Revisiting “Women’s College Basketball, Well Worth Watching”

Back in April of 2011 I wrote an article about the excitement generated by Texas A&M’s defeat of Notre Dame in the final Women’s NCAA Basketball Championship game. To my mind the women’s final rivaled the Men’s Championship win by Connecticut over the Butler Bulldogs. I went on to explain how men were missing out by dismissing women’s college basketball as not worth watching. Twelve years on I find that most men who follow sports, college sports in particular, remain too dismissive of women’s athletics at any level. This is especially true of those sports where the contest is as truly competitive and exciting as it is in the corresponding version of the sport played by men. 

I went to a local sports bar, to watch the LSU-Iowa Woman’s NCAA Championship and the bartender didn’t have the sound on. Now there wasn’t anything more compelling or important being televised in the world of sports so as not to. A number of other men at the bar agreed that it was only women’s sports so why turn off the juke box to listen to that game. I guess to them there was more value to listening to songs they’ve heard forever for the past 40 years. I tried to make the point that this game was, in fact, history in the making as neither Iowa nor LSU had ever made it to the Women’s Championship. All of my efforts were to no avail, my point generally fell on deaf ears. Luckily for me and other interested parties at the bar who had also requested the sound be turned on, the juke box ran out of songs played with five minutes left in the game and the sound was turned on thereafter.

Once again, I can’t understand why men don’t give women’s sports the respect it deserves. The LSU-Iowa game was as exciting as any number of the games played by men in this past tournament. Now I’ll be the first to admit that a women’s college football game wouldn’t rise to the level of the men’s game, but when it comes to tennis, basketball, downhill skiing, soccer, ice hockey and golf, among others, the differences in the levels of competition and intensity are insignificant when comparing the games of one gender to the other. All one need do is think back to the last two women’s ice hockey finals in the Winter Olympics, the downhill skiing competitions in those same games or the final match of the last Woman’s World Cup Soccer tournament to see what I mean. One of the most exciting finales to a woman’s competition that I ever witnessed came back in 2011 when the Japanese Women’s Soccer Team won the gold medal in that year’s Women’s World Cup. This victory came within months of a disastrous earthquake and accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, it was a victory that lifted the spirits of an entire nation. 

With regard to the LSU-Iowa Woman’s NCAA Championship game, the viewership while lower in absolute numbers than that of the men’s final still represented the most watched women’s title game of all time according to the Advocate, a newspaper out of Baton Rouge, home of Louisiana State University: “LSU’s 102-85 victory over Iowa on Sunday was the most-viewed women’s college basketball game of all time, drawing 9.9 million viewers across all ESPN and ABC platforms, according to a company release. Those numbers topped several of last season’s biggest college football games, including LSU-Alabama (7.58 million), the Big 12 championship (9.41 million), the Pac-12 championship (5.97 million), the ACC championship (3.47 million), the Sugar Bowl (9.14 million) and the Orange Bowl (4.6 million), among others, according to Sports Media Watch. The LSU-Iowa numbers blow away averages for NBA regular-season games (1.6 million last season) and were within shouting distance of the ratings for last year’s NBA Finals.”

The growing prominence of the women’s game was best captured in the commentary of Jerry Bembry, Senior Writer and a Video Producer at ESPN who said: ” This year’s Final Four feels different in the sense that it’s the first time that the conversation about the women’s event is more elevated than the men’s. The women are just as intense as men. The women play defense with the same tenacity as the men. The women shoot 3-pointers with the same extended range as the men. And then there’s the trash talk and emotions that maybe exceed what occurs in the men’s college game. New rivalries have put the women’s game among the top trending topics since the tournament began.” Likewise, South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston’s observations on the tournament speak to the changes that are already underway: “You can always think about people making negative comments about women’s basketball, women’s sports in general, but it’s proof that the numbers are going up,” Boston said. “Everyone is excited to watch the women’s game. You can’t really deny that people are interested in watching women’s sports. It’s just really exciting to be part of the generation that’s continuing to help it grow.”

At this point I think it’s hard to deny the obvious and that is that women’s sports are on the rise and that the competition is just as good and just as intense in many cases as is that of the men’s game in several sports. It has in fact become too good to ignore, a factor that will drive even more viewership in the future. So, what then is it that is holding so many men back from embracing women’s sports to the same extent that they embrace men’s? Misogyny may explain some of it but I don’t think that is the essence of the issue either; sports enthusiasts love the high they get from watching an intensely competitive contest. Attitudes continue to change and the demise of Trump era misogynistic rhetoric will only hasten more change in this regard be it in society in general or in the world of sports in particular. With regard to college basketball, it may be more a function of sports viewing overload for many. After all, just how much college basketball can you watch with 134 individual games played between the Men and Women’s NCAA tournaments, plus the NIT and division 2 competition, all of it coming only a week after college basketball’s Tournament Week. Moreover, I’m just talking one particular aspect of sports here. There’s a host of other sporting events on at the same time that March Madness is in full swing. 

The unrelenting pressure of increased women’s athletic competition will eventually reverse the slow pace of accepting women athletes on the same plane as those of men. One must remember that men who began watching men’s sports growing up will naturally be inclined to continue to do so, not because they are misogynists but more due to societal inertia, an inertia that will only have its course changed as the level of competition in women’s sports becomes to compelling to ignore, which it will. Don’t forget that once upon a time, in the late 1960s white college football players in the Deep South were legally prohibited from playing teams that had black players on their squads. This ruling was later modified to only pertain to college football games played within the South and within southern conferences. Eventually teams from the region could compete against integrated teams outside of the old Confederacy or in certain bowl games like the Rose Bowl. In time black players were allowed onto southern college football teams as well, competitive pressures being the driving force behind that change. Today the sport of college football is fully integrated as is the broadcasting and reporting of the sport as well. In 1971, the year I graduated high school, the University of Alabama football team was all white as was that of Ole Miss. Look at those teams today. Thus, it is just a matter of time before women’s sports become just as viewed as that of men’s and the more competitive women’s contests become the faster will be the rate of that change. In a sense we are, all of us who follow sports, watching history in the making whether we like it or not, sound on or not. 

Steven J. Gulitti

New York, N.Y.

10 April 2023

Sources:

Women’s College Basketball, Well Worth Watching; https://shadowproof.com/2011/04/05/womens-college-basketball-well-worth-watching/

CNBC: CBS saw 14% decline in viewers for NCAA men’s basketball championship game, while ratings for women’s title match on ESPN grew https://cnb.cx/2OxaH0s 

ESPN: TV ratings for LSU’s win over Iowa drew an all-time high for women’s college basketball https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/sports/lsu/espn-lsu-iowa-drew-all-time-high-womens-basketball-ratings/article_ad131dac-6d5a-5221-bd9e-b503a7136bdb.html

Jerry Bembry: ‘The talent is evolving in women’s sports’: Comparing the Final Fours in Dallas and Houston https://andscape.com/features/the-talent-is-evolving-in-womens-sports-comparing-the-final-fours-in-dallas-and-houston/ 

4 April 2023 – My Interesting Day at the Courthouse

Seeing as I live in Manhattan, I couldn’t resist making my way down to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse at 100 Centre Street to be a witness to history. That is exactly what I did to the extent that I could judging by the crowds, blocked streets, police presence and the barricades. Luckily, I was able to get inside Collect Pond Park and to within 50 yards of the Courthouse’s main entrance. By the time I got there it was already 11:30 in the morning and the very short and apparently ineffectual Marjorie Taylor Greene show was already over. Did it ever really get going at all? Seems that our gal from the hills of Northwest Georgia had already skedaddled and retreated to who knows where after, for all the hype, a surprisingly short performance. Needless to say, it wouldn’t be long before the star of today’s impromptu reality show, Donald J. Trump, would himself be late to his own gig. 

