Mitt Romney has one advantage over his rivals above all others: He is running a presidential campaign. None of his competitors has been able to manage it in quite the same way.
A Romney rally in Exeter, N.H., the other day was a textbook exercise in traditional presidential politics. The venue was big, a high-school gym. The advance work was flawless. The American flag backdrop was enormous. The three generations of the Romney family arrayed in front of it were so picturesque that they might have arrived straight from a photo shoot for a Tommy Hilfiger advertisement.
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When so many commentators have said that, with anti-establishment sentiment running so high, everything is different in Republican presidential politics, Romney has been the old-school candidate. He hews to the familiar instruction manual with a pharisaical devotion. Raise scads of money and build a national organization. Always stay on message and evaluate every move with an eye to the general election. Win endorsements. Take apart opponents precisely to the extent necessary, no more, no less.
As Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner has observed, Romney has been the only guy to show up for the job interview wearing a suit. He hasn’t been on a book tour masquerading as a presidential campaign (Herman Cain). He hasn’t banked everything on the debates (Newt Gingrich), or showed up unprepared (Rick Perry). He hasn’t bet on his performance in just one state (Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman). Anyone who has won a presidential nomination during the past 30 years would recognize what Romney is doing and why.
After Santorum tied Romney in Iowa and landed in New Hampshire, he immediately began engaging hostile college students in long Socratic dialogues on hot-button social issues. A few months ago, Romney had a New Hampshire town hall where he, too, was asked repeatedly by kids about gay marriage. He refused to say anything beyond that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman and that he had already answered the question. Santorum’s approach is more sincere and intellectually laudable; Romney’s approach is more studied and likely to achieve his larger aim.
And less satisfying. Romney’s campaign is all technique and no music. His speech in Exeter was schmaltz piled on top of saccharin in a perfect storm of substanceless sentimentality. First, he said he believed in America. Then, he said he loved America. And in conclusion, he quoted verses from “America the Beautiful.” In Romney’s case, patriotism is the first refuge of a politician who doesn’t dare say anything new or interesting. It wasn’t until New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a Romney supporter, took the stage and slapped down a heckler that it felt like someone had thrown open a window in the tidy structure created by Team Romney to let in a gust of spontaneity and irrepressibly joyful combativeness.
Neither of those will ever be a quality associated with Romney. He continues to excel in debates by routinely coming up with answers that feel as though they were produced by a crack marketing team for maximum unassailability. His stumbles are so rare that they become as noticeable as the tiny wobbles of an Olympic skater trying to nail a triple Lutz. Challenged over the weekend on why he didn’t run for reelection as Massachusetts governor in 2006, he said he “went back into business,” even though he was already running for president when he left the governor’s mansion. Romney wanted to hang on to the scripted presentation of himself as a businessman above all else — plausibility be damned. It was a small falsity that stood for larger worries about his genuineness.
Very few politicians have what it takes to follow the old rules with the proficiency of a Mitt Romney. It takes brains, discipline, and managerial skill. But people have trouble warming up to the (almost) flawlessly executing candidate from a flawlessly executing machine. The Romney campaign notwithstanding, there’s no rule against inspiring people.
Give me a freaking break! The reason he doesn't "inspire" is because people like you constantly trash him. Listen to him speak for more than 30 seconds and tell me he isn't inspiring. You should be ashamed of yourself and your dishonest characterization of a good man.
Good question, since everybody knows that statesmanship is nothing more than technically proficient politics. To expect anything more is unreasonable and unseemly.
What he has to do is demonstrably believe in something other than that he should be important. It is actually too late for that. You can't believe in something in particular when you have believed in eveything, always calibrated to match whatever you perceive the mood of the electorate to be.
Romney is running for manager of the United States. There have been successful managers who were not inspirational leaders - Calvin Coolidge and James Madison come to mind. But the man and the times are not well-matched. A big part of our crisis is that American leaders don't believe in (if they even understand) traditional Americanism. It is a time that calls for a leader such as Lincoln, Reagan or Roosevelt. A bloodless manager, who is willing to take whatever position is ascendant on issues, is ill-matched to these times.
"It is a time that calls for a leader such as Lincoln, Reagan or Roosevelt."
Yeah, and which one of the seven dwarfs is that leader?
