I have followed the career of Mitt Romney since 1994. I have read every book about and by him, and I have studied every move he made in the land of my birth. This is why I am convinced Romney will choose Condi Rice for the vice presidency: Massachusetts history, inside baseball, tactics, and temperament.
First, history. In their magnificent book, The Real Romney, authors Michael Kranish and Scott Helman give an account of the Romney selection process for vice president. Romney’s presumptive lieutenant governor was going to be Jim Rappaport, a wealthy, connected Republican, whom I interviewed during the 2012 primary.
The Romney people — among them Mike Murphy, his campaign consultant, and Robert White, Romney’s longtime associate from Bain — began “working to avert a Romney-Rappaport ticket of two rich white men,” wrote Kranish and Helman. “After evaluating a list of potential alternatives, including African Americans and women, they settled on Kerry Healey, a bright but little-known figure who had two failed campaigns for state representative behind her and a wealthy husband who could neutralize Rappaport’s self-financed effort.”
There was just one problem: Rappaport. Murphy engineered to keep Rappaport off the ticket, even though he won the nominating convention and had worked with Romney to get him the gubernatorial nomination. This, in turn, led to a primary election with Massachusetts Republicans picking between Kerry Healey, the state GOP’s new chairwoman and Romney’s preferred choice, and Rappaport.
The campaign was contentious: Romney’s people threatened to sue Rappaport for printing up bumper stickers labeled “Romney-Rappaport.” Healey, with much help from Romney, won the primary, only to go on and be defeated by Deval Patrick — a former client of David Axelrod, Obama friend, and the first black governor of Massachusetts by the largest rout in recent history. The GOP lost control of the governorship, something it had held for the previous sixteen years.
The choice of Healey was tactical. At the time, Romney’s popularity among women was low and it was feared that in a contest with a woman candidate, Shannon P. O’Brien, he would lose the female vote. Healey’s position on abortion was pro-choice, as is Condi Rice’s. Then, as now, Ann Romney recommended that he not pick another white male.
Now, the inside baseball. After Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal savaged Romney’s would-be choice of Condi Rice, Peggy Noonan, the doyenne of establishment Republicanism, wrote a glowing portrait of her and said that when she suggested Rice’s name at a speaking event, it was met with applause from the audience. Now Robert Costa of National Review says it won’t be Condi, but he is most likely relying on his old colleague (and my friend), Brian J. Bolduc. Bolduc is now a Romney speechwriter who worked with Noonan after his fellowship at the Wall Street Journal. Could it be that Noonan is trying to prepare the ground? Bolduc, of course, would have every incentive to lead Costa, the go-to source for many conservative politicos, astray. Always control the flow of information is the standard rule of dealing with the press on a campaign.
Now, the tactics. It is clear that Rice, despite protestations to the contrary, has political aspirations. She is on the lecture circuit and spoke at my alma mater—Claremont McKenna’s Res Publica Society. This is the same program that brought Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and Mitt Romney. There was a meeting beforehand with top fundraisers at Claremont. Rice has also written two books post-Bush office, but unlike others, notably Rumsfeld and Cheney, the books reveal precious little, indicative that she is not yet finished in the public eye. They discuss her historic life as the child of segregated Birmingham, Alabama. It is historic and it is impressive. It is the real black American experience, not the contrived, composite experience of Barack Obama.
I don’t know. Dr. Rice is a big government, making fiscal conservatives unhappy; neo-con, make Ron Paulians unhappy; & pro-choice, making social conservatives unhappy. There seems to be a # of negatives & I doubt she’ll peal off many votes from the African-American bloc to help Mitt.
The nomination of Condi for VP will accomplish two things. One it will solidify the RINO control of the candidates. And Two it will end any possibility of a Romney win, because Condi is not a Tea Party candidate.
Tea Party voters should just stay home, stock up on food and ammo and clean their guns.
It won’t be Rice. She won’t be offered and she wouldn’t take it if offered. Director of CIA, sure, but not VP. Not in a million years. I’m expecting it to be someone like Carly Fiorina.
Portman.
Without Ohio this one is over.
That would imply that you believe Ohio is impossible without Ohio or that Portman would be significant in getting more Ohio votes. So far the polling seems to indicate that having Portman on the ballot doesn’t make much difference.
Here is what I am seeing from the polling so far:
Everybody that would be expected to vote for Obama is going to vote for Obama when they are polled. The number of crossovers from the two major parties is low as are the number of undecideds in those two groups. The number of undecided “independent/other” voters is high, in the double digits. That is bad for an incumbent President. The reason is that people have had nearly four years to decide. If they are still undecided, it actually means they are looking for a reason to be persuaded to vote for the challenger. If those voters break for Romney nationally, it could actually be a landslide Romney victory.
Here’s the other thing: turnout. It doesn’t matter if you polled every single registered voter over the phone and that is because every single registered voter doesn’t vote on election day. If 65% of them actually cast a ballot you are doing pretty good these days. There are a significant number (and by significant I mean 2 or 3 percent) of voters who are likely to have the attitude of “I can’t bring myself to vote for the Republican but I can’t vote for Obama either” and are going to stay home. These would be the people who lost their home, their jobs, and now their unemployment benefits have run out but who voted for Obama in 2008. Same with the kids who have a four year degree and are waiting tables at TGI Fridays.