Luckily the crowds were largely well behaved, the worst of the day being nothing more than opponents screaming at the top of their lungs at each other across a DMZ patrolled by the police. I had originally dressed in a plaid flannel shirt with my LSU hat on as I’m still celebrating the Bayou Barbie’s NCAA college basketball victory. However, my wife said I looked like a Trumper, which might be hazardous to my health in liberal New York City so a change was in order. She suggested I wear one of my old USCG jackets but I doubt the Commandant or the local command wanted that kind of advertising on a day like today so I said no to that. I settled on a safer FDNY shirt and a Binghamton University hat that my niece gave me. I however, did not heed my wife’s suggestion that I leave my pepper spray behind, lest I be totally unarmed if things sank to the level of a riot which mercifully, they did not. I was also pleasantly surprised to make the acquaintance of Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC after he stood next to me and I introduced myself. We had a great conversation which lasted about twenty minutes when thereafter he took his leave and disappeared into the crowd.

In many ways today is a sad day seeing that the country has come to this, but it’s also a great day because it shows the system is working to rid the body politic of a sickness; in this case Donald Trump’s ill-conceived efforts to subvert democracy. What also makes today a great day is that D.A. Alvin Bragg had the courage to indict a former president, a fact that, in the long run, may have as much impact as this particular case does in and of itself.

Now even if this case doesn’t rise to the level of criminality that interfering with the election in Georgia does, or the January 6 insurrection does, or the classified documents case may, it opens the floodgates for those behind the 18 other cases pending against Trump to bring their cases forward. For them, there’s now no need to worry about bringing forth an indictment or the public fallout that attaches to being the first person to charge a former president with criminal conduct. The Rubicon has been crossed and now the attorneys behind the other 18 cases can come forward with one big hurdle eliminated for them and the question of the viability of indicting a former president behind them as well. 

Yes, today is both a sad day and at the same time a great day for democracy in America. Why, because the system of justice still seems to be working. It was a great day because political opponents could face off against each other without it devolving into the disgrace that we all witnessed on January 6 of 2021. It’s also a great day for an American who has the courage of his convictions to do the right thing no matter the cost and risk to himself and even his family and that is what Alvin Bragg did today when he moved to indict Donald J. Trump.

The late Mark Sheilds who was for years a fixture on the Friday Night PBS News Hour, once said that there’s a reason why John F. Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Courage, is less than a half an inch thick. The reason for that is that in reality not all that many American leaders have ever had the courage to do the right thing when their decisions were made in an intensely dangerous political environment. Whether or not Bragg’s decision rises to the level of historical decision and risk that John Adams took when he defended the British soldiers who participated in the Boston Massacre is beyond my pay grade to answer. That said, few objective observers today would dispute the fact that Alvin Bragg displayed great personal courage in his decision to go forward with the indictment of Donald J. Trump. 

Steven J. Gulitti

New York City

4 April 2023

Mitt Romney: Conservative Trojan Horse or Political Chameleon?

What became of Mitt Romney the “severe conservative” who so assured the American right earlier this year that he had long since slipped his moorings to a moderate political past in Massachusetts? Surely a “severely conservative” Mitt Romney wasn’t the guy who showed up to debate Barack Obama on the 3rd of October. Apparently this “pivot to the center” was widely observed but not universally accepted:

Jonathan Chait: “Tonight’s debate saw the return of the Mitt Romney who ran for office in Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002. He was obsessive about portraying himself as a moderate, using every possible opening or ambiguity — and, when necessary, making them up — to shove his way to the center. Why he did not attempt to restore this pose earlier, I cannot say. Maybe he can only do it in debates. Or maybe conservatives had to reach a point of absolute desperation over his prospects before they would give him the ideological space. In any case, he dodged almost every point in the right wing canon in a way that seemed to catch Obama off guard.”

Conservative columnist David Brooks wrote of the contrast between the rhetoric of the Republican primaries and Romney the debater: “The G.O.P. did its best to appear unattractive. It had trouble talking the language of compassion. It seemed to regard reasonable political compromise as an act of dishonor. It offered little for struggling Americans except that government would leave them alone…on Wednesday night, Romney finally emerged from the fog. He broke with the stereotypes of his party and, at long last, began the process of offering a more authentic version of himself…Far from being an individualistic, social Darwinist, Romney spoke comfortably about compassion and shared destinies…Far from wanting to eviscerate government and railing about government dependency, Romney talked about how to make government programs work better…Far from being an unthinking deregulator, Romney declared, “Regulation is essential”… Most important, Romney did something no other mainstream Republican has had the guts to do. Either out of conviction or political desperation, he broke with Tea Party orthodoxy and began to redefine the Republican identity.”

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell: “This move to the center, there’s no complaint from conservatives. Is it that they are so eager to defeat President Obama that they, right now, say, anything that works is okay with them?”

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat: “What Romney executed on Wednesday night was not just a simple pivot to the center, as much of the post-debate analysis suggested. Pivot he certainly did — stressing bipartisanship and touting his record as the moderate governor of a liberal state, backing away from the more implausible spending cuts implied by his budget promises, explicitly breaking with the idea that upper-bracket tax cuts can be a self-financing free lunch.”

Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin: “Is the “new” Mitt Romney going to be on offer through Election Day, or might he backslide?”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein: “Romney’s policies might be steeped in tea, but last night, he proved his political skills were honed in Massachusetts…the question the debates raised is which Romney voters will be choosing if they mark his name on the ballot. The Romney who endorsed the House Republican budget and chose its author as his running mate? Or the Romney who seemed to have no use for the Ryan budget and barely mentioned his running mate? The Romney who wants to cut $7 trillion from the budget over the next decade? Or the Romney who won’t name any spending cuts beyond PBS? The Romney who says he wants to give every state the opportunity to do what Massachusetts did in health care, which would mean handing over quite a bit in federal funding to fund those efforts, just as the federal government funded Massachusetts’ efforts? Or the Romney whose health-care plan spans less than 400 words and includes no plausible mechanisms by which other states could copy Massachusetts’ success? The Romney who talks movingly of bipartisan compromise? Or the Romney who says he wouldn’t accept a $1 in tax increases even if paired with $10 in spending cuts?”

Doyle McManus of the L.A. Times: “A closer look suggests that Romney’s move toward the center is a matter of tone and emphasis more than substance…Romney took a half-step toward the center, a move dictated by the needs of a faltering presidential campaign. But it didn’t change his core positions; he’s still a conservative.”

William Kristol of the Weekly Standard: “The Romney campaign has to frame what happened last night as a template for the rest of the campaign—for a serious and sustained critique of the Obama presidency and of what another four years of Obama’s policies would mean, and for a continuing clear presentation of what Romney would do instead.”

