
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Jan. 15, 2007
/ 25 Teves 5767
Mitt be nimble
By
Jeff Jacoby
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Mitt Romney launched his four-year term as governor of Massachusetts with an inaugural address that pronounced state government "slow, bureaucratic, and disconnected" and declared that under his leadership there would instead be a "realignment toward the nimble and inventive."
It wasn't exactly great oratory. (Romney's main example of a nimble and inventive organization was, of all things, al-Qaeda.) It wasn't great prophecy, either. Four years later, Massachusetts state government is pretty much the same slow, bureaucratic, and disconnected behemoth it was in 2003. It takes more than a lone Republican governor to change a political culture as dreary and sluggish as the one entrenched in the overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts State House.
But in less than two weeks since his red-carpet walk out of the governor's office and into the 2008 presidential marathon, Romney has made it clear that when it comes to nimble and inventive maneuvering, he'll be the candidate to beat.
At 4 p.m. on January 3, Romney's lawyer filed the papers creating a presidential exploratory committee. Moments later, an official and very sleek campaign website was online. At 4:11 p.m., the campaign's introductory press release had been e-mailed to journalists. Thirty minutes later came another three pages of statements by and about Romney, most of them attesting to his conservative credentials.
Last Monday, the Romney campaign held its first major fund-raising event, a high-powered call-a-thon that pulled in $6.5 million. It demolished not only the modern record for political donations raised in a single day, but the paradigm of what a campaign fund-raiser can be. Instead of inviting several hundred supporters to a $1,000-a-head dinner, Romney invited several hundred political and financial all-stars eminentoes like Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri and eBay chief executive Meg Whitman to spend a day working their Rolodexes and dialing for dollars. Unlike a typical boiler-room operation run out of a hole-in-the-wall, Romney's "National Call Day" was staged in a giant convention center, with old and new media on hand to record all the action.
All in all, it was a remarkable display of confidence, smarts, and organization. It suggested, as Boston blogger Dean Barnett put it, "that the Romney campaign, like his business career, will be marked by innovation. The Romney campaign won't be relying on techniques that were moldy back when David Letterman was actually funny. . . As he has done throughout his career, Mitt Romney will build a better mousetrap."
An even better test of Romney's nimbleness came just two days later, in the form of a video anonymously posted on YouTube.com . It showed clips of Romney debating Ted Kennedy during their 1994 Senate race clips that showed how avidly Romney had portrayed himself as a social liberal when he first ran for office in Massachusetts. From staunchly defending abortion rights to disavowing Ronald Reagan, Romney came across back then as anything but the unabashed conservative he is running as today.
The campaign's response was immediate, decisive and very 21st century. Within hours, Romney did an interview with blogosphere eminence Glenn Reynolds and his wife, Helen, who asked him point-blank to explain "this YouTube video from 1994 showing you as a flip-flopper." They posted Romney's answer on Instapundit, their popular blog. In addition, a video of Romney crisply responding to the Reynoldses was soon up on the campaign's website and on YouTube as well. Whatever one thinks of Romney's political views, his campaign is setting new standards for responsiveness, savvy, and speed.
But Romney knows that high-tech agility at getting out his message ultimately counts for nothing if that message is rejected by voters. As a Senate candidate in 1994, Romney was at pains to portray himself as a liberal RINO a Republican In Name Only, smartly saluting Roe v. Wade and declaring that he would do more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy.
"Inhibited by a fear of being (gasp!) controversial," I wrote at the time, Romney "is tiptoeing through his campaign, determined to emit no 'shockers' and antagonize no voters." Voters didn't buy his act, and Romney lost in a landslide even as Republican Governor Bill Weld, running hard on an agenda of tax cuts, capital punishment, and workfare, was re elected in a cakewalk.
Romney's very public migration rightward over the last few years is a different kind of act, one intended not to hide his real views but to liberate them. In 1994, Romney struck me as an extraordinarily bright, talented, and decent man and a political neophyte who fell for the canard that the only way a conservative could win in Massachusetts was by passing for liberal.
Thirteen years later, Romney is where he should have been all along. Yes, it took some tap-dancing and artful dodging to get from there to here, and some voters will wonder which Mitt Romney, the 1994 edition or the one on offer today, is the real deal. Can he put those doubts to rest? If he's going to win his party's nomination, he'll have to.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
Jeff Jacoby Archives
© 2006, Boston Globe
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|