Osler's Razor

Perhaps he will run on a pro-Judicial Review platform.
 

Ha! That is a little tangled up now, isn't it?
 

In all seriousness, there are some good issues for the challenger.

First, let me stipulate that neither side, Democrat or GOP, will offer any serious solutions in 2012 to our very serious problems.

But here is what the challenger has going for him:

1. Re-election campaigns are referenda on the sitting president. Sitting presidents with less than stellar records want to make the election about a choice between the devil you know and the very scary devil you don't know very well but let me tell you about him.

2. This president has a very hard time articulating why we are better off today than we were four years ago. OBL is dead. We are not on the brink of financial collapse anymore. We are no longer shedding jobs. But he will not run a "you never had it so good" campaign.

3. What can Romney say? What he says a lot: "Barack Obama is a nice guy, but he is in over his head." The USA is at a crossroads and the president is looking backwards. We were hoping for something transformational--but what we got was warmed-over Nancy Pelosi-style Democratic policy in an attractive new package.

4. Romney will say something is very wrong--and this President does not have a plan to fix it. I am Mitt Romney. I am a fixer.

Energy: this President says "all of the above," but his actions say different. Keystone Pipeline. Crony Capitalism on the alternative energy subsidies. In the pocket of the environmental lobby and unsympathetic to real energy independence. I am Mitt Romney. I am practical. I am a can do guy. I can pull the trigger on a no-brainer like Keystone--and a lot of other things too.

Fiscal Sustainability. Something is very wrong. And this President does not have a plan to fix it. Romney will say that this President is hamstrung by his special interests. I am a fixer, Romney will say. I will cut through the politics and make hard decisions and reconcile the books. This is what I am good at.
 

He once travelled with the family dog crated to the top of his car. Not much more he can say...
 

WF--

That sounds about right. However, it does seem to me like many successful challengers to a sitting president (ie, Reagan, Clinton) had a pretty narrow focus on one issue (foreign policy for Reagan, the economy for Clinton) and were careful to consistently stand on concrete policy differences in that area. Unsuccessful challengers (Kerry,Dole, Mondale) ran the more general "I'm Not Him" type campaigns.
 

Mark,

You may be right. Certainly, for Clinton, it was the economy (stupid). I disagree about Reagan--but that may be another discussion.

However, perhaps more importantly, Reagan and Clinton ran against vulnerable opponents (Bush-41 made so via a mild recession and an anomalous three-way election).

On the other hand, Mondale and Dole ran up hill against very successful incumbents.

2004 was probably close enough that a better nominee might have unseated an incumbent on the bubble.

Not that the nominee and the campaign are not important factors--but they are not everything, and I am skeptical that they are even the most important thing.
 

But, the meta narrative of the Romney campaign is the folllowing:

We are in a tight spot. This President does not know how to get us out. I do.
 

Farmer--

The sad thing is this: If that is the Romney narrative, it creates an incentive for Republicans to keep us "in a tight spot," rather than making things better. I am always saddened by incentives to politicians to make things worse rather than better for American citizens, and we seem to see that too often.

This doom-n-gloom dynamic also pushes Republicans towards the cranky "Get off my lawn" persona that was (somewhat falsely) attributed to McCain and Dole, rather than the optimistic outlook of Reagan. Doom and gloom works (as in 2010) when the electorate is depressed an mad, but that does not seem to be the national mood this year.
 

I think the economy is improving. But it is slow and not in any meaningful way where people will start to notice prior to the election. Don't forget, the economy was improving under Bush I in the run up to the election, but it was a slow recovery without a huge boom that Bush could point to and say, "ha, see, I told you."

So, if I was Romney, I would run on jobs, on the economy, and talk about the last four years, no budget, out of control spending, highest corporate tax rate in the world, etc. And if I was Obama, I would say this as many times as possible, "these are the same people that put us in this position four years ago. Now, right as we're about to get it turned around, right as we're about to get back on our feet they want you to forget that they are the ones that got us here in the first place..." Or something like that.

It won't make either one of them 100% honest, but it is the fight I would want to have.

Also, Romney should start talking about Iran, a lot. And Egypt and Lybia, and the entire Middle East, which is a place where I think Obama is vulnerable. Then again, if I'm Obama, I just wear a t-shirt with a picture of Osama with a bullet hole through his head that says, "I GOT HIM" on it real big.
 

Mark,

The tight spot is nothing that can be fixed in a few weeks or a few months. The tight spot is much bigger than that, and, quite frankly, that is where the President failed. He thought small. He though short term. He has had three years to put up a plan for sustainability. He had three years to signal a directional shift. He has not. It has very little to do with mean Republicans or incentives for obstruction. It was all about the President--and he failed to grasp the big picture.

Bad news for him; bad news for US.

Of course, as I stipulated in my earlier comment, the opposition does not have any serious solutions to our very serious problems either. But that is generally irrelevant in this dynamic. The argument is more that the President failed; he needs to step aside.
 

