Mitt’s Masseuse—Aching For 2016
Did you hear the one about Mitt and the Masseuse? Seriously. Mitt Romney was in a hotel room
with a masseuse. A Latina, to boot.
I know this sounds like a bit of opposition research, but
Mitt owned up to his sins on the opening episode of “With All Due Respect,” a
new offering from Bloomberg News.
It gets better (not really, if you were hoping for actual
sin….) Turns out that after a hard day of campaigning in 2012, Mitt had shaken
so many hands that his back was tight.
So he asked one of his advance men if a masseuse could be located to
meet him at his hotel. The Ritz-Carlton
provided one and, with the advance man in the room (presumably as chaperone)
with the “Hispanic-American” (Mitt’s phrase) Mitt got kneaded. The masseuse might not have been as up on
politics as you or I, because after she finished she apparently asked the
chaperone if Mitt was a dancer. Mitt apparently is a man of powerful legs,
The image of Mitt’s legs lifted my spirits in an otherwise
depressing week. Why depressing? No, it’s not because the entire country is
about to take one gigantic dunk in a tureen (spittoon?) filled with crimson. I’m
depressed because, in the same interview, Mitt Romney has (almost completely,
almost categorically, almost absolutely, almost finally) ruled out running in
2016.
And, that puts me in a funk, because it tells me something
important is going on in the GOP. It’s
not just Mitt, but Mitt Romney’s kind of Republican, the business-oriented
“country-club” type, that is passing from the visible ranks of leadership.
That is not a good thing.
Before people think I have gone all wobbly and learned to love the dark
side, let me point out the obvious: Would you rather have a Ted Cruz, or a Mitt
Romney in the Oval Office?
To me the answer is self-evident. Romney is at the core of
his being an experienced, competent executive.
His talents are managerial and his inclinations are to make the business
bigger and more successful. He isn’t all
that sensitive or sympathetic to the sacrifices others make to insure maximum efficiency
or profitability, but he’s certainly willing to roll up his sleeves and do what
needs to be done. Mitt’s is the way of
the Republican leadership class of the past, both in business and in
politics. It’s the way of the first
George Bush, Gerald Ford, Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander, etc. People
who had ambitions to lead, but a sense of duty to lead well. The “Old Guys.”
Ted Cruz, who just won both the hearts and the votes of
attendees at the Value Voters Summit with a full-throated roar, is decidedly not an Old Guy. He is
undeniably highly intelligent, but he hails from the Vengeance Wing of the
GOP. Look at what Cruz says and how he
says it, look at what brings them to their feet, and what you see is a man
tapping into the anger of people who feel their culture and their way of life
are under assault, and want a champion to do something about it, and take a few
scalps along the way. If Cruz sees any
duty beyond himself, it’s only to those who agree with him. In this, he’s strangely like Sarah Palin—he
has a gift for speaking outrage at a dog-whistle frequency. Many of us can’t hear it, but it makes a lot of
people howl. Those folk are ready to march, to vote, and to carry the
pitchforks and the torches. Liberal (and
moderate) America, they are coming for you.
But first, they are visiting Kansas. In Kansas, we have two of the most
fascinating races in years, one for Governor, and the other for Senate. Kansas, by way of background, is an unusual
combination of quite conservative politically but very moderate in temperament.
Midwestern, traditional values, farm, faith, family, etc., but tempered by
community. Kansas likes its politics
Republican, but friendly. The state has
voted Republican in every Presidential election since 1936, except for LBJ’s
landslide in 1964. For Senate, the last
Democrat they elected was George McGill in 1932.
Incumbent Governor Sam Brownback hails from the Cruz wing of
the party. He’s the man who declared he
was going to conduct a “conservative experiment” in the state. And he has, cutting taxes substantially on
business while raising sales taxes on working people, cutting spending
(particularly to education) and spearheading a harshly conservative social agenda. Hard-right conservatives love Brownback,
particularly because he conducted a purge of Republicans who were more moderate
than he was. It should have been a great
strategy for a state that has no love for President Obama. But, Kansans value nice, and Brownback
isn’t. Some of those purged Republicans
have endorsed Paul Davis, Brownback’s Democratic challenger. Recent polls (except for Fox) showed Davis
with a small lead.
The Senate race has its own arc. There, the incumbent, Pat Roberts, who was
first elected in 1996, has had a comfortable last three terms enjoying the
temptations of Washington. So
comfortable that he may not have any place to actually live in Kansas. This became a serious issue in his primary
campaign, where he staved off Milton Wolf, a Tea Party endorsed challenger.
That made him the overwhelming favorite to win reelection. From that point forward, the very weird began
to occur. The Democrats had a
sacrificial lamb, Chad Taylor, who was preparing himself to get less than 30%
of the vote. Then, a wealthy independent, Greg Orman, jumped into the race and
began to poll at numbers that indicated that his and Taylor’s votes, combined, could
have challenged Roberts. Taylor decided
to withdraw; Secretary of State Kurt Kobach, a co-chair of Robert’s campaign,
resisted him, with taxpayer funds, of course. The Kansas Supreme Court sided
with Taylor (who had apparently followed the directions given to him by
Kobach’s office and added “in accordance with the statute.”) Kobach angrily denounced
activist judges, but the ruling stands. This
created a free-for-all, with recent polls showing the race a
toss-up, but leaning Roberts.
Still, with control of the Senate looking good for the
Republicans, no stone can be left unturned.
Mitt (you knew I would come back to him) has endorsed Roberts, as has Bob
Dole and virtually every other member of the Republican establishment in Kansas, which makes complete sense.
Surprisingly enough so have both Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz, who is personally flying in to give Roberts his blessing.
So, Bob, Mitt, Ted, and Sarah, all singing from the same
hymnal.
It’s hard to know which one is more disorienting—Mitt and
the Old Guys hanging out with the Vengeance Wing, or Mitt (and chaperone)
hanging out with the masseuse.
My hunch is all this hugger-mugger will last about 28
days. Then, with 2014 in the bank, the
lions and the lambs will go back to their usual postures.
Maybe it’s a good thing that Mitt has strong legs…
October 9, 2014
Michael Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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