Thus what are the remaining undecided and wavering Obama supporters supposed to conclude? Was last week’s debate performance a stealth “Etch-a-Sketch” moment representing a legitimate recalibration of Romney’s political compass bringing him back to his own political true north? Or was it just the latest example of a Romney flip flop conceived as a desperate tactic designed to stop his slide in the polls? Was it neither but instead a well thought out deception with Romney promoting a political Trojan Horse to voters, hoping that they’d accept his dubious gift without question or further examination, and in so doing buy him just enough good will to get elected and where thereafter he could launch a ultra-conservative agenda? What I found to be most interesting in reviewing the articles and commentary of ten of America’s foremost conservative columnists and pundits, from William Kristol to Sean Hannity – referenced below, is that collectively they spent little time analyzing or contrasting Romney’s policy positions with those of Obama. Instead they devoted most of their comments to the ephemeral celebrating Romney’s debate victory while at the same time denigrating the president for aspects of his personal demeanor, preparation and body language. Is this a result of their unwillingness to believe that Romney’s debate performance represents a dramatic departure from the conservative orthodoxy that so many of them cherish so dearly or do those same columnists and pundits truly believe that Mitt Romney is at the very least, their fellow traveler? Beyond the chattering classes what are conservatives to believe about the degree to which Mitt Romney is really one of them? After all Mitt Romney’s been running for the past eighteen months against much of what he himself has stood for across the arc of his own political career. Moreover do what conservatives believe now even matter? It could be the case that conservatives may have so compromised their principles in backing Romney, due to their obsessive focus on making Barack Obama a one term president, that they’ve effectively mortgaged much of their political future. Why, because they could act as enablers in the election of a candidate who is hardly a “severe conservative” when what they should have done was to promote a true conservative in what they believe to be is their election to lose.

Personally I believe that Mitt Romney is a man so set on becoming president that he’ll say whatever it takes to get the votes he needs to do so and thus he’s a political chameleon. He’s a man with a knack for tailoring his remarks to the particular audience at hand so let’s be honest about one thing, Romney’s not called “multiple choice Mitt” for nothing. What Mitt Romney is not is a staunch conservative sitting inside a Trojan Horse who’ll emerge after his inauguration to surprise America with a radically right-wing agenda. Why, because Romney knows that that’s not politically where the country is so to go in that direction would only bake failure into his own political future and that’s not something a smart politician would do. If Romney is elected he’ll have no choice but to tack to the center in an attempt to govern a nation that is roughly split politically right down the middle. He’s going to have to jettison most his faux conservative trappings unless he wants to cripple his own administration from the outset thereby guaranteeing that he himself is a one term president. I hardly think that Mitt Romney sees himself in terms of what the anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist desires in a president, a guy who doesn’t really need to think for himself but who “only needs enough functioning digits” to sign what a hoped for Tea Party dominated Congress puts before him. If Romney becomes the next president he could turn out to be a major disappointment for conservatives, one that would send them back to the wilderness in what would be yet another round of soul searching as to what should constitute the core of conservative thought in the 21st Century.

Steven J. Gulitti
10/10/12

Sources:

Entering Stage Right, Romney Moved to Center; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/us/politics/entering-stage-right-romney-moved-to-center.html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1

Jonathan Chait – The Return of Massachusetts Mitt; http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/return-of-massachusetts-mitt.html

David Brooks – Moderate Mitt Returns!; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/opinion/brooks-moderate-mitt-returns.html

Andrea Mitchell – Romney Right and Romney Center; http://thepage.time.com/2012/10/05/romney-right-and-romney-center/?xid=newsletter-thepagebymarkhalperin

Ross Douthat – It Could Be His Party; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/opinion/sunday/douthat-it-could-be-his-party.html?emc=eta1

Mark Halperin – What I’m Wondering Now: http://thepage.time.com/2012/10/06/what-im-womdering-now/#ixzz28f7zvdys

Ezra Klein – Romney was a moderate in the debate. But would he be a moderate as president?; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/04/which-romney-will-voters-get/

Doyle McManus – Moderate Mitt? Don’t count on it; http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcmanus-column-romney-20121007,0,5641895.column

William Kristol – The Beginning of the End?; http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/beginning-end_653587.htmlYork:

Byron York – Team Obama struggles as Romney wins big; http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-team-obama-struggles-as-romney-wins-big/article/2509826

George Will – Romney hits a trifecta in Denver; http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-romneys-trifecta/2012/10/04/8e4fc77a-0e4d-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html

Michael Barone – Thoughts on the first presidential debate; http://washingtonexaminer.com/barone-thoughts-on-the-first-presidential-debate/article/2509823

Michael Barone – Barone: Romney’s debate win opens cracks in Obama fire wall; http://washingtonexaminer.com/barone-romneys-debate-win-opens-cracks-in-obama-fire-wall/article/2509987

Jonah Goldberg – It Was the Altitude!; http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/329424/it-was-altitude-jonah-goldberg

Charles Krauthammer – Romney by two touchdowns; http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-romney-by-two-touchdowns/2012/10/04/44ee5b92-0e65-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html

Michelle Malkin – Denver debate: Romney took control; http://michellemalkin.com/2012/10/03/denver-debate-romney-took-control/

Michelle Malkin – Chris Matthews blasts president’s tingle-free debate performance; http://michellemalkin.com/2012/10/04/tingle-debate/

Rich Lowry – Romney’s Big Night; http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/329395/romneys-big-night-rich-lowry

Rich Lowry – The Mitt We’ve Been Waiting For; http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/329483/mitt-we-ve-been-waiting-rich-lowry

Rich Lowry – News Flash: Debate Was Beneath Obama; http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/329678/news-flash-debate-was-beneath-obama-rich-lowry

Hugh Hewitt – Mark Steyn’s Debate Reaction; http://www.hughhewitt.com/transcripts.aspx?id=ad3ae2ba-788f-464c-a2ff-c0c9d33e640d

Sean Hannity – What were your favorite debate moments?; http://www.hannity.com/article/what-were-your-favorite-debate-moments/16170

Sean Hannity – Exclusive: Romney and Ryan react to first presidential debate; http://www.hannity.com/article/exclusive-romney-and-ryan-react-to-first-presidential-debate/16180

The Republican Journey in the Wilderness; http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_j_gulitti/2009/01/12/the_republican_journey_in_the_wilderness

The Challenge of a New Morning in America; http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_j_gulitti/2009/02/01/the_challenge_of_a_new_morning_in_america

Mitt Romney’s Lehman Moment?

Did Mitt Romney, in his ill timed and ill conceived commentary on the violence in North Africa, just doom his presidential aspirations the way John McCain did in 2008 when he said that the economy was on sound footing just as Lehman Brothers collapsed? In a twinkling of a political eye Mitt Romney through his remarks on the death of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans has taken his focus off of the one topic where he has an advantage over Barack Obama, the economy, and redirected it to foreign policy, a subject where his campaign performance thus far has been woefully inadequate if not outright abysmal. As a result Romney has introduced the issues of his own lack of foreign policy heft and judgment into the race at what couldn’t be a worse time.