Bachmann and Perry were flashes in the pan. Santorum is Robert Byrd with an (R) and without the bedspread. Huntsman should have done better but was positioned poorly and never caught fire. Paul, as much as I love a lot of what he stands for, is less electable than Goldwater. Gingrich is like a much more volatile version of Romney, at best he's a little more conservative and a lot more fun to listen to, at worst he's an even bigger DC technocrat and likely to say something that repels another 2% of voters. I may not like that choice any more than you, but what choice do we have?
Also, we got a Great Leader-type in '08, and look where that got us. I think I'm ready for dull but competent, and Romney is nothing if not dull, and certainly more competent than what we've got.
What he has to do is demonstrably believe in something other than that he should be important. It is actually too late for that. You can't believe in something in particular when you have believed in eveything, always calibrated to match whatever you perceive the mood of the electorate to be.
Romney is running for manager of the United States. There have been successful managers who were not inspirational leaders - Calvin Coolidge and James Madison come to mind. But the man and the times are not well-matched. A big part of our crisis is that American leaders don't believe in (if they even understand) traditional Americanism. It is a time that calls for a leader such as Lincoln, Reagan or Roosevelt. A bloodless manager, who is willing to take whatever position is ascendant on issues, is ill-matched to these times.
Thanks, Richard. Honestly, we had inspiring the last go round. I don't care for it. I'm looking for competence and Romney is the right man. Competence with a thick resume. Enough of the exciting, "tingle up my leg" nonsense!
Lowry's so into the Santorum Kool-Aid that he grabbed the whole punchbowl of it and spilled it all over his shirt.
Sure, Romney's not a fiery, demagogic speaker like Obama ... Wait, isn't that what we conservatives want in a leader? And is the NR editors' Flavor of the Week, Rick Santorum, very exciting to anyone who doesn't think that gays and condoms are America's biggest problems, and that the government should metastasize with huge spending programs to combat these dire threats?
Come on, Lowry, get a grip. Romney's the best we've got -- the most conservative and the most electable -- and your desire to follow the mainstream media "narrative" of him being "moderate" or "not exciting" is causing you to embarrass yourself. By the way, might want to throw that Kool-Aid-soaked shirt in the washing machine.
I went all out in support of Romney in 08, but only because I wanted to stop McCain. I was actually planning to support Romney now until it became obvious that he was an amalgam of his many advisors, completely inauthentic and with no allegiance to conservatism or even the Republican Party. I don't have high hopes that this is the man that can turn the ship around.
Besides the passion thing, his biggest problem is trust. Nobody on the Republican side trusts him on issues, unless the issue they care most about is winning, and even there, I think they're wrong. Many Republicans believe they should nominate the most conservative candidate that can win; Romney supporters believe that only moderates have a good chance of winning the general, so their philosophy is nominate the most liberal Republican who can win the primary.
His wife and kids can trust him. And person after person who has worked with him are coming forward to say how trustworthy he is. To me, that says a lot.
This is indistinguishable from National Review's current standard of "elect the most liberal candidates Republicans can hold their noses and vote for".
Which is why conservatives are cancelling NR subscriptions in droves.
Gee Rich. You should know, being one of the chief machine oilers. Along with Karl Rove, David Gregory, David Axelrod, Diane Sawyer, Charles Krauthamer, Ann Coulter, John Sununu and George Steponallofus, to name a few. Now, you're talking out of your other orifice. You need to BELIEVE DONNA BRAZIL. Obama wants to run against Mitt "Mr Rogers" Romney. He's the ONLY one Obama can beat, even though Romney's been running for five years already.
Good column. I have been following the R's nominating circus closely since last May. The dominant theme is a disconcerting unsettled feeling that there has to be something more somewhere.
Is this all the R's have? If so, we all may as well vote tomorrow and not waste 10 more months on this.
All the debates, all the bloviating, without any sense of national purpose except the standard platitudes and canned phrases. Yawn.
Ego parade every day.
And the end result, Mr. Romney, a man who seems intent on imploding even though he is 19+ points up in NH.
The people are not happy. The leaders are a dissipated bunch of poseurs.
We are currently livng through an administration elected on "high energy" and "inspirational speeches". What we have gotten is a lack of executional expertise, rational problem solving, clarity of goals and weakness. Particularly in foreign affairs, but also on economic policy. Sure I would like to see a spark of life now and then from Mitt Romney, but what I really want to experience is a professional in the White House.
What we need is someone to shut the hood on the engine of America and let 'er run. Mitt might do that, Obama won't.
Mitt also needs to jerk some of the newly installed junk off the motor before he slams the hood. If he can do the above he is the man for the job. (Ross Perot?)
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