Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Santorum wins MN, MO, CO
Someone could've made a lot of money on Intrade with these results.
Rick really fumbled his chance to reintroduce himself with a horrible victory speech, but he has once again showed that the GOP base is rejecting Mitt.
Mitt needs to get serious about articulating a real agenda. He started this campaign with a bunch of mind-numbing 10 point plans, then went the platitude route with his "American greatness for American people creating American jobs via American exceptionalism" nonsense. Let's get a vision. His top 3 priorities. As of right now, I don't know what they are.
Where is he on reforming entitlements? (A: triangulating--I'll fix them, but not till out years).
Where is he on real tax reform? (A: triangulating--no across the board reform, targeted middle-class cuts).
Where is he on spending cuts? (A: he's a businessman and knows how to balance the books--which is not a plan).
Luckily for Mitt, no one seems prepared to wrest the nomination away from him. So he can continue to deploy massive resources at obliterating Rick and Newt, and can still cake walk to the nomination without upping his game. Or he can learn a lesson and stop trying to imitate Obama's vacuous '08 campaign, all airy rhetoric and no substance, and realize that the American people have tired of that. The reason they want Mitt is that he can make the hard choices. He can fire people, cut programs, and get the federal budget deficit under control. He can put entitlements on a sustainable course. He needs to stop being afraid of saying so, other than in the most indirect way possible.
Mitt needs to get serious about articulating a real agenda. He started this campaign with a bunch of mind-numbing 10 point plans, then went the platitude route with his "American greatness for American people creating American jobs via American exceptionalism" nonsense. Let's get a vision. His top 3 priorities. As of right now, I don't know what they are.
Where is he on reforming entitlements? (A: triangulating--I'll fix them, but not till out years).
Where is he on real tax reform? (A: triangulating--no across the board reform, targeted middle-class cuts).
Where is he on spending cuts? (A: he's a businessman and knows how to balance the books--which is not a plan).
Luckily for Mitt, no one seems prepared to wrest the nomination away from him. So he can continue to deploy massive resources at obliterating Rick and Newt, and can still cake walk to the nomination without upping his game. Or he can learn a lesson and stop trying to imitate Obama's vacuous '08 campaign, all airy rhetoric and no substance, and realize that the American people have tired of that. The reason they want Mitt is that he can make the hard choices. He can fire people, cut programs, and get the federal budget deficit under control. He can put entitlements on a sustainable course. He needs to stop being afraid of saying so, other than in the most indirect way possible.
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2 comments:
My suspicion is that mitt's inability to put out a plan is a political calculation, rather than not actually having one. Specifically, I believe he sees that the solution to most of these complex issues is a complicated, multi-faceted plan that can't be captured in a sound bite. I'm guessing he realizes that putting forth a complicated solution would (a) lose voters in the minutiae, and (b) open him to attacks from all sides. In contrast, he probably figures that he can lay low and still win the nomination through his massive bankroll and warts on the other candidates. He's also probably trying to maintain as much appeal to independents as possible for the general election.
All that said, this could very well turn out to be a losing proposition. Voters will probably reject the 'empty vessel' approach this election cycle and will want to hear specifics. If he doesn't already know how to succinctly message his complex positions into simpler bite-sized pieces, he better figure it out soon or hire someone who can help him.
To me the issue isn't really specificity. He doesn't need to revert to the 7-point foreign policy plan or 10-point jobs plan.
He needs to have a vision that corresponds to where the country is.
Right now he's running on biography. I'm a private sector guy who knows the economy and create jobs.
He's got to get away from biography and get to vision.
I'm going to grow jobs by reducing the tax and regulatory burden.
I'm going to shrink the deficit by embracing the Ryan plan.
I'm going to restore American greatness by restructuring the military to conform with 21st century threats.
Something like that.
Instead, he says he's going to cut taxes and reduce regulation, but what little meat there is on the bones of his policy proposals don't correspond to the some of the high level talking points. He doesn't need 15 proposals. He needs one or two that are credible for each vision point.