Buy now it is more than evident that Romney jumped to conclusions, those based on an absence of chronologically verifiable facts, in framing his condemnation of the president for a statement put out by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. The subject statement appeared six hours before the first protests and well over twelve hours before the deaths of American diplomatic personnel in Libya. The chronology of those events can be found in “What They Said, Before and After the Attack in Libya”, referenced below. This raises three fundamental questions. One, was Romney compelled to act in haste in addressing developments in Libya and Egypt as a result of the scathing criticism that he received from the far right and those conservatives who had raised questions about his chances of success only the day before, particularly those who suggested that he hasn’t been forceful enough? Or is it the case that Romney just doesn’t have the requisite background and temperament to adequately deal with fast moving foreign policy issues and as a result is prone to poor decision making when these issues are front and center? Lastly, is Romney too influenced by a claque of Iraq War era Neoconservatives who have him simply parroting those old canards that Obama is an “apologist” for America, a sympathizer who cares more about radical Islam than his own country and someone who doesn’t truly believe in American Exceptionalism?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions then Mitt Romney has proven one thing to the American people and that is that he is a deeply flawed candidate when it comes to foreign policy and crisis management and thus ill suited to be this country’s Commander-in-Chief. It’s more than a bit ironic that after doubling down on his ill conceived comments, Romney has yet to come out and condemn the man who produced the controversial film that mocks the Prophet Mohamed or the incendiary pastor, Terry Jones, whose previous actions in threatening to burn Korans set off a wave of earlier violence across the Muslim world. Political columnist Howard Fineman, appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball, summed up Romney’s performance as follows: “He got the facts wrong. And it’s a classic case of jumping out ahead of a fast-moving story, chasing what you think is some kind of immediate political gain. He [Obama] never sympathized or apologized. Mitt Romney is pursuing a political strategy that is so nakedly and obviously political…I don’t see Mitt Romney having studied his career as that much of a foreign policy guy. He never has been. He was plugged into the NeoCon view in about 2007, and that was the beginning of his foreign policy education, and that’s still where he is.” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson appearing on the same program stated that Romney’s actions gave rise to questions about his overall judgment and character.

Another ominous development for Romney’s is the almost total silence on Capitol Hill and among the Republican establishment where almost no one has come to his defense. In fact most of the support Romney has received thus far has come from the very critics who just three days ago where suggesting that his campaign was doomed to failure. In stark contrast to the questionable support Romney is getting from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol, Laura Ingraham et al., is the flak he taking from those on the right who you would expect to be in his corner. Here are several examples. Reliable Republican cheer leader Peggy Noonan: “When you step forward in the midst of a political environment and start giving statements on something dramatic and violent that has happened, you’re always leaving yourself open to accusations that you are trying to exploit things politically.” Mark Salter, a former McCain operative and regular critic of Obama’s foreign policy none the less criticized Romney’s actions: “However, his [Obama’s] policies are not responsible for the attacks on our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi or the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In the wake of this violence, the rush by Republicans — including Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and scores of other conservative critics — to condemn him for policies they claim helped precipitate the attacks is as tortured in its reasoning as it is unseemly in its timing…Moreover, the embassy’s statement was released before the attack, and was not, according to administration officials, approved by the State Department. If that’s true, it cannot be fairly attributed to the president…I understand the Romney campaign is under pressure from some Republicans to toughen its attacks on the president…But this is hardly the issue or the moment to demonstrate a greater resolve to take the fight to the president. Four good Americans, brave and true, have just died in service to their country…Nothing said or done by the president or anyone in the U.S. government is responsible for the violence that led to their deaths.” The National Journal’s Ron Fournier: “Romney’s actions are ham-handed and inaccurate.” Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: “If you think the eye-rolling at Romney is just coming from the MSM, call up some Republican foreign policy hands.” Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough: “I’ve been inundated with emails and calls from elected GOP leaders who think Romney’s response was a mistake.” Bush era Ambassador Nicholas Burns: “I was frankly very disappointed and dismayed to see Governor Romney inject politics into this very difficult situation, where our embassies are under attack, where there’s been a big misunderstanding in the Middle East, apparently, about an American film, where we’re trying to preserve the lives of our diplomats — this is no time for politics.” Conservative writer David Frum: “The Romney campaign’s attempt to score political points on the killing of American diplomats was a dismal business in every respect.” And even Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly: “I’m not sure the governor is correct on that. The embassy was trying to head off the violence” with their statement.” The bottom line is this, Mitt Romney has violated a cardinal rule of American politics, one promoted by Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, that politics stops at the shoreline.

As serious a mistake as Romney has made this week it’s hardly an isolated incident. Earlier in the year when the Obama administration was locked in a controversy with the Chinese Government over a dissident who had taken refuge in the American Embassy and who then left it as part of a diplomatic deal, Romney inserted himself into the proceedings, again jumping the gun on events, saying that it “was a day of shame for the Obama administration. Romney was rebuked for his “foolish” remarks by none other than William Kristol of the conservative Weekly Standard. The dissident is now residing in the United States. Romney’s misguided approach to understanding foreign policy was on display again when he stated that Russia is America’s primary foreign policy concern: “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”; a statement that would lead to Colin Powell’s blunt rebuke: “I don’t know who all of his advisers are, but I’ve seen some of the names, and some of them are quite far to the right, and sometimes they, I think, might be in a position to make judgments or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought. For example, when Governor Romney not too long ago said, you know, the Russian Federation is our number-one geostrategic threat. Well, c’mon Mitt, think. It isn’t the case.” Earlier this summer Romney would question to what extent President Obama understood our special relationship with Great Britain only to then embarrass himself by publicly criticizing the London Olympics which, in turn, resulted in his being publicly scolded by the both the British Prime Minister and the Mayor of London. The remainder of Romney’s European tour was marred by misstatements and missteps culminating in a world wind tour of self inflicted political pratfalls.

Romney has been peddling the fantasy that if he were president or if elected that somehow he’d be able to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. At the same time he’s blaming Obama for the nuclear progress that Iran has thus far made. This of course, on its face, is seen to be an act of intellectual dishonesty coming from a candidate who is willingly ignoring the facts. In the words of veteran foreign affairs correspondent David Sanger, “The economic sanctions Mr. Obama has imposed have been far more crippling to the Iranian economy than anything President Bush did between the public revelation of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities in 2003 and the end of Mr. Bush’s term in early 2009. Covert action has been stepped up, too. Mr. Bolton has called efforts to negotiate with Iran “delusional,” but other advisers — mostly those who dealt with the issue during the Bush administration — say they are a critical step in holding together the European allies and, if conflict looms, proving to Russia and China that every effort was made to come to a peaceful resolution.” Sanger in his op-ed “Is There a Romney Doctrine?” lays waste to the claim that the president has pursued a policy of appeasement showing how “the arrival of the general election requires Mr. Romney to grapple with the question of how to attack a Democratic president whose affection for unilateral use of force — from drones over Pakistan and Yemen to a far greater role for the Special Operations command — has immunized him a bit from the traditional claim that Democrats can’t stand the sight of hard power.” To this one should add the fact that Obama engineered the removal of Muammar Gaddafi without a single American casualty and that from Osama bin Laden down to rank and file Al Qaeda operatives the Obama Administration’s actions have killed hundreds of America’s enemies. This alone stands in stark contrast to conservative claims that Barack Obama is prone to appeasement. Sanger in the “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power”, published in 2009, detailed how both Iran and North Korea had greatly expanded their nuclear programs as America was distracted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That said it’s somewhat odd that Romney has resurrected the saber rattling of the now discredited NeoCons in calling for a more muscular American military posture overseas and that just when two thirds of Americans feel that the war in Iraq did nothing to make the country safer and at a time when America’s infrastructure is in need of serious investment at home. With regard to relations with Israel Romney’s criticism amounts to nothing more than the same old sound bites on the one hand and a pandering to the Jewish vote on the other. This is hardly the commentary of one experienced in the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict and certainly not one that accounts for the changed political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring.

