Visual source: Newseum
Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post makes an excellent point:
In an attempt to foreclose even the remote possibility of a contested convention, the Romney campaign has been trotting out a bevy of prominent Republicans to announce their support. But is it just me, or do these endorsements have all the enthusiasm of a series of hostage tapes?
It's not just you, Eugene. Even
Michael Gerson acknowledges that Romney still has a serious problem energizing the GOP faithful. Gerson claims that Romney can overcome his shortcomings, but it'll be an uphill battle:
[B]y now it is clear that Romney is not a political natural — as Barack Obama was and Rubio may be. Politics is Romney's second language, and he often speaks it haltingly, in an awkward accent. His ploys are too obvious, his humor forced, his instincts unreliable.
This matters because Romney is engaged in an uphill communications battle — a series of challenges that require effective language and strategy.
First, he needs to express sympathy for the concerns of regular people, without actually being a regular person. Romney's deficiencies in this area have been evident for months, but his stumbles continue.
And from the
other Romney, another attack of foot-in-mouth disease:
Ann Romney defended her husband’s sense of humor today during a radio interview, explaining that if people think the candidate seems too stiff at times as the host suggested, she thinks “we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out.”
Ann Romney’s remarks came during an interview with Baltimore radio station WBAL, during which the host asked her, “And one of the things, Ann Romney, that folks talk about with your husband, Mitt Romney, and I’ve seen him in casual conversation-He comes off very smooth and okay. But sometimes he comes off stiff. Do you have to fight back some criticism, like ‘My husband isn’t stiff, OK?’”
Laughing, Ann Romney responded, “Well, you know, I guess we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out because he is not!”
Speaking of reminding voters about the "real Mitt Romney,"
Joshua Green at
Bloomberg looks at what Romney stands to gain if the Supreme Court strikes down the entirety President Obama's healthcare law:
As it happens, a very prominent former private equity manager, and current investor, who’s set to become the Republican presidential nominee has a lot of money at stake in the court’s decision. In January, after coming under considerable public pressure, Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax return, and from that return it’s possible to glean how much the GOP frontrunner stands to benefit from a decision against the health-care law.
According to the filing, which Romney posted on his campaign website, he and his wife Ann earned $21.6 million in 2010. Of that amount, $7.4 million was carried interest (per his campaign’s counsel, Ben Ginsberg), and more than half his total income—$12.6 million—came in the form of capital gains. Relative to current law and assuming his 2013 return resembles that of 2010, Romney would realize a tax savings of $478,800 if the Supreme Court wipes out Obamacare.
That would be great news for Romney’s tax bill. But it might not be so great for his political fortunes, because it would tie the sudden elimination of a broad, middle-class benefit to a pretty whopping tax cut for someone who is already under intense scrutiny for paying such a low tax rate—Romney paid 13.9 percent in 2010. That is exactly the sort of rich guy/ordinary guy disparity that the Obama campaign is going to be keying on if—really, when—Romney becomes the nominee.
Dumping the entire law may be an unlikely scenario, but that would still pack quite a strong negative PR punch to the Romney campaign. Back to the Supreme Court,
The Nation's Jamelle Bouie looks at the Supreme Court and its legitimacy (or lack thereof):
[...] it became clear that those justices are willing to overturn the bill for the sake of an ideological victory To me, this isn't the story of a well-functioning political system — it's an attempt to deny legitimacy to one side of the political spectrum whenever it gains power. Short of forfeiting elections–or passing right-wing legislation — there's nothing that Democrats can do to satisfy movement conservatives. Duly elected Democratic presidents are attacked as illegitimate — Barack Obama had to show the public his birth certificate — and legislation passed by duly-elected Democratic lawmakers is attacked as unconstitutional.
A lot of progressives have responded to the Court's conservatives with a promise to double down and push for single-payer health care in the years and decades to come. But if this is what we're dealing with — a powerful right wing that doesn't accept the legitimacy of liberal lawmakers or ideas — then I'm honestly doubtful whether there's anything we do that can pass constitutional muster with the opposition. Put another way, just because conservatives decide Medicare is constitutional now doesn't mean that they'll feel that way if liberals manage to create Medicare-for-all.
The broader question, I suppose, is this — if our majorities don't count, and our laws don't either, then what does?
The New York Times Editorial Board looks at recently revealed strategy memos from the conservative National Organization for Marriage:
“The strategic goal of the project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies,” says one memo.
Another stated aim is to manipulate Hispanic voters by making the exclusion of gay people from marriage “a key badge of Latino identity.”
These are not the musings of a marginalized group. The day after the memos became public, National Organization for Marriage’s co-founder and chairman emeritus, Robert George, was appointed by John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, to a United States commission focused on addressing religious intolerance and extremism around the globe.
Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have publicly aligned themselves with the group and signed its pledge to work aggressively from the White House against same-sex marriage.