You often see pundits making suggestions to political candidates like David Brooks makes in his New York Times column today (1/10/12):
If Romney is to thrive, he really needs to go on an integrity tour. He needs to show how his outer pronouncements flow directly from his inner core. He needs to trust that voters will take him as he really is….
He needs to stop opportunistically backtracking on his Medicare position, just to please whatever senior group he happens to be in front of. He needs to show that he is willing to pursue at least a few unpopular policies, even policies that are unfashionable in his own party. Since many people fear that he is a suck-up, it would actually help him at this point if he violated party orthodoxy in some bold and independent way.
He needs to step outside the cautious incrementalism that is the inevitable product of excessive polling and focus-group testing. He needs to find a policy like entitlement reform that is so important to him that he’s willing to risk losing the presidency over it. The eternal rule of presidential politics is that a candidate has to be willing to lose everything if he’s going to win everything.
My question is: Has any candidate ever successfully employed this strategy of wooing voters by promising to do things they think shouldn’t be done? In the history of the world?
Now, when you’re in office, you might make an unpopular move that turns out to improve the economy or what have you, and you could benefit politically from that. And during a campaign, you might be able to persuade voters that what they think is a bad idea is actually a good idea.
But basing your campaign on the assumption that there’s a significant number of voters who would say, “I like this guy–he’s telling me he’s going to do a lot of things I think are wrong”? That’s an idea that only a pundit could love.
As dumb, willfully ignorant, and as willing to identify with the needs of our “betters”, (not to mention continuing to believe the con that we were ever middle class) as we USans have become, it would probably work perfectly.
Willard has an inner core? Surely you jest.
Actually it doesn’t matter how much Willard flips and flops, people will believe whatever he says at that particular moment.
If Willard were Pinocchio, this man’s nose would be growing right before our eyes. Unfortuantely, there’s no Jiminy Cricket to guide his conscience.
We simply must continue to reach and teach those who do not yet see. I still believe that with Unity of Action Together, WE The People of this World CAN and Will Overcome this ERA of Rushing toward Armageddon by the people who are controlling the Commons as True Believers or CONS of an “other” directed Fate, i.e. the Lie that these gods are the directors while their “servants” carry out the WILL! Peace
David Brooks certainly doesn’t seem to risk much by saying things that are completely idiotic. He’s still employed, annoying the rest of us.
When David Brooks articulates nonsense so carefully and well that I fear becoming senile in a similar way, I pause and remember that any sacrifices I could make for my country are so very small compared to what the wealthy and powerful could afford to sacrifice.
David Brooks? Who would bother reading him anymore? Or Tom Friedman, for that matter? What an utter waste of precious time!
It is increasingly obvious that David Brooks owes his job to NYT’s affirmitive action for conservatives program. Let’s just remember that when we have to read something he says. He combines the worst of establishment liberalisma nd establishment conservatism!
Hey, it’s DAVID BROOKS talking – what do we expect?
I was going to write a scathing diatribe about what a lousy reporter Brooks is, but really he’s such a non-entity, why bother?
I do think that the managing editor at the Times who hired him should be roasted slowly on a spit, however.
There are a number of ways in which this may be wrong. “Liberal Democrats” now approve of lawless imprisonment, warrantless spying, murdering of citizens (not to mention non-citizens) BECAUSE Obama does. He persuades them to switch their position simply by holding the other position.
Second, USians of all political persuasions very often prefer, just as the corporate media teaches them to prefer, a candidate who tells them to go to hell. Candidates routinely denounce following polls, catering the the public, trying to please potential voters, etc. Democracy is opposed to integrity. Integrity means ignoring the public. This anti-democratic attitude runs very deep. It’s not just showing up in a few columns independent of any basis in fact.
Glad to know that I’m not alone in my concern for Brooks intelligence and integrity. However, he did say something once that was pretty true. Don’t know if he realized it or was being as naive as he sounded. He said that the Middle East would become democratized just as Latin America had been. Well………yeah.
