Cancel The Trip To Canada Part I: The Butterfly Effect
In case anyone took the last several days off for that
annual Pismo Beach Beer, Brat and Origami Festival you couldn’t miss, it is my
duty to share with you we have (finally) had an election.
Habemus Praeses. Wolf
Blitzer appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, the white
smoke appeared from beneath his beard, and we have a President.
I happen to be one of those people who can be extremely
skeptical when things look too good. On
Election Night, Romney was refusing to concede.
I imagined his people were on the phone to Rick Scott in Florida and Jon
Husted in Ohio telling them to launch the embedded software codes and so I took
a stroll to clear my mind. As if by some
unseen hand, I found myself on East 67th Street, in front of Fox
Studios. As I approached, I saw the
flags being lowered to half-mast.
So, it was over, and a great nation had once again roused
itself, marched to the polls, and exercised its unique franchise in a way that
confounded many experts. The skinny but
tough guy with the big ears had been reelected.
Since there is an enormous amount to talk about and a lot of
information still coming in (such as the fate of Florida, which, to no one’s
surprise, is not ready for prime time) and I’m still too keyed up to write
completely coherently, I am going to take this in pieces.
I start with the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly flaps its wings and, months later,
and half a world away, a typhoon blows.
Mitt Romney flapped twice, and changed the course of his
candidacy, and the Obama’s.
It began with his decision to take the hard and punitive line
on immigration during the Republican primaries.
I am not sure what Romney actually believes on immigration, but in
public, he was harsh. He torched Rick
Perry over Texas’s allowing the children of illegal immigrants to go to state
universities on in-state tuition--even though the very conservative Texas State
Legislature voted overwhelmingly for it.
He gave his love to Arizona’s immigration laws. He offered no real avenues to legal
residency, much less citizenship. And he
coined the phrase “self-deport”. While
he was at it, he tossed out a gratuitous slap at the selection of Sonia
Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice. Tactically,
it may have been the smart thing to do.
The Tea Party, which is virulently anti-immigrant in both a physical and
cultural way, plays such a large role in picking GOP nominees. Once in the general election, Romney stayed
consistent, finding time to blast Obama in June when the President suspended,
by Executive Order, deportations of children of illegal immigrants. I did find it curious that, given how much
tacking to the middle Mitt did on other issues, he and his brain trust never,
in any substantive way, revisited that baseline decision they made on
immigration, even as to tone. My hunch
is that Romney’s team felt this was a hot-button issue that played well across
the political spectrum of blue-collar voters, especially in swing states, and
that sticking with it would yield electoral dividends. It was the wrong choice. He alienated a large swath of Latino voters,
who not only went for Obama by almost 3-1, but also turned out in larger
numbers than anticipated. That proved
fatal in Nevada, Colorado, and (likely) Florida.
The second flap of the wings is a little more
counterintuitive: choosing Paul Ryan as
the Vice Presidential nominee. This is
by no means a knock on Ryan, who showed himself to be good on the stump, very
popular with the base, and credible on policy.
He is well positioned to be a player both in the coming budget
negotiations and even as a future Presidential candidate. But, in this election, he might have been
the wrong choice, for three reasons: demography, geography, and policy.
The demography argument is simple. Ryan is no Jeb Bush, and certainly not Marco
Rubio or New Mexico’s Governor Susanna Martinez. Bush wasn’t going to take the job, but Martinez
(although she denied having interest) and Rubio would have. Identity politics is something that
Republicans love to scorn, however, it’s more than reasonable to assume that
the selection of either Martinez or Rubio would have scrambled Obama’s winning
coalition. Martinez may never have been
a serious contender (one could put her in Mitt’s “binders” of possible women
running mates). Rubio supposedly was.
For reasons that are not completely clear, but might have to do with personal
chemistry, Rubio didn’t make the “final four” (Jindal, Pawlenty, Portman, and
Ryan). Instead Mitt made the safe and
even popular choice within his party, but missed the chance to send a broader
message of inclusion. And un-flap the wings.
Geography is also obvious.
Ryan was thought to have significant appeal in the Midwest, but wasn’t
even able deliver his home state. On the
other hand, Portman and Rubio might well have swung Ohio and Florida, and
Martinez was popular in New Mexico and well known in adjoining Colorado. While there was a path for Obama to be
re-elected without both Florida and Ohio (leaving him with 285 electoral votes)
forcing him to fight harder for Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico would have been
a distraction from places like Virginia.
And Ryan, for Romney, was the wrong nominee on policy. I realize that’s counterintuitive; you pick
someone for the ticket because he reflects your party’s core positions and is
some other way additive. But Ryan has more
than positions. Ryan has a “Plan”. That Plan not only eliminated almost all discretionary
domestic spending, but also made deep cuts in both Medicare and Medicaid. That left Romney in an unexpected and
unspoken bind when it came to policy. Romney wanted to appear more moderate,
but too often, whether it was on taxes, social issues, or entitlements, the
Romney/Ryan message was “I can’t give you details, but it will work, and it’s
not Ryan’s Plan.” While that was mostly
effective with seniors, who believed Romney’s stated promise not to touch their
entitlements, it led to mushiness elsewhere.
Perhaps as a result, Romney never did fill in the blanks on
much of anything, and it contributed to the appearance of chronic
flip-flopping. More importantly, I think
the electorate was looking for someone to fix the economy and reduce deficits,
not to engage in a theoretical economic experiment. Ryan’s Plan was a physical
manifestation of that experiment, and Romney, by implicitly rejecting key parts
of it without offering his own specifics, took away some of the seriousness of
his own approach. A more substantial,
less ideological running mate, perhaps one of the Governors, or better yet
Portman, would have allowed Romney to be more positive about his own plans, and
amplify his reputation as the experienced grown-up in the world. It’s fascinating that the exit polling data gave
Romney only a thin lead over Obama on the question of who would handle the
economy better. Romney should have done
far better.
But, as George said in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” that’s
all blood under the bridge. It is
now 48 hours since the networks called the election for Mr. Obama. The second-guessing is well underway, the
speculation for potential 2016 candidates ramping up, and, most importantly, Karl
Rove himself has weighed in.
Mr. Rove believes that the President “succeeded by suppressing the vote.”
I think I feel another post coming, but I’ve exceeded my
word limit for today.
Next time, with a nod to Karl, “The Echo Chamber.”
MM
