(Race42012).During the recent Mitt/T-Paw feud over health care reform, I noticed something interesting: both men seemed to be taking the exact same position. Gov. Romney wrote an excellent piece for USA Today on the successes and failures of the Massachusetts model. In the piece, Romney maintains that RomneyCare was and is a good idea because it successfully expanded access to medical care, but that as governor he was limited in what he could do to control the costs of health care, which is something that, says Mitt, must be done at the federal level. Meanwhile, T-Paw recently blasted RomneyCare due to its inability to bring down the costs of medical care, arguing that a market-driven, conservative approach must be taken in health care reform in order to bring costs down, but also suggesting that insurance companies must be required to cover folks with pre-existing conditions. Well, I agree with that, but I suspect that many in the GOP base don’t.
What’s curious is that both Romney and Pawlenty are essentially arguing the same thing: that we need health care reform that both expands ACCESS to medical care and that addresses health care COSTS. Universal access is what the technocratic, pragmatic center wants. Cost-control is what the right wants. Hence both Romney and Pawlenty are taking a broad center-right position on the issue.
This is a welcome change from the politics of the last few years, when someone, somewhere, managed to convince Republicans that all that mattered was the third of Americans who comprise the GOP base, and that sent the entire GOP ‘08 presidential field running to the hard right and burying any evidence of past pragmatism or moderation. This allowed Obama to run on a Clintonian center-left platform and win between 350 and 400 electoral votes just as Bill Clinton did in the 1990s. It wasn’t hard for Obama to grab the center when the national GOP was so intent on ignoring it. The left wants to punish the wealthy, the center wants to close the deficit, so Obama proposes taxing the rich and no one else. The left wants single-payer, the center wants everyone to have health insurance, so Obama proposes a “public option” as a way for everyone to have health care. And so on. It’s only after Obama started to govern that the center began to realize that the public option is a path to single-payer, and that Obama’s spending is going to require tax increases on the middle class and not just the rich, and thus the center is sent back out into the political market, where savvy Republicans who understand marketing, like Mitt Romney, are already working to grab moderates, knowing that Independents will have no Democratic primary to participate in this time around in states like New Hampshire, and knowing that the big, delegate-rich states are filled with moderate/liberal Republicans who were poised to nominate Giuliani until they decided to nominate McCain in 2008, and who will be the key to victory in 2012 in both the primaries and the general.
But back to Romney and Pawlenty. Both men, in my view, have an excellent shot at crafting a winning center-right agenda that can yield at least as much electoral success as Obama’s center-left agenda, and by that I mean an agenda that garners more than 51% of the popular vote and more than 350 electoral votes in a presidential election. The Republican Party hasn’t been able to craft such an agenda since the Contract With America, which wasn’t tested during a presidential year but which yielded Republican victories equivalent to the aforementioned vote share. The victories won by President Bush earlier this decade were not the result of a center-right coalition, they were the result of a fifty-percent-plus-one coalition, which is very tenuous and short-lived by nature. But if the Republican Party is truly going to move into the future as a viable electoral force, it needs to be able to build a coalition that can deliver it more than 350 electoral votes,There’s no reason that Republicans should settle for a ceiling of 300 electoral votes.
Now, it’s not likely that either Romney or Pawlenty would win Vermont or Rhode Island in 2012, just as the president won’t win Alabama or Idaho regardless of his approval rating. But just as Obama was able to craft a center-left majority using the Kerry states plus Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and a few others, a Romney or a Pawlenty could presumably build a center-right coalition using the 2004 Bush states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a few others. Indeed, Romney, a Michigander who spent much of his life and governance in the Northeast, and Pawlenty, who was elected and re-elected in Minnesota.
As such, I think a Romney or a Pawlenty is the GOP’s best bet in 2012 and beyond, and while Romney appears to be the Republican frontrunner right now, Pawlenty is in many ways appealing as a fresh face with good political instincts who won twice in a state that is actually winnable for Republicans in a presidential election.