Brooks on the way up has proved he has a brain and a functioning heart, at least one that can seem sincere and human – however now that he has more or less arrived in the heart of punditry he is starting to seem mostly like the worst of his earlier ultra-conservative self of many years ago. There was an interview he did with Daniel Kahneman about his book “Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow” that was absolutely grating on my nerves the way he dominated Kahneman and kept trying to show off how smart he was to the audience instead of bringing out the subject of Kahneman’s book – and he really did not add a thing totally detracting from the author. I heard Brooks start to talk about neuroscience being the next revolutionary technology in human history years ago, and after that I used to kind of perk up and listen when I would hear him on the News Hour, now I just don’t bother anymore. He is a top-tier conservative schmuck playing a very tricky game of proganda and manipulation.
David: Your first instance isn’t what I, or Brooks, is talking about–that’s a politician changing the public’s mind about what’s a good idea, in this case just by indicating that he thinks it’s a good idea.
The second instance is what we’re talking about–and I’m still skeptical that it exists outside of pundits’ imagination. A majority of people disagree with a policy, but a substantial number of people decide they like a politician when he announces his agreement with it–not because he’s changed their mind about it, but because he’s brave enough to disagree with them: When has that ever happened? It seems to me like a fantasy invented to sell politicians on the idea that it’s in their self-interest as elected officials to advance policies that will screw over the majority.
All of the statements Brooks makes say that Romney needs to change (once again) his stance on issues in order to appeal to voters. The message is “continue to lie, but do it like this.” In other words, Romney’s flaw is not in failing to tell the truth, but failing to lie in a way that leads to his personal success as a politician.
You can tell a lot about negatives, and peoples feelings about a candidate by doing a general overview.When Obama ran the din was overwhelming.Screams of “he has no qualifications what so ever.”.”His policies(platform) are madness””.His entire life is hidden and sanitized”.”He has never succeeded at any elected job he has ever held.””He has a long history of friendships with socialized radicals’.On and on it went.But he had one huge plus(actually two).One was George Bush ,and all that entailed -true or as painted by the left in their Bush derangement campaign.Number two was McCain.Such a lackluster wishy washy guy.
Mitt…..I hear stronger yells from the right than the left.The right has some gripes with him but all that will vanish one moment after he wins the nomination.The left grumbels he is a rich man.Um.. ok noted.They say he jumps the track too much.Yeah he does…………YOUR WAY!The only thing I think they are going to pound against him is he doesn’t care fore the poor.Stupid class warfare nonsense.Mitt just hold up you charitable deductions for the last twenty years than ask Bam to hold up his.My point is so far you on the left have not landed a glove on him.And you have a president elect running who cant run on anything he has done while in office.I think this is gonna be a beat down.Like a red headed step child.
Current polling: Obama vs Romney
Rasmussen Tracking(R) 2/14 – 2/16 1500 LV 48 42 Obama +6
Democracy Corps (D) 2/11 – 2/14 1000 LV 49 45 Obama +4
CNN/Opinion Research 2/10 – 2/13 937 RV 51 46 Obama +5
CBS News/NY Times 2/8 – 2/13 1604 RV 48 42 Obama +6
PPP 2/9 – 2/12 1200 RV 49 42 Obama +7
Pew Research 2/8 – 2/12 1172 RV 52 44 Obama +8
FOX News 2/6 – 2/9 1110 RV 47 42 Obama +5
Reuters/Ipsos 2/2 – 2/6 881 RV 48 42 Obama +6
ABC News/Wash Post 2/1 – 2/4 879 RV 51 45 Obama +6
Since Obama won against McCain by +6, we’re right back where we were in 2008.
More importantly, when you look at the matchups in the swing states, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and others Romney’s behind. He needs those states to win the Electoral Collage.
Washington Post: “President Obama and his wife, Michelle, despite having the second-lowest income of the four candidate/spouse combos, gave the highest percentage of their $1.8 million income to charity in 2010. He and Michelle gave 14.2% of their AGI, while the Romneys gave 13.8%.”
“Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, by comparison, gave very little of their income to charity. Gingrich and his wife, Callista, gave 2.6% of their $3.2 million income in 2010. Santorum and wife Karen, who made the least in 2010 (less than $1 million), also gave the lowest percentage of their income to charity, at 1.8%.”
Yeah, that whole “maverick” “independent thinker” trope worked so well for McCain, it can’t possibly fail to work just as well for Romney.