing. I loved his phrase: "simpler, smarter and smaller government." Yes, please.
The rest, however, was weak from my point of view. On social policy, he’s a theocon. But then you ask yourself: what is a president actually going to do about marriage equality in Massachusetts? Or stem cell research in California? Not much. He would doubtless help legitimize the marginalization of gay people in our society. And that’s a big thing. But the FMA is surely dead, and it’s hard to see him out-doing Rudy on Supreme Court appointments. Still, his rhetoric on the judicial branch was vulgar: the usual boilerplate about men "in black robes" thwarting the will of the people. Has it occurred to Romney that the entire point of an independent judiciary is to thwart the will of the people sometimes? I get the feeling that large parts of the Republican party would rather the judiciary didn’t exist. That’s a strange position for true conservatives to take. But, as you know, I think true conservatives are increasingly rare in the GOP.
On foreign policy, Romney was bold enough to call the Iraq fiasco "under-prepared, under-managed, under-manned and under-planned." But he had no strategy for countering Jihadism except lots of military spending and some kind of "Marshall Plan" for moderate Muslim countries. You know a candidate has no ideas when he mentions anything like a "Marshall Plan." But he will run on torture – that much we already know. The religious right base actually seems to believe in torture. Along with making lots and lots of money, and losing weight, torture is now apparently a one of Jesus’ core teachings.
What was his biggest applause line? "I will fight to repeal McCain-Feingold." I kid you not. The base gets excited by things most Americans haven’t even heard of. His position in immigration? Lou Dobbs’. He kept saying "McCain-Kennedy" as if this crowd needed to hate McCain more. As for Romney’s game-plan against Giuliani, it seems to be this: put the family forward. His wife is a looker. She introduced him. They’ve been married 37 years, we were told a few dozen times. They have five sons and ten grandchildren. Unlike who? Yeah, we know. But they should try not to look too much like the Osmonds.
I know what the national polls say. I know he makes John Kerry look like a stopped clock on, well, anything. But he’ll have an understanding with the religious base: I’ll do whatever you want, give you the judges you want, and you’ll forgive me for being a Mormon. He has no core principles, and they understand that. What matters to Dobson et al is results. They’ve had enough of men like Bush who are sincere evangelicals but useless in actually implementing the theocon agenda. Romney’s their tool – and a very competent, effective one. And they are his tool. It’s a solid basis for a political marriage. I think he’s the most formidable long-term candidate on the right. Up against Clinton, he’d probably win.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)
The Dish 