CARROLL: A Romney misstep
A Romney misstep
By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published January 8, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated January 8, 2008 at 9:43 a.m.
Mitt Romney
"We're going to see more dramatic change in the next decade than we've seen in our entire lifetimes."
- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney
Please. In our lifetimes? Maybe that's true for Americans who are 10 years old, but for most of the rest of us the prediction is laughable. It makes a usually serious man like the former Massachussets governor appear as if he's come unmoored - that he's lost perspective on his own past.
Romney is old enough to have witnessed the fall of the Jim Crow South, the collapse of the Soviet empire, the transformation of the workplace with the entry of legions of women, the high tech revolution and the assaults on the West by Islamic radicals - to mention only a few highlights. Yet such is the power of the buzzword "change" in this presidential campaign that Romney foresees all of those historic watersheds being eclipsed in magnitude before another decade wanes.
During Saturday's televised debate, Romney invoked "change" 10 times, more than any other Republican - this according to USA Today, which kept a tally for each candidate. Fred Thompson, who appears temperamentally incapable of being stampeded onto bandwagons, used the word twice. (Admittedly, Thompson's anemic poll numbers are only partly related to his refusal to tailor his message to the fancy of the moment.)
Voters want change, the consultants decree (and Iowa voters seem to confirm), so the presidential candidates promise they will have it. Indeed, Democrats all but chant the word.
In Saturday's debate, the three leading Democrats invoked "change" 53 times, with Hillary Clinton - the very incarnation of an ossified liberal establishment serving up the same tired prescriptions again and again - leading the pack with 25 references alone.
Surely Americans are not so naive as to consider Washington policies the equivalent of vacation destinations - that change for the sake of change is a plus. Surely they realize that the federal government is a colossal enterprise virtually impervious to attempts at "fundamental top-to-bottom change," which is what Romney says is needed.
"Change is a slogan," Rudy Giuliani observed soberly at Sunday's Fox News forum, "and the examination has to be is it change for good or change for bad?"
Giuliani might have added: Also, is the promised change possible or utterly improbable? Candidates pledging to end partisanship or abolish the IRS might as well include an assurance that every American will draw a winning lotto ticket during the next four years. After all, at least that promise will come true for a few of us.
Otherwise . . .
I don't mean to suggest that Romney made a fool of himself over the weekend. In general, he acquitted himself quite well. He's highly intelligent and informed, and his vast experience in the private sector does seem to give him a perspective that other candidates don't always possess.
John McCain, for example, apparently shares the left's loathing of pharmaceutical companies, and complained about their "power" in Saturday's debate.
"Don't send the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys [category]," Romney retorted.
"Well, they are," McCain replied.
"No," Romney said, "actually they're trying to create products to make us well and make us better, and they're doing the work of the free market. And are there excesses? I'm sure there are, and we should go after excesses. But they're an important industry to this country."
An adult perspective, in other words. As opposed to the black-and-white attitude of the man who, according to the polls, is likely to win the GOP primary today in New Hampshire.
Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.
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January 8, 2008
6:13 a.m.
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vudumom writes:
As I have said before in another comment section. Anyone who is voting for a candidate that promises "Change" is wasting their vote.Their cannot be change unless the entire Congress and Senate rules are changed.Starting with earmarks.This seedy side of the " political process" is costing tax payers far more than the war.The last bill that was passed to fund the war had 100's of earmarks in it.So if the American people see $100 million for the war ,it doesn't see $25 million of it going to earmarks,just as an example.
No one can change Washington politics.It is so pervasive that it has become the status quo.Just take for an example a new congressperson or Senator. They go to Washington telling their constituants they are going to change . They get the meet and greet. They get the worst offices.They are pretty much told sit down and shut up by the veterans on Capitol Hill.They have no power to change anything. The long term Politicians have everything set up so they have the power. That is reality.If anyone actually thinks a Presidential Candidate can change Washington they are blind and uninformed.Obama is running on a platform of change.He has no experience at all,but he thinks he is going to march into Washington and change everything?What a fool's hope.
January 8, 2008
7:32 a.m.
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DougH writes:
The so-called free market Pharmaceutical industry is a hoax. Pharmaceutical companies have merged together so much that they are now just a cartel similar to the oil producers.. There is nothing free about they way they manage distribution and control prices. They have successfully bought off the US Congress to get the taxpayers to pick up the tab for seniors medicine and then kept taxpayers from negotiating quantity discounts. All of this under the watchful eye of “free market” Republicans. Mitt Romney should also have reminded us how socially conscious Pharmaceutical are as they only advertise erection pills during football games and never during the dinner hour. If the Pharmaceutical industry is Vince Carroll’s idea of the “ Free Market” at work, then we are in big trouble. The collusion between big business and big government is what really needs to be changed.
January 8, 2008
9:36 a.m.
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jay writes:
""We're going to see more dramatic change in the next decade than we've seen in our entire lifetimes.""
If Mitt had said this ten years ago before the Republicans had their "tranformational" reign, he might have been right.
Too bad it was change for the worse. Try to remember that at the polls in November, people.
January 8, 2008
10:14 a.m.
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Spencer writes:
I think it was a bigger misstep when he was asked what kind of sacrifice any of his kids were making regarding the War in Iraq. (why aren't any of his kids actually fighting the war that he supports, common theme with the GOP) He explained that his kids were making a sacrifice by driving around Iowa in a Winnebago without air conditioning. I don't think the parents of real soldiers thought it was the right response.