What’s curious is that both Romney and Pawlenty are essentially arguing the same thing: that we need health care reform that both expands ACCESS to medical care and that addresses health care COSTS. Universal access is what the technocratic, pragmatic center wants. Cost-control is what the right wants. Hence both Romney and Pawlenty are taking a broad center-right position on the issue.
This is a welcome change from the politics of the last few years, when someone, somewhere, managed to convince Republicans that all that mattered was the third of Americans who comprise the GOP base, and that sent the entire GOP ‘08 presidential field running to the hard right and burying any evidence of past pragmatism or moderation. This allowed Obama to run on a Clintonian center-left platform and win between 350 and 400 electoral votes just as Bill Clinton did in the 1990s. It wasn’t hard for Obama to grab the center when the national GOP was so intent on ignoring it. The left wants to punish the wealthy, the center wants to close the deficit, so Obama proposes taxing the rich and no one else. The left wants single-payer, the center wants everyone to have health insurance, so Obama proposes a “public option” as a way for everyone to have health care. And so on. It’s only after Obama started to govern that the center began to realize that the public option is a path to single-payer, and that Obama’s spending is going to require tax increases on the middle class and not just the rich, and thus the center is sent back out into the political market, where savvy Republicans who understand marketing, like Mitt Romney, are already working to grab moderates, knowing that Independents will have no Democratic primary to participate in this time around in states like New Hampshire, and knowing that the big, delegate-rich states are filled with moderate/liberal Republicans who were poised to nominate Giuliani until they decided to nominate McCain in 2008, and who will be the key to victory in 2012 in both the primaries and the general.
But back to Romney and Pawlenty. Both men, in my view, have an excellent shot at crafting a winning center-right agenda that can yield at least as much electoral success as Obama’s center-left agenda, and by that I mean an agenda that garners more than 51% of the popular vote and more than 350 electoral votes in a presidential election. The Republican Party hasn’t been able to craft such an agenda since the Contract With America, which wasn’t tested during a presidential year but which yielded Republican victories equivalent to the aforementioned vote share. The victories won by President Bush earlier this decade were not the result of a center-right coalition, they were the result of a fifty-percent-plus-one coalition, which is very tenuous and short-lived by nature. But if the Republican Party is truly going to move into the future as a viable electoral force, it needs to be able to build a coalition that can deliver it more than 350 electoral votes,There’s no reason that Republicans should settle for a ceiling of 300 electoral votes.
Now, it’s not likely that either Romney or Pawlenty would win Vermont or Rhode Island in 2012, just as the president won’t win Alabama or Idaho regardless of his approval rating. But just as Obama was able to craft a center-left majority using the Kerry states plus Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and a few others, a Romney or a Pawlenty could presumably build a center-right coalition using the 2004 Bush states plus Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a few others. Indeed, Romney, a Michigander who spent much of his life and governance in the Northeast, and Pawlenty, who was elected and re-elected in Minnesota.
As such, I think a Romney or a Pawlenty is the GOP’s best bet in 2012 and beyond, and while Romney appears to be the Republican frontrunner right now, Pawlenty is in many ways appealing as a fresh face with good political instincts who won twice in a state that is actually winnable for Republicans in a presidential election.
2 comments:
Mitt Romney is by far the better qualified. I just think Mitt has so much business knowledge and no how and maturity, He just gets it. He has been vetted, he is moral and so respected. He and Anne would be wonderful role models. Mitt loves America and would follow the Constitution. Well spoken, great debater..won all last primary..President Obama has a silver tongue and we need a gold to beat him...Mitt knows all about that, He saved the Olympics..He is a proven success, self made.. lots of hard work and dedication..Mitt is full of energy and would be such an asset in the White House. Mitt is warm and kind, but firm and a great leader...Romney/Pawlenty in order 2012....
I think that if Mitt wants a shot he has to get a vp that is just as apt in the military as Mitt is in the economic sector. He needs a Petraeus like figure who will scare our enemies spitless just like Dick Cheney.
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