The 47 percent solution Monday, Oct 1 2012 

Politics victorgold 5:26 pm

Before the Great Debate takes place, one last word on Mitt Romney’s writing off nearly half the electorate as trough-feeding welfare moochers: He at least gives Obama supporters credit for knowing what they’re up to.

That’s not always the case in partisan argument during an election year. Consider the following, from a recent Wall Street Journal column by Daniel Henninger, a frustrated partisan who thinks “the content and course of the Romney campaign does not feel equal to an historic mandate election.”

“Barack Obama is asking voters for a mandate to pursue the visions and policies he outlines in speech after speech,” writes Henninger. “As of now, if Mr. Obama wins, it will be because a confused electorate gave him their default, not their mandate.”

Now that’s more like it. Check the record, whenever hot-eyed (and dull-witted) idealogues take stock of why their side isn’t doing well in (or at) the polls, it’s always a case of their candidate’s not getting his Message across. Why else would the electorate not see the “historic mandate” at stake in this year’s election and come down on Romney’s side? The idea that voters might actually get the Message and reject it – how many years has Mitt Romney been campaigning? – is out of the question.

You know, like the dogs that, despite millions in advertising, don’t like the dog food. The mutts are obviously “confused.”

Sound bite to remember (circa 1955)

“With all respect, counselor, I’d rather blow the f—— case.”

Mafia don Frank Costello on being advised by his lawyer to wear Sears Roebuck suits at his trial for tax evasion.

 

Artur Davis and the Schmooze Factor Monday, Sep 3 2012 

Politics , victorgold 2:12 pm

So now that Artur Davis has delivered back-to-back speeches at two national party conventions – the Democratic in 2008 praising Barack Obama, and the Republican in 2012 blistering Barack Obama – what are the odds he’ll go for the hat trick, three in a row, at the Libertarian convention four years from now?

Sad, sad, sad. Just two years ago, there was talk that Davis, who represented the state’s Birmingham district, might become Alabama’s first African-American governor. As a candidate for the Democratic nomination, he had the support of none other than George  Wallace’s daughter, Peggy. That he nevertheless lost the nomination – to a candidate who in turn lost the general election to Republican Robert Bentley – obviously left him embittered.

In over half a century in politics (yes, that long), I have yet to meet a losing candidate, other than Barry Goldwater, who took personal responsibility for his loss. They are either (1) let down by people they depended on, (2) victimized by the lying tactics of their opponents, or (3) misrepresented or otherwise treated unfairly by a biased media.

Davis, for his part, chose Option (1): He blamed his loss on what he perceived as the backstabbing treachery of Alabama’s Democratic establishment. That in mind, he packed his bags, left Alabama, and headed for Northern Virginia, within a local phone call’s distance from the White House where his friend and former Harvard law school colleague Barack Obama now lives. What happened next – Davis’ switch to the Republican Party, his endorsement of Mitt Romney, and his appearance at the GOP convention – can best be explained by what didn’t happen.

To the point, can you imagine this sort of political embarrassment being visited on a White House run by either Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton? Obama’s campaign aide Stephanie Cutter attributes the defection to Davis’ being a self-interested, attention-seeking opportunist – as if that tells us anything we didn’t know about anyone (including the man she works for) who runs for political office.

No, whatever Artur Davis’ egocentricity, my bet is that he wouldn’t have switched parties, endorsed Romney, or shown up in Tampa if the man whose nomination he seconded four years ago, and/or members of his White House staff aimed the slightest bit of – to borrow a once-favored Obama term – empathy  in his friend’s direction.

A job offer? Possibly, though presidents like Johnson and Clinton knew that reaching out to wounded egos often means simply a private lunch or dinner; a weekend at Camp David; a flight aboard Air Force One; or merely a photo, autographed, taken with the president.

Ah, but this president, as Jane Mayer revealed in her recent New Yorker piece “Schmooze or Lose,” isn’t much for that sort of empathy. He has no time for posed, autographed photos with guests at White House holiday parties. Little time for table-to-table schmoozing at fundraising dinners. Not even, as Maureen Dowd tells us, a thank you note to supporters who make their homes available for fundraising events.

