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Jewish World Review
Feb 21, 2012/ 28 Shevat, 5772
Where Romney shines
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In terms of sizzle, Sen. Rob Portman makes Mitt Romney look like Lady Gaga. So when the two men shared a stage in suburban Cincinnati on Monday afternoon, the result was pure and unadulterated ennui — exactly the sentiment greeting Romney’s presidential aspirations in the Republican electorate.
“If you think,” the Ohio Republican exhorted the crowd, “we need fresh new direction and decisive leadership in the White House, then Mitt Romney is your man.” Silence in the audience. “If you’re looking for work or you have friends who are looking for work,” Portman went on, in monotone, “then Mitt Romney’s your man.” Crickets. “If you think government has grown too large,” the senator continued, “then Mitt Romney’s your man.” Nothing. Five more times, Portman tried the refrain, and each time it produced no reaction. He hurried through his script, straightened out his pile of index cards and called forward Romney, who gave an equally lively speech that praised, among other things, ulcer medication. The two stolid men departed to meager applause and the strains of Kid Rock’s “Born Free” — a song with lyrics that seem to mock the tightly wound candidate:
Free, like a river raging . . .
Deep, like the grandest canyon,
Wild, like an untamed stallion.
If you can’t see my heart, you must be blind.
Romney’s unimproved performance on the campaign trail underscores one of the few certainties in this chaotic political year: If this is the Romney voters see, he’s doomed. So desperate are GOP faithful to avoid him that they have elevated Rick Santorum, yet another implausible opponent, to the front in opinion polls: a man who says public schools are “anachronistic,” who doubts the merits of birth control, who objects to amniocentesis, who thinks the president adheres to a “phony theology”and who doesn’t like the thought of women serving in combat. Yet Romney is still very much in the race, because of what he’s doing away from the microphones. He has privately embraced the Machiavellian notion that it is safer to be feared than loved. As his public face has proved, there’s no chance of him being loved. But with bloodthirsty strategists backed by tens of millions of campaign and super PAC dollars, the milquetoast man on the stump has been, in his off hours, a killer. On Monday, the Romney campaign circulated an e-mail to reporters titled “MEET CONGRESSMAN/SENATOR RICK SANTORUM” that had a sampling of epithets for Santorum, including: “part of the problem,” “a professional politician,” “enamored of Congress — and of Washington, D.C.,” “opted against returning to Pennsylvania.” A Romney ad in Michigan attacks Santorum for the “billions in earmarks” he supported, while the Romney super PAC has an ad calling Santorum “the ultimate Washington insider” who voted repeatedly to raise the federal debt level and for “billions in waste.” Such unrelenting attacks worked brilliantly for Romney against Newt Gingrich. And polling released Monday showed Romney gaining on Santorum in Michigan ahead of next week’s primary there, suggesting Romney’s attacks are working again. If Romney is recovering, it certainly isn’t because of anything he’s doing in public. At his rally in Cincinnati on Monday, at Meridian Bioscience, he enjoyed all of seven seconds of applause after Portman’s request for a “warm Cincinnati welcome.” This was enough for Romney. “Wow,” said the candidate, in an open-collar oxford and jeans. What limited enthusiasm there was deteriorated into lecture-hall boredom as Romney expounded on how the Obama administration “made it more difficult for entrepreneurs and innovators to beguild— to begi— to grow and begin new enterprises, and they did that by — this is an interesting number — by increasing the rate of regulations by 21
/
2 times.” Romney further regaled the home crowd with his critique of the “21
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2 percent excise tax” on medical devices. From there, his stream of consciousness led him to extol the virtues of a “a wonderful little product out there called Nexium.” “There’s a product to help people with the symptoms, as you know, of indigestion or ulcers, and that product is provided by doctors to a lot of patients,” he explained, detailing a test made by Meridian that “tells people whether they have a bacteria that could be cured with an antibiotic.” It’s unclear how such anecdotes will help Romney’s candidacy, but this campaign has clearly taught him a great deal about the importance of indigestion relief.
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Previously:
• 02/15/12 A Republican death wish?
• 02/14/12Obama's budget games
• 02/13/12 Are GOPers playing right into Obama's hands?
• 02/08/12 Obama pumps the compressor of Joe Hudy's Extreme Marshmallow Cannon
• 02/07/12 Abramoff's atonement
• 02/01/12 Why we in the media just love Newt
• 01/31/12 The end of the road for Newt Gingrich?
• 01/25/12 Gingrich is Obama's best surrogate
• 01/24/12 Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
• 01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
• 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina
• 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed
• 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem
• 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism
• 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control
• 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP
• 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument
• 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/20/11 Strange brews and views?
• 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction
• 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet
• 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012
• 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him
• 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement?
• 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington
• 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy
• 11/23/11 Jon Kyl's search-and-destroy mission
• 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington
• 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee?
• 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last
• 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier
• 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama
• 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up
• 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive
• 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
• 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe
• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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