In his quest for the Oval Office Mitt Romney has attempted to sell himself to the American people as an accomplished businessman who would use the skills acquired in private equity to better run the business of government. Yet to date there has been little in the way of “actionable intelligence” that would lead the American voter to see Mr. Romney’s electioneering as anything other than a plea to take a leap of faith in casting one’s vote for him. This is particularly true with regard to his ability to intelligently address matters of foreign policy as Commander-in-Chief, a role where the president can affect events far more significantly than he can when dealing with economic affairs. For you see America isn’t a corporation where a CEO is beholden only to shareholders. A president has roles and responsibilities to fill that are far beyond the scope of a corporate leader. We’ve elected businessmen to the presidency before, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush and none of them have been considered in the long run to be great presidents. Romney has now come under fire from John McCain for failing to articulate his own detailed foreign policy program. Then again Romney hasn’t detailed anything in the way of a detailed program as to how he would turn the economy around, an area of his supposed expertise, so why would anyone be surprised that he’s not even outlined one for foreign affairs, a subject where he has proven himself to be wholly out of his league? David Ignatius of the Washington Post described Mitt Romney as a man having “no grasp of foreign affairs” whose approach to the subject amounts to a “series of sound bites” all of which portray a candidate who knows little about a subject of the utmost importance. With Mr. Ignatius’ observations in mind I believe we may have reached a tipping point in the 2012 election much the same as we were in September of 2008. The latest polls show Romney falling behind the president in key swing states and events in the Muslim world may still go against Barack Obama. However, the poll results that hit the newswires this morning are based on data that predate Romney’s latest gaffe and as a result Americans may still favor Obama when the see the next round of polling and especially when they consider this latest episode in a recurring series of Romney foreign policy disasters.

Steven J. Gulitti

9/14/12

Sources:

What They Said, Before and After the Attack in Libya; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html?ref=politics

Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones backs anti-Muhammad movie; http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/guy-koran-burning-pastor-terry-jones-backs-anti-muhammad-movie-article-1.1157522

Hardball with Chris Matthews for Wednesday, September 12th, 2012; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49021234/ns/msnbc-hardball_with_chris_matthews/

Peggy Noonan: “Romney Is Not Doing Himself Any Favors”; http://www.buzzfeed.com/dorsey/peggy-noonan-romneys-not-doing-himself-any-favo

Noonan: Romney not helping himself; http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/09/noonan-romney-not-helping-himself-135300.html

Don’t Politicize Embassy Attacks; http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/09/12/dont_politicize_embassy_attacks_115416.html

Romney and Foreign Policy; http://thepage.time.com/2012/09/12/romney-and-foreign-policy/?xid=newsletter-thepagebymarkhalperin

Even As Experts, GOP Figures Criticize Romney’s Embassy Statement, Right-Wing Pundits Blame “The Media”; http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/13/even-as-experts-gop-figures-criticize-romneys-e/189862

Mitt Romney Response To Libya, Egypt Attacks Called ‘Irresponsible,’ ‘Craven,’ ‘Ham-Handed’; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/mitt-romney-libya-egypt-media-reactions_n_1877266.html

Bloody Bill Kristol Calls Romney’s Attacks Over Chinese Dissident ‘Foolish’; http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bloody-bill-kristol-calls-romneys-attacks-o

Romney: Russia is our number one geopolitical foe; http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/26/romney-russia-is-our-number-one-geopolitical-foe/

Why Colin Powell Bashed Mitt Romney’s Foreign-Policy Advisers; http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/why-colin-powell-bashed-mitt-romneys-foreign-policy-advisers/

David Sanger : Is There a Romney Doctrine?; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/sunday-review/is-there-a-romney-doctrine.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

Marist Polling: http://maristpoll.marist.edu/

9/13: Obama Leads Romney by 7 Points in Ohio

9/13: Obama with Advantage Over Romney in Florida

9/13: Obama Up Five Points Over Romney in Virginia

Rasmussen Reports; http://www.rasmussenreports.com/

Paul Ryan Whistling Past Reality

I just finished watching Paul Ryan’s convention speech and I was dumbstruck by this supposed policy wonk’s complete and obvious ability to craft a speech that was so at variance to the facts and then expect the voters to take him seriously. Let’s take a look at some of what Ryan claimed. 

Ryan talks about how Barack Obama has been in office for four years and even though he inherited a jobs crisis and a housing crisis he’s been unable to correct these problems. Ryan accuses President Obama of failing to focus on job creation in particular yet he never stopped to acknowledge the fact that at the depths of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said that the single most important goal of the G.O.P. was “to make Barack Obama a one term president.” Looking back at the past three years I don’t recall any great effort on the part of the Republican Party to create jobs other than to continue to advocate for more tax cuts for the rich, the supposed “job creators”, who being the beneficiaries of the most liberal tax treatment since Ronald Reagan, don’t seem to have created all that many jobs anyway. And who were McConnell’s allies in this endeavor, the House Republicans, Paul Ryan, foremost among them. Thus at a time when the vast majority of Americans were suffering through the Great Recession the leaders of this country’s conservative movement put partisan politics above the common good and now we’re being asked to return these same people to power. What, pray tell, would lead anyone to believe that these same leaders, who put the American people on hold while they pursued partisan politics, will now address the needs of the rank and file American via a renewed attempt at trickle down economics?

With regard to fiscal matters, Ryan lectured the audience on the great damage done to the country by the Obama Administration saying that the president had run up an additional $5 Trillion dollars in debt since taking office. Odd but Ryan failed to address the fact that it was his party under George W. Bush that took us from surplus to deficit by starting two unfunded wars, cutting taxes for those who didn’t need one and the increased costs of Medicare resulting from a new prescription drug plan that was never adequately paid for. The great irony of Ryan’s whole diatribe is that he himself never stood against any of the aforementioned when they were up for a vote during the Bush administration. He railed against the auto bailout yet he voted for it. He spoke of a General Motors factory in Janesville that closed after candidate Obama promised that the plant would remain open and did so by ignoring the fact that that plant closed in December of 2008, before Obama even took office. He derided Obama for his efforts to fight the Great Recession yet Ryan himself voted in favor of the Wall Street TARP bailout and gladly accepted stimulus funds for his home district. He accuses Obama of walking away from the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction commission yet he himself voted against it. Oh and just one more thing, he was for earmarks before it became fashionable to be against them as his track record of procuring federal monies for his home district shows. 