How to explain a president who sees and practices politics this way? Looking back (before my time), I can think of only one model. Not Kennedy, as Obama’s admirers would have us believe, or Carter, as his detractors would argue, but Woodrow Wilson, another cool professor with no time for the nitty-gritty.

Of course, for all that, Wilson did win a second term – but narrowly. Whatever that bit of ancient political history tells us, it would be well for Artur Davis’ erstwhile friend in the White House to remember that Tip O’Neill had it only half-right: All politics is local, yes, but more than that, it’s personal.

Sound Bites to Remember (in translation):

“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”

–Charles de Gaulle, circa 1965

“You kiss ass one day so you can kick it the next.”

–Alabama Gov. Big Jim Folsom, circa 1955

 

Barry and the Tea Party Sunday, Aug 5 2012 

Politics , , , victorgold 4:45 pm

“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be constitutional does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional.” 
—Tea Party favorite Rand Paul on the Supreme Court decision on the healthcare case 6/28/12

Translated: La Constitution, c’est moi. Call it the Tea Party credo, otherwise reflected by Ted Cruz’s notion that the only way to get things done in Washington — or in his words, “Take our country back” — is for everyone to adopt his point of view.

Would Barry Goldwater agree? George Will thinks so. In a column cheering Cruz’s victory in the Texas Republican runoff for the U.S. Senate nomination, Will writes that it is Goldwater’s “spirit” that “infuses the Tea Party.”

To which Barry, if still around, would predictably respond, “B——–!” How can I be sure? Let me put it this way: I knew Barry Goldwater. I was on Barry Goldwater’s staff. And believe me, Barry Goldwater would have nothing good to say about the Tea Party.

Nor, let me add, would the Tea Party have anything good to say about Barry Goldwater. Who can doubt that a political faction that finds Bob Bennett, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar not conservative enough would be fulminating today over a Republican senator who in his autobiography wrote:

“For years, the New Right preached little or no spirit of compromise—political give and take. … Public business— that’s all politics is — is often making the best of a mixed bargain….Our Constitution seeks to allow freedom for everyone, not merely those professing certain moral or religious views of ultimate right.”

So much for George Will’s notion that it’s the spirit of Goldwater that infuses the our-way-or-no-way Tea Party. But then, we have to consider Will’s perspective: While Barry was running for president in 1964, Will was away from the fray, taking his tea at Oxford.

Sound Bite to Remember

“Neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness, and other cognitive problems.” — Tea Party fellow traveler Michael Savage on John Roberts’ vote in the healthcare case

 

The Mitt and Johnny Show Tuesday, May 29 2012 

Politics , , , victorgold 9:03 pm

Attending a Memorial Day tribute with Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Romney declared that “the world is not safe” and criticized President Obama without mentioning him by name for proposing cuts in military spending.

                          — From the New York Times report on Mitt Romney’s Memorial Day speech in San Diego

 With unerring inaccuracy, Mitt Romney sets out to honor those fallen in battle and ends up making a speech better suited for Armed Forces Day. More military spending – money even the Pentagon says it doesn’t want – but let’s understand the man’s dilemma: With John McCain by his side, you can’t very well come off sounding like a tree-hugging peacenik.

McCain, who can’t throw a dart at a map without hitting some country he thinks American troops should be invading, had his own inspired Memorial Day moment when, according to the Times, he “joked about the Marines and received laughter from the audience.”

Memorial Day tribute? Rename it: Patriotism in the age of sound bites is no longer the last refuge of scoundrels. It’s the first refuge of political clowns.

Putdown to Remember (circa 1950)

REPORTER: Mr. Lewis, somebody asked President Truman to make you U.S. ambassador to Russia, and he said he wouldn’t appoint you dogcatcher.

U.M.W. CHIEF JOHN L. LEWIS: Of course he wouldn’t because if he did he’d have more brains in the Dog Department than he has in the State Department.

 

Liberating Leon Panetta Thursday, Apr 26 2012 

Politics , victorgold 7:39 am

“For 40 years that I’ve been in this town, I’ve gone home because my wife and family are there and because, frankly, I think it’s healthy to get out of Washington periodically just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.”

–Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, explaining why he ran up an $800,000 travel bill making 27 personal trips to his California home via government aircraft since July 2011.

