Mitt Romney had a slick line at the National Right to Life Convention: “I know that it is not time but conviction that unites us.” Some speechwriter deserves a fat bonus for that gem, which almost manages to make a virtue of naked flip-flopping. The really great thing about it is how it forces you into the realm of the unmeasurable: how can you prove that Romney doesn’t really, really believe something now, even if he didn’t believe it yesterday?
That unmeasurability seems to be just enough to trigger conservative activists’ willing suspension of disbelief. And not just with regard to Romney (though he exemplifies the process). There’s a Kabuki quality to the Republican candidates’ ritual performance of conversion to whatever it is the base wants them to think, and the base seems happy enough to play along. But Soren Dayton, spoiling Romney’s speechwriter’s careful work, has another way of expressing what’s happening: everyone has been pretending that “pandering [is] better than authenticity.”
For instance, Jennifer Rubin’s report on the SCOTUS decision overturning restrictions on third-party campaign ads suggested that conservative activists, responding to statements in support of the decision by Romney and Rudy Giuliani — both of whom had previously supported such restrictions* — “seem[ed] less concerned with consistency than with vocal support for their favored positions.” It’s a pattern that has held on issue after issue, involving each candidate in the GOP field.
Candidates in primary elections will bend with the wishes of the base: that’s understood. But what seems to be happening this time around is an almost total abandonment of principle — yet the conservative base seems only to care about hearing the words, not about whether anybody actually means them. Dayton considers the implications:
So the pattern is clear. Run on some positions your whole life, then change them to win the nomination. Then what?
Is that a healthy way for a political party or a political movement to behave? What does this say about our intellectual class?
It speaks to the mediocrity of this group of candidates. This election is a chance for Republican leaders to step forward and present well-considered ideas as to how the right’s coalition can move beyond its current crisis. Instead the candidates seem content to mouth the stale catechism of years gone by.
*See comments
5 Responses to “The Party of Pandering”
Game. Set. Match. Paul by a landslide.
[...] The Party of Pandering [...]
Something to say?
Paul,
Your statement that Romney flipped on this issue is completely incorrect.
Romney has consistently called for more TRANSPARENCY in campaign financing, and he has always criticized the approach McCain/Thompson/Rudy supported to squash 1st amendment rights 60 days prior to an election.
Left by murphy
June 26, 2007 at 11:29am