Ryan raised the old “Socialist” boogeyman when he spoke about “central planning” but then he went on to say that he and Romney would put the government “back on the side of those who create jobs.” Pardon me but the Republicans have been carrying on for the past four years that the government should get out of the way of the “job creators” and not “pick winners and losers.” And as was to be expected, Ryan again raised the misconception that Barack Obama doesn’t believe that people build their own businesses. Of course Obama never said anything to that effect, what he did say was that private businesses benefit from public spending on infrastructure and education and to that there is no argument as the history of this country shows. Since the birth of the American Republic public spending on infrastructure improvement has gone hand in hand with economic progress. Funny that a guy who’s supposed to be so well grounded in economic theory and history would miss an obvious fact like that one. Ryan reiterated the fable that Obama believes that we can grow the economy via entitlements, again a claim that can’t be substantiated in reality. 

In speaking of his running mate’s record of public service Ryan alludes to Mitt Romney’s record as Governor of Massachusetts while ignoring the fact that the state ranked 47th in job creation, that Romney governed as a moderate, that he crafted a healthcare plan that is the template of Obamacare, individual mandate and all, and, he ignored Romney’s flip flop on abortion. Ryan praises Romney’s turnaround of the 2002 Olympics while ignoring the fact that Romney received between $400 to $600 million dollars directly from the federal government and approximately $1.1 billion dollars of indirect funding for transportation infrastructure improvements. 

Paul Ryan would end his speech with an appeal to the American people to put partisanship aside and: “Let’s come together for the sake of our country.” Is he really serious in thinking that after his own party said that its goal was “to make Barack Obama a one term president” that his opponents will now, as if by magic, put the vitriol and the divisiveness of the past four years behind them and follow him, a guy who on the occasion of the most important speech in his political life would produce a soliloquy that only a politically ignorant listener could love. 

Steven J. Gulitti

8/30/12

Who’s Beholden to Foreign Ideas?‏

Ever since Sarah Palin ran around proclaiming that Barack Obama is a “Socialist” there has been an unrelenting effort by the right to portray the president as someone beholden to foreign ideas. Whether it flows from the fever swamp of right wing media or from the lips of Mitt Romney and his surrogates there has been a concerted effort to define the president as un-American. Furthermore there has been a noticeable lack of political courage among Republican Party leaders in denouncing these attacks. What’s even more interesting is that when it comes to being out of step with the American people a recent NBC / Wall Street Journal Poll shows that 54% of the respondents see Obama’s views as being in the mainstream vice 51% for Mitt Romney. However it might just be worth looking into just how beholden some of Obama’s critics are to foreign ideas and influences.
 
Let’s start with Paul Ryan and his conservative fellow travelers. A recent article detailing Ryan’s formative years, “Conservative Star’s Small-Town Roots”, stated of Ryan’s path to individual responsibility and maturity: “It followed him into college, where he immediately took a passionate interest in the canon of conservative economic theorists and writers — Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises — who inspired the up-and-coming generation of libertarian-minded activists and lawmakers.” Odd but with the exception of Milton Friedman there’s not an American among those from whom Ryan draws upon for his fundamental principles. Both Hayek and his mentor von Mises, were born in the late 19th Century and are major contributors to the Austrian school of economic thought. Ludwig von Mises formulated his theories in a world where there were relatively few industrial but many agricultural or undeveloped economies. India was a still a British colony, Brazil largely agricultural and China was still dominated by European spheres of influence. Globalization as we now it today was unheard of and hardly imagined. The ideas and influence of von Mises would significantly affect Friedrich Hayek.

Ayn Rand was born in Czarist Russia in 1905. As Jennifer Burns, a Stanford professor, points out Ryan’s affinity for Rand is somewhat odd as she would have found plenty to critique in Ryan: “Mr. Ryan’s advocacy of steep cuts in government spending would have pleased her, she would have vehemently opposed his social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy. She would have denounced Mr. Ryan, as she denounced Ronald Reagan, for trying “to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics”…Mr. Ryan’s rise is a telling index of how far conservatism has evolved from its founding principles. The creators of the movement embraced the free market, but shied from Rand’s promotion of capitalism as a moral system. They emphasized the practical benefits of capitalism, not its ethics. Their fidelity to Christianity grew into a staunch social conservatism that Rand fought against in vain.” As Burns puts it, Ryan and the conservative embrace of Ayn Rand reveals “a window into the ideological fissures at the heart of modern conservatism.” To Burn’s observation one could legitimately add that Ryan’s affinity to foreign ideas, as propounded by Rand and others, may be more than a little out of step with American society today. Moreover, the essential economic question is, are economic theories formulated in an era before globalization still really relevant today?

Then there is the rhetoric of Mitt Romney who, when not defending his opaque tax history or policy specific free campaign, carries on about the virtues of capitalism and the history of our republic and how it is so very American and how Obama fails to see that connection. The odd thing about all this prattle about capitalism is that capitalism itself is a European idea with its roots in the 13th Century Italian and Dutch mercantile cities. The first joint stock company was founded in Britain in 1555. The use of contracts to formalize and regulate business transactions goes back at least as far as the Roman Empire. When one examines the technology and structures borne of capitalism: banking, ocean transport, steam power, railroads, suspension bridges and the factory system, to name just a few, all are of European origin or found there way to America via Europe. Beyond economics there are the origins of representative government itself. Neither democracy nor elected representative government is an American invention. As Fred Anderson points out in Crucible of War, the early resistance on the part of colonists in North America to the Stamp and Quartering Acts wasn’t for the purpose of parting company with the British Crown, it was because the aggrieved felt that their rights as Englishmen had been abrogated.

The socio-religious justification for capitalism itself is of European origin: “The development of capitalism in northern Protestant countries, such as the Netherlands and England, has prompted the theory that the Reformation is a cause of capitalism. But this states the case rather too strongly, particularly since the beginnings of capitalism can be seen far earlier. Nevertheless there are elements in Reformation thought which greatly help the development of capitalism. This is particularly true of the Calvinist variety of the reformed faith, which becomes the state religion of the Netherlands after the Great Assembly of 1651…Calvinism positively encourages the purposeful investment of money, by presenting luxury and self-indulgence as vices and thrift as a virtue. It even subtly contrives to suggest that wealth may itself be a sign of virtue.” Along with the religious justifications for engaging in money making there is the concomitant rise in the sanctity of the individual, a fundamental idea that predates the American Republic and which is essentially a European idea. When it comes to defending America many of the tools we use, iron hulled ships, tanks, rockets and the application of the airplane to modern warfare all have their origins in Europe. The first principles of aerial dogfights were developed by German ace Oswald Boelcke in WWI, the principles of the aerial bomber campaign came from Giulio Douhet, an Italian and the fundamental theories on armored warfare that the Germans would perfect and that we would copy came from Europe. As every American knows, it was German scientists who provided the brains behind our own space program.