Forty years enchained in Washington! Good God, where was the Thirteenth Amendment when Leon Panetta needed it? There was Leon, working his heart out for the American taxpayer in the unhealthy environs of our Nation’s Capital for four decades as – let’s see, how many government offices, elective and otherwise, has the poor soul had to endure? Let’s run down the list, beginning with his arrival as an upwardly mobile indentured servant in the mid-1960s:

From 1966 to 1969 he was legislative assistant to California Senator Thomas Kuchel; after which he served for two years at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare; after which he took a two-year break from Washington – to go into the private sector? No, to indenture himself on New York’s public payroll as the executive assistant to Mayor John Lindsay; then back to the federal payroll as a U.S. congressman for 15 years; after which he was shackled to the Clinton White House as OMB director and chief of staff, then. . . .

Have I made my point? If not, the question to be asked is how – after eight years breathing free air during the Bush 43 era – Leon was lured back to Washington to serve as CIA director (2009-2011), then Secretary of Defense (2011- )?

Given his obvious distaste, if not contempt, for the place, it’s an ongoing mystery. My solution? Term limits for appointed federal office holders. After four to six years in Washington, back to private, not to mention family, life. Call it the Panetta Rule, an Emancipation Proclamation for all those put-upon political hacks who’ve been in Washington so long they consider the town a place you have to “get out of periodically just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.”

Sound bite to remember

“I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do; and for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down.’”

                                                                                         –Bob Newhart

 

Reports from the campaign front . . . . Saturday, Mar 24 2012 

Politics , victorgold 12:52 pm

Santorum Sees Chastity Belts As Answer

New Orleans, La., March 21 (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told a rally here today that what he termed “a growing national crisis of marital infidelity and teenage pregnancy” demands “a strong leader, unafraid to return to the tried-and-true methods of a former time, up to and including the widespread use of chastity belts.”

The idea that prior presidential candidates, including John F. Kennedy, might be repelled by this notion, added Santorum, “is enough to make me throw up.”

Romney Campaigns in Flatbush

Brooklyn, N.Y., March 21 (Reuters) – Wearing a yarmulke and entering with a cry of “Oy gevalt!,” Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney paid a surprise lunch-hour visit to Goldstein’s Kosher Delicatessen today, regaling customers with stories about his days as a “young mensch” when he “noshed on knishes and matzo balls” to gain weight to qualify for his prep school’s squash team.

“My fondest memories of time spent with my father are those glorious summer weekends we went fly-casting for gefilte fish on Lake Michigan,” Romney told the midday crowd, adding that although he doesn’t have any Jewish friends who keep kosher, “I do know a number of kosher food manufacturers.”

Sound Bite to Remember (sports)

“The same things win that always win. The only thing that changes are the excuses when you lose.”

         –Paul “Bear” Bryant

 

Of Safety Nets and Muck-Ups Wednesday, Feb 8 2012 

Politics , victorgold 8:44 pm

Responding to Mitt Romney’s most recent Mittism – that he’s not concerned about “the very poor” because they have a safety net – Newt Gingrich tells an audience that he’s opposed to even a safety net because it’s part of  “the welfare state.”  Elect me president, says the Herodotus of West Georgia College, and I’ll replace the “safety net” with “a trampoline.” Meaning? Presumably an opportunity for “the very poor” to better their lives by gainful employment cleaning the lavatories at Tiffany.

Not that Republicans in the remaining primary and caucus states don’t have other choices: There is Rick Santorum, the most appealing presidential candidate to come out of Pennsylvania since Milton Shapp, and Ron Paul, who wants to do away with the Federal Reserve, return to the gold standard, and if that doesn’t work, the barter system.

Meanwhile we can take further comfort in having a President who, commenting on an upbeat jobs report, tells a Northern Virginia audience that the economy will continue to improve unless Congressional Republicans choose to – his eloquent choice of words – “muck it up.”

Democracy, said Churchill, is the worst of all forms of government – except for all those other forms.  It’s times like these that make me wonder whether we shouldn’t keep looking.

Sound Bite to Remember

“Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.”

–Franklin D. Roosevelt on General Douglas MacArthur

 

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