WF--
The funny part is, as we have already discussed, that you and I essentially agree about the hard measures that should be taken re the economy, and further agree that neither party is likely to take those difficult measures.

So... why does that mean that we should have a different president?
 

I don’t know how I keep getting to it, but I’m with RRL on this one. Must be I’m biased ever since I found out his law practice is inside a bar…how infinetly brilliant is that, dispensing law advice and Guiness!
 

Mark,

Maybe a difference in assumptions. But one way to look at this is that you have a fellow who is not doing the job. He had his shot. Now we will try the next guy. Keep trying until you get somebody who can get the job done.

I have predicted before that we may be entering into a period of great political instability (in terms of party control of Congress and the presidency--think 1840s & 1850s). So, if Romney does not get things going, 2016 will be a great year to run as a Democrat.
 

One thing to think about:

A Romney win in 2012 could lead to the second non-consecutive two-term president in history. If beaten in 2012, it is not inconceivable that President Obama might challenge a President Romney in 2016 and possibly win.
 

Farmer--

I'm confused. You refer to "Romney not getting the job done by 2016," but what job are you referring to?

1) If you mean a short-term improvement in the economy without addressing the underlying structural problems... well, Obama has that in hand right now, so if that is "getting the job done," then vote for Obama.
2) On the other hand, if you mean (and I think you do) in referring to "getting the job done to mean addressing those underlying structural problems, then Romney, as someone who very deeply seems to be a "pleaser" who bends with the wind and who was fairly liberal as a governor pretty recently, seems uniquely unsuited to do that. The recent president who has come closest to addressing those underlying problems is second-term Clinton, and it seems more likely that Obama will be like second-term Clinton than it does that Romney (particularly in a first term) will make hard decisions that are largely unpopular-- like addressing governmental costs for health care and social security.
 

Yes. We understand one another. The "job" is taking our serious problems seriously, leaning into the wind, and taking the many unpopular steps necessary to put us back on a sustainable path.

Winning the future will not be done in the "first hundred days, nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of any administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."

This fellow, whom I like immensely, has not begun. The next GREAT president will be the one who begins. As for that person who begins, maybe he will be reelected--maybe not. Maybe he will be met with great approval in the short term--but I doubt it. But he will earn my respect and deep gratitude.
 

As for Romney being a pleaser, that is the counter-narrative. Again, for the Obama reelect, the easiest and probably only winning path is by explaining why Romney is bad. He is a pleaser. He makes his dogs ride on the top of his many cars. He has a car elevator but makes his dogs climb the stairs. Somebody on his staff, whose name escapes me (Frelinghausen, perhaps), once said he was like an Etch-A-Sketch. His wife made some kind of remark about unzipping him too close to a sentence in which the word "stiff" was used. He likes to fire utility companies. He knows a lot of rich people.

You asked me if there was a winning narrative for a challenger. Yes. There is.

Are there ways to go at Romney really hard? Yes to that as well.

is there a way to craft a winning narrative for the President? That is a much harder task--but I think I could do it. Maybe one day in late September the Razor will be asking how does the President get this thing turned around? And I can give it a shot.
 

Before everything else, first and foremost the president is a politician. I think that first term for every president is just treading water, not because they don’t take the job seriously but simply because first term is essentially a four year reelection campaign. If there is any meaningful work to be done, the kind that breaks egos, cleans house and fixes problems, the kind of work that cannot care less about polls and popularity can only be done on a second term. No politician that aspires to that kind of power and applies for that kind of job will settle for a one term contract if there’s two for the taking.
 

Farmer--

I think the economy provides an undeserved but effective narrative for the president; maybe the only one that matters, really.

That etch-a-sketch thing-- it wasn't that Romney was like an etch-a-sketch, but that between the primary and the general election, the slate gets erased and you re-draw-- an observation that was 100%, totally accurate in relation to every candidate I can remember. I don't understand the hullaballoo there.

Regardless, I came to like and respect John McCain quite a bit during the last election cycle, and felt there were two good choices on the ballot. This time, Romney has done nothing to impress me in that way-- but this is the time when he should turn to the task of speaking to people in the middle, so we will see.

As for the structural changes, I completely agree with your words: " As for that person who begins, maybe he will be reelected--maybe not. Maybe he will be met with great approval in the short term--but I doubt it. But he will earn my respect and deep gratitude."
 

Marta - I'm glad we agree. You are my homie. But I think we should stay out of the way of the Osler/WF gunfight. You might catch a stray bullet, and nobody wants that.
 

it's days like this that are among my favorite razor days.
it used to be we'd all sit back and read lane and rrl sparring. today, the back-and-forth between WF and the professor is riveting.
i'm glad to add nothing to the discourse, and happier to have some food for thought.
rrl-- see you at the office in a few minutes.
 

Uhmmmm he is a huge Dork?