A Contextual Consideration, of Sorts
Parmalee said:
"I'm sure I can state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that" ... but I'm not going to right now.
You know, it's just the weirdest thing. I happened to inadvertently land on page one of this thread just a couple minutes ago, and yes, the title I gave that post is, "
He Has Many Supporters, or Maybe Just a Few Rich Ones, and You Don't Need to Know Who".
That was over a year ago.
The whole I'm-not-telling-you and you-don't-need-to-know thing seemed like a joke back then; that is, sure it was worth a political chuckle, but come on, if I had suggested this would still be going on, and appear a primary, first-tier tactic for the campaign, after the conventions, would that not have sounded a little partisan, ferocious, and full of crap?
With the "47%" gaffe, we get a glimpse inside the psychology of the Romney campaign.
It actually brings to mind an old line from Sir Mix A Lot:
So I say, Oogley-goo oogley-doo-doo-goo!
"What'd you say?" I ain't tellin' you.
You know, 'cause Mitt's game is laced with riddles; it ain't money, it's Mitt in the middle.
Er ... um ... right. Never mind.
But, yeah, these last couple days I keep hearing that phrase, "Oogley-goo, oogley-doo-doo-goo!" whenever Mitt hits the news cycle.
What strikes me most deeply, though, is that a big part of the 47% controversy is a non-story. There's a reason his remarks, made in May, have bounced around the internet without grabbing any attention; there are reasons Rachel Maddow didn't bite last month when someone posted them to YouTube under her name. (David Corn of
Mother Jones, who broke the story for the current news cycle, conveyed that person's apology to Rachel last night, on the air.)
But now that the story has finally worked its way into the news cycle, well, what can I really say?
Without Romney's idiotic response to the scandal, it's one of those things I can certainly take with a grain of salt. As much as people lament the seeming inhumanity (or out-of-touchness, if such a phrase actually exists) of politicians, we also seem to demand it. In my own circles, I've witnessed a certain vacillation on the notion. Was a time when a generalized statement like that was taken as a colloquial expression. And then, perhaps in response to the back-and-forth petty politicking of the Clinton and Bush years, it seemed like people were willing to
speak colloquially, but, even in conversations among friends, unwilling to
listen colloquially. The forty-seven line
can be taken colloquially, and in recent years I've known plenty of everyday people who speak so colloquially, but listen very literally; that is, they might say something so broad, and we're all expected to know what they mean, but if someone else speaks so colloquially, they take it literally.
Romney's choices were, literally, myriad. The
best way, in my opinion, would have been to say, "You know, it was a private fundraiser, and there weren't supposed to be cameras. And hey, in those situations, we inject some colloquialism, some comedy, into our message. Nobody in that room took the forty-seven percent bit
literally. But someone broke the rules, and now here we are, months later, arguing over taking it literally." As I see it, such a spin could have set the GOP up to devastate the footage; the person who shot the video has apparently said specifically that s/he isn't an infiltrator, but that wouldn't really have much effect if the GOP started yelling about dirty Democratic Party tricks and infiltration.
Instead, he made the point that we ought to take his words literally, which just reinforces his image as a rich guy with no clue about people who aren't rich.
Indeed, he went so far as to say the forty-seven crack was a more clear and effective expression than what he gives in public speeches.
Yesterday it emerged that the Romney campaign is
betting on the base, trying to rally conservatives. Admittedly, by the end of the day, there were conflicting versions of the Team Romney strategy shift, but his response to the forty-seven issue seems to reaffirm the base-enthusiasm approach by which the votes lost on the hardline right wing by playing to the undecided voters is a greater number than could be won from an unusually small swing bloc.
In this sense, the forty-seven remark seems intended to rally the hardline base, which really does believe, or feel viscerally, or some such, that Obama voters really are entitlement babies who contribute nothing to society.
And, yes, if that's the case, Romney's defense of his words makes sense.
Well, sort of; I
still think it's a huge gamble. The Democrats have the "Reagan Democrats" and the "Obamacans" in their camp; a better campaign might have brought the Obamacans back to the GOP, and won a decent number of Reagan Democrats, as well. Perhaps it's not a better campaign, but a better Republican Party. If Romney had some inherent credibility in the center, as he should have, then rallying the base instead of playing for the swing bloc makes better sense. But this is a dangerous, perhaps suicidal, throw of the dice.
When the books are written on the Romney campaign ... how many times have I heard that phrase lately?
There are many things people will claim should be the overriding theme of the Romney campaign, but in my opinion, this gamble ought to be the shining star. If it works, it will look genius. If it doesn't, it will be one of the worst political calculations in American history.
Meanwhile, tax returns and policy planks, Mitt ain't tellin' you. Or me. Or anybody else. And now, yes, it turns out he does have something he honestly believes, but it's not to be shared with anybody but rich donors, and only under circumstances when nobody else is supposed to hear:
Mitt ain't tellin' you.
It's hard to believe this particular theme has emerged to such prominence. Then again, if the campaign is based on an anti-identification (i.e., "not Obama"), and someone has either convinced Romney or accepted his outlook that this should be sufficient to win, yes, there is a reason why Mitt is so reticent about details.
As such, it's not so hard to say what he really means, but, rather, someone has decided that the campaign will specifically avoid such statements in public.
And all of this actually ties into another point you made:
No matter which "side" one is on, "those people" always seem to be accorded some curious characterizations--and ofttimes these are largely indefensible.
In the conservative case, I would point to neocons and evangelicals. To start with the latter, it is enough to point out that evangelicals often express a very superficial comprehension of their faith that leads to a dualistic paradigm in which the armies of God are constantly at war with the legions of darkness. With the neoconservatives, though, it is the philosophical work of Leo Strauss, who actually advocates the value of identifying a society according to myth in order to create cohesion by raising devils, thus feeding a dualistic paradigm in which the good guys (i.e., American society) are constantly at war with the bad guys (i.e., communists, Muslims, labor unions, &c.). It gets so ridiculous sometimes that the party of Clint Eastwood (actor, mayor), Sonny Bono (musician, actor, congressman), and Ronald Reagan (actor, governor, president) will complain about the Hollywood elite any time a celebrity expresses a political opinion they don't like.
It's
always dualistic at the core.
And Team Romney has apparently decided that the risk assessment favors playing to the base and rallying the hardline conservatives because the loss of their turnout would be greater than whatever handful of votes the GOP nominee could win from the swing bloc.
It's an interesting proposition, to be certain, and even a little worrisome in terms of concern about the outcome. They
could pull this off, in the end, especially if circumstances weaken confidence in Obama. To wit, the foreign service attacks were one thing, and Romney clearly damaged his own campaign with his cold, cynical, and dishonest attack against the foreign service and the Obama administration. But as protests continue, Hizb'allah threatens the United States, and so on, the story could erode Obama's standing among what would normally be crossover voters.
It is, in my opinion, an incredibly risky—even stupid—gamble by Team Romney, but it is also one they might still win.