The point of all of the aforementioned isn’t to be a primer on Europe’s influence on America, it’s to point out that the right-wing rant about Obama being beholden to “foreign ideas” is both illogical and contrary to history. As a simple matter of historical fact, America as a nation founded upon and influenced by foreign ideas, most of which either are European in origin or were transmitted to our shores through Europe. America, like Russia, is an outgrowth of Europe and that fact can’t be denied, no matter what the political spin applied thereto. The fact that Americans have taken foreign ideas and grown them into something exceptional, in no way invalidates the fact that America, regardless of political philosophy or party, has been fundamentally influenced by foreign ideas. The political ploy of making an issue of Obama’s affinity for certain ideas of foreign origin while denying that conservatives do the same thing is both intellectually dishonest as well as logically unsustainable. If anyone in this election could be pinned with the label “beholden to foreign ideas” it would be Paul Ryan. If Barack Obama is un-American for looking overseas for certain ideas than Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the rest of the anti-Obama claque are as well. Perhaps many within the conservative movement would benefit from a refresher course on Western and American history. That said, in the final analysis, Barack Obama is no more un-American than is Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, not if anyone’s interested in being honest that is.  

Steven J. Gulitti

8/21/12

Sources: 

NBC/WSJ poll: Heading into conventions, Obama has four-point lead; http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/21/13399788-nbcwsj-poll-heading-into-conventions-obama-has-four-point-lead?

Conservative Star’s Small-Town Roots; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/us/politics/family-faith-and-politics-describe-life-of-paul-ryan.html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1

Jennifer Burns: Atlas Spurned; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/ayn-rand-wouldnt-approve-of-paul-ryan.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

HISTORY OF CAPITALISM: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=aa49

Evolution Of Contract At Roman Law; http://chestofbooks.com/business/law/Law-Of-Contracts-4-1/Sec-4-Evolution-Of-Contract-At-Roman-Law.html

FRED ANDERSON: Crucible of War The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766  (Knopf)

Will Iowa’s Conservatives Outsmart Themselves?

As we head into the Iowa Caucuses a burning question remains just below the surface, one which won’t be clear until the final tallies are completed. That question is: Will Iowa’s conservatives outsmart themselves in their pursuit of ideological purity and in the process, ensure the election of a progressive in 2012? According to the Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich “Iowa’s social conservatives are not unified on a candidate.” With Mitt Romney leading in the latest polls and with Iowa’s conservatives unable to settle on one conservative standard bearer there is a very real possibility that their prolonged political indecision could make Romney the winner in the Hawkeye State with less far less than half of the vote. According to the analysis of Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny “After months of campaigning, a long series of debates and the rise and fall of one challenger after another, no one has yet shown that they can knock off Mr. Romney…Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the competing messages in the campaign had left fiscal and social conservatives “terribly split here.” Most campaigns were in agreement that a win by Mr. Romney would put him in an enviable position to capture his party’s nomination.” While some conservatives might take heart with Rick Santorum’s new found surge, it appears that Santorum is taking support away from Ron Paul rather than from Mitt Romney so the calculus of the caucuses may remain unchanged. Moreover, with Romney leading in New Hampshire as well, these two early victories could set in train a momentum that will carry him all the way to the nomination this summer. Quoting Susan Page of USA Today: “No one has won Iowa and New Hampshire and lost the Republican nomination.”
 
While an eventual Romney victory over Barack Obama might satisfy the radical rights burning desire to make Obama a one term president, it would do little if anything to get the faltering radical right wing revolution going again. That’s because Mitt Romney is in the eyes of the far right nothing more than a Republican progressive and by no means a likely agent to do anything for the far right other than to thank them for their votes on election night. It should be lost on no one that Romney already has a template for dealing with the radical right. That template would be the successful campaign of Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts who gladly took the votes of the state’s Tea Party crowd and then quietly but steadily distanced himself from the radical right. Political analyst John Harwood pointed out that Mitt Romney has made many of the right rhetorical noises when it comes to addressing the far right, but that he has left a path back to the center where he will need to be if he hopes to win in November. Speaking of both Romney and Gingrich, Harwood said: “Yet those two leading Republican contenders have not leaned as far right on policy as their rhetoric might suggest. On core issues concerning the relationship between government and average Americans — taxes, Medicare, Social Security, even immigration — each has preserved routes back toward the political middle for the general election. “Both of them could tack center-right” said former Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, a Republican. And given that roughly half the country receives some sort of government benefit or subsidy, they would need to in order to assemble a coalition to defeat Mr. Obama. “You can demagogue it all you want on the right — Ron Paul, ‘cut it all,’ ” said Mr. Keating, “But that’s not where the public is.” Thus the stances of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney suggest they might not uproot existing arrangements between government and American society as much as Tea Party activists hope — and liberal Democrats fear.” With regard to where Mitt Romney sits on America’s ideological spectrum, based on a recent Gallup Poll, less than half of the respondents see him as conservative or very conservative: “A USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans to rate their own ideology — and the ideology of the eight major presidential candidates — on a 5-point scale with 1 being very liberal and 5 being very conservative. Americans’ mean score on this scale is 3.3, meaning the average American is slightly to the right of center ideologically.” Mitt Romney scores a 3.5, not exactly the 5 that indicates “very conservative.”
 
Another factor working in Romney’s favor is that while many on the far right may not embrace him fully, many of those same voters will “hold their nose” and vote for him anyway as they see him as the only Republican contender who has any real chance of defeating Obama. According to Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, Iowa voters are torn between who can send a message and who can win and she said that this is one reason that heading into the caucuses 41 percent of the likely attendees have yet to make up their minds. So if many of Iowa’s social and fiscal conservatives are to “hold their noses” and vote for Romney that would amount to a Pyrrhic victory for the far right if Romney were to win in November. They would have ousted Barack Obama and replaced a liberal progressive with a Northeastern Republican progressive, one who is unlikely to cater to the radical right or champion its agenda. Again to the analysis of Rutenberg and Zeleny: “But other Republicans said that even though they liked Mr. Santorum best and had problems with Mr. Romney’s past positions on abortion, immigration and gun rights, they were supporting Mr. Romney because they viewed him as a stronger challenger to Mr. Obama. When you add to this indecision and ideological confusion the fact that crowd sizes are smaller and enthusiasm levels are lower than they were in 2008 it may be that many of Iowa’s conservatives have already given up on nominating a true right-wing conservative in 2012. If that’s the case they may not bother to caucus at all or if they do they may nominate Mitt Romney anyway. Quoting Republican Steve King: “There was more energy four years ago for Huckabee — and even with the last Romney campaign.” Ironically in the end Iowa’s staunch social and evangelical conservatives may, as a result of their pursuit of ideological purity or out of their desperation to see Obama defeated, ensure the election of a Republican progressive who will do little if anything to further their agenda. When all is said and done, they may become the unwitting agents in their own political suicide, thereby scuttling their own agenda in the process.

 

Steven J. Gulitti

1/2/12
 
Sources:
 
Gingrich and Romney Tack Right, but Leave a Path Back to the Middle; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/us/politics/newt-gingrich-and-mitt-romney-leave-path-back-to-middle.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Gingrich%20and%20Romney%20Tack%20Right%20but%20leave%20a%20path%20back%20to%20the%20middle&st=cse
 
Americans See Views of GOP Candidates Closer to Their Own; http://www.gallup.com/poll/151814/Americans-Huntsman-Romney-Paul-Closest-Ideologically.aspx
 
Romney Fights for First-Place Showing in Iowa Caucuses; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/us/politics/focus-on-electability-as-caucuses-near.html?pagewanted=2&sq=Iowa&st=cse&scp=2

 
In Iowa, a Time to Vote, and, for Many, to Settle; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/us/politics/iowa-caucus-voters-lack-enthusiasm.html

Marco Pinocchio

What is it about this Tea Party crowd and their embarrassing commentary? We have Michele Bachmann who wants to be president yet doesn’t know where the American Revolution began. Then there’s Sarah Palin for whom misstatements are a staple regardless of the topic. We had two contenders for the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle and Joe Miller who basically talked their way out of winning with comments about “Second Amendment Solutions”, confusing Asians for Latinos, calling unemployment compensation unconstitutional, and lying about using coworkers computers to unfairly influence GOP polling. We’ve had Christine O’Donnell talking about witchcraft and Rick Perry accusing Ben Bernake of treason and suggesting Texas might just leave the union. Does this sort of thing run in the family so to speak?

Well now we have one of the few remaining Tea Party supported stars apparently fudging the facts as to how his family “escaped” from the clutches of Fidel Castro and his Communists. According to Marco Rubio’s onetime official Senate biography: “In 1971, Marco was born in Miami to Cuban-born parents who came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover” However, the official account seems to be sorely at variance with the facts. Rubio’s family actually came to the United States in May of 1956. However, Castro’s revolution was nothing but a Communist hope and dream at the time when the Rubio family headed for Florida. In fact in May of 1956 Castro and his cadre of revolutionaries were still in exile in Mexico and they would not return to Cuba until December of 1956, seven months after the departure of the Rubio’s. Thus there was no way anyone could predict the success or failure of a future Communist revolution in Cuba or if one would even take place. That said Rubio has clearly embellished his family history for political ends and as such his personal honesty is now highly suspect.

The questions surrounding Rubio’s honesty are even more pronounced when you consider that: “In various television interviews over the years, Mr. Rubio gave various dates for his parents’ arrival, 1957, ’58 or ’59.” Quoting University of Miami Cuban-American political science professor George Gonzalez: “Every Cuban-American knows when their parents arrived and the circumstances under which they arrived… That’s part of the Cuban exile experience, the political and psychological trauma of it. So the idea that he was murky on those does not cut ice… To my father and grandparents, if you came before the revolution, it puts you in a different category.”

Responding to articles in the St. Petersburg Times and the Washington Post which underscore the discrepancy between Rubio’s official statements and his family history Rubio said: “essential facts of my family’s story are completely accurate.” Clearly they are not, in fact the history shows that Rubio is both on the wrong side of the facts and is guilty of public dishonesty. Marco Rubio would seek to defuse the controversy by suggesting that “the dates he had referred to in the past were based on his parents’ recollection of events and were told to him two decades later.” Well believing that a young man who came from a family that had left Cuba in the 1950s would not be aware of the circumstances surrounding their emigration is just too far fetched to be credible. Moreover, to think that a candidate for the U.S. Senate and possible 2012 Vice Presidential candidate wouldn’t spend the requisite time on his own official biography to insure its accuracy is even less believable. In fact Senator Rubio had the phrase “Cuban-born parents came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover” removed from his official senate biography after the abovementioned news articles came to light. In the end it all amounts to sad commentary on the career of a guy who had so much to offer in the way of hope for the future of the Tea Party movement as an agent of change inside the Washington Beltway and nationally on the political stage.

Steven J. Gulitti
10/27/11

Sources:

Florida Senator Denies Claim He Gilded His Family History; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/us/politics/marco-rubio-denies-claim-he-exaggerated-his-biography.html?emc=eta1

Senator Lashes Out at Critics Who Say He Embellished His Family’s Story; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/us/politics/rubio-lashes-out-at-critics-of-his-biography.html?emc=eta1

1959 The Cuban Revolution; http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/the_cuban_revolution_-_1959.html

Time to Put a Fork in the Bachmann Campaign?

Has Michele Bachmann become a Tea Party darling that forgot to heed the dimming of the stage lights? Well apparently that may in fact be the case. As it turns out: “Five of Michele Bachmann’s New Hampshire campaign team released a statement on Monday confirming that they have quit the campaign despite comments by Bachmann and her team that the New Hampshire campaign was still together. The five members, who comprised the entirety of Bachmann’s New Hampshire staff, said that her campaign was “rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel” to the New Hampshire staffers.”

Okay so lets all ask ourselves a question, if New Hampshire is the preeminent forum for retail politics and Bachmann’s New Hampshire team has ditched her and she can’t effectively manage her own campaign, then how can a Bachmann administration ever hope to function effectively in leading the United States during a period as challenging as this? The answer of course is that it can’t and it’s high time for her to realize this and get out of the way so serious political contenders can get down to the business of determining who will lead this country after 2012. The time for frivolity is long since past and the time to get down to business has long since arrived. Enough said?

SJG
10/26/11

Sources:

Bachmann’s NH team quits, cites campaign dishonesty, rudeness, cruelty; http://minnesotaindependent.com/90549/bachmanns-nh-team-quits-cites-campaign-dishonesty-rudeness-cruelty

Bachmann NH Team Quits; http://thepage.time.com/2011/10/21/bachmanns-nh-team-quits/

9-9-9; The Devil Is in the Details

After watching Herman Cain get mauled in last night’s Republican presidential debate by his fellow contenders regarding his 9-9-9 tax proposals its hard to make the claim that the Progressives and the “Progressive media” are struggling hard to find anything they can against Herman Cain. When people like Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Ron Paul publicly savage Cain over the particulars of his 9-9-9 tax proposals, the claim that it is all the work of “progressives” is completely and undeniably revealed to be nothing less than completely absurd. None of the aforementioned can genuinely be considered “progressives” except in a stretch and that would be Perry for his tuition assistance for immigrant children.

As far as the claim that for the vast majority will see their taxes lowered, well that doesn’t hold any water either. You see just be fore the debate the Tax Policy Center came out with the first comprehensive look at the 9-9-9 proposals and they found that the bottom 84% of taxpayers would pay more in taxes. Glenn Kessler the fact checker of the Washington Post who appeared on tonight’s PBS New Hour provided a recap of the Tax Policy conclusions and gave Rick Santorum credit for being well informed of just how this report lays waste to Cain’s claim that more people would see their taxes lowered than not. Kessler went on to point out that the people in the highest brackets would see a huge windfall from the Cain proposals and that those on the bottom would experience take a huge hit by paying proportionately more taxes than they do now. It goes without saying that in a political environment now playing out against the backdrop of the growing and worldwide Occupy Wall Street movement, advocating tax increases for 84% of the taxpayers while the richest get yet another unneeded break would seem to be a losing strategy. Herman cain is right to campaign in favor of tax code reform, its just that his 9-9-9 plan isn’t the solution its cranked up to be as per the analysis of the Tax Policy Center.

Herman Cain is a likeable guy and a real American success story. However, he is also an “accidental” frontrunner whose sudden surge in popularity probably comes as a surprise to him as much as it does to the rest of us. Cain will now have to struggle to defend and define his ideas on the economy and foreign policy as he comes under greater and more stringent scrutiny. For Herman Cain the hard part is just beginning and there are only going to be so many opportunities to wave off gaffes and policy misstatements with jokes before his candidacy will become a joke in and of itself. To what degree is Cain for real and to what degree is his candidacy just enjoying the latest popularity boomlet among a conservative base that is still not happy with Mitt Romney and that has fallen for and then rejected one contender after another from Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to now Herman Cain?