All of the issues on which Obama campaigns are really underpinned by economic performance. Affordable health care, for example. If more people are working, then the current health care mechanism is affordable for more of them. Putting people back to work immediately reduces the scope of that problem. Putting people back to work also reduces the scope of other things like food stamps. People can afford to pay their mortgages so foreclosures and tax seizures go down and so home values begin to rise again. Social Security is cash negative. Putting more people to work and paying payroll taxes turns that around. Deficits are high and income tax revenues are low. Putting people back to work eases that situation, too. Every single one of the major problems facing us are immediately reduced in scope by simply getting the economy going again.
Meanwhile, we see a reduced pace of investment that would be expected to lead to economic growth. Why? Taxes and regulations. Regulations such as Dodd/Frank make it more difficult for banks to lend money to small business and make other loans. If forces unreasonable cash reserve requirements onto healthy operations. It is a “one size fits all” regulation that does not allow the circumstance of the individual banks to be taken into account. It forces smaller operations out of business and causes them to either close or be absorbed by the larger banks. This basically acts as a barrier to competition causing the big to get bigger and the small to go away. In the meantime, small business and small farmers can’t get loans they need to expand operations, make improvements, etc. and as a result you see a general decline in business activity which results in a decline of employment. Sarbanes/Oxley changes accounting requirements to make each quarter look like a worst case scenario. It adds so much bookkeeping overhead that companies just aren’t going public which means they aren’t raising capital and expanding. They are just muddling along as best as they can.
Taxes. Under Obama we have seen things like an elimination of the favorable tax treatment for capital gains from venture capital. This means that venture capital gains are treated no differently than capital gains in the stock market. On January 1, 2013 the capital gains and dividend taxes are expected to go up. We are already likely seeing a reduction in investments that would be expected to pay off after that date and in the 4th quarter will likely see people taking profits this year in order to avoid taking them after the tax rates go up. This increase in capital gains taxes means less investment. Less investment means less economic growth, fewer jobs, and all problems worsen and grow in scope. Obama appears to be taking measures actively DESIGNED to do the most possible damage to the private sector economy, ensure that it will not grow, and at the same time expanding cash flowing into public sector jobs. He is basically creating a communist economy by controlling the money flow. Strangle private industry of capital, access to loans, etc. while opening the floodgates to government and making government programs the “answer” to everything.
So … but bottom line of all of the above is that there is no way things can get much better between now and November. Also, it looks like Obama is set to slam the brakes HARD on the economy after January 1 and we are looking at probably a 50% reduction in GDP growth. If you vote for Obama, you are voting for increased unemployment.
In that context, why would it matter who is the VP on the ticket? Romney is running on a very simple platform so far. Reduce taxes and regulations to allow greater business investment and all the other problems instantly become smaller. And every American that goes back to work is one less check the government sends for unemployment of food stamps or other things.
The simple basic question is: Is Obama proposing a way to get economic growth going again so people don’t HAVE to depend on government in the first place? No. There is nothing in any of Obama’s proposals that do anything besides reduces economic activity and increases government activity.
What we need to do is get more Republicans motivated to actually get to the ballot box in November and convince the “independent/other” voters that Mitt Romney is their really only chance at a better way forward. If that can be done, it doesn’t matter what the Democrats do.
@crosspatch: #5,
Excellent analysis, Crosspatch. And you may well be right that the V.P. will make no difference, nevertheless, if Curt’s well supported conjecture proves to be prophetic, it will move the Republican offering even further left than it already seems to be.
Rice, IMHO, was a disaster under Bush. Very typical ivory tower academic. Her field of expertise was Russia. Nothing she did or said or moved Bush to do related to Russia, demonstrated any insight, instincts or intelligent analysis. None. She had no understanding of how Russia really functioned and what was really controlling it – like the thug still in charge. She had no clue how to deal with it.
Rice made endless foreign policy mistakes on all fronts which were obvious to anyone paying attention.
It is also clear that she sympathizes with Obama, from every interview she’s given, without outright supporting him. There’s also no chance she would bring Romney any votes from the black community.
While finding wisdom in anyone hovering in or around the White House seems impossible these days, it would be good to find some shreds of it floating on the periphery, and Rice wouldn’t bring any. A ponderous, or even rabble rousing, presentation from behind a microphone doesn’t mean Insightful Leadership.
If America is to recover from the last 3.5 years of O., and from the economic devastation brought on by the onslaught of the bankers who have their hands on the joystick, some insightful and very creative leadership is imperative.
Dr. Rice is an exceptional individual. My daughter knew and worked with her in the White House during the Bush-era. Everyone respected her, even the hard-core arabs. If Dr. Rice accepts the bid, and she is very capable of running this country, opie’s lust for a 2nd term is dust. Can you imagine her debating bidden the fool? Not nice in many ways.
@MOS 8541: Dr. Rice would make a great Director of CIA, or Director of National Intelligence but isn’t the best choice for VP, in my opinion.
Now on the other hand, Portman has a pretty good record in the Senate. It is unfashionable in some circles to like him, but I wouldn’t have a problem with him IF there is another Republican who can take his seat. It might not be wise to pull him out of Congress if we are going to just hand his seat to a Democrat. We are going to need every Senate seat we can get.
Romney has one major problem: his own record as the Governor of Taxachussets. There is no getting away from it, and for some core conservatives, the excuse “I had to govern that way because of the mean old Democrats” doesn’t cut it any more than Obama whining how the mean old Republicans are hindering him.
Most people will say “Portman who?” And Rice is not the answer. She will not drag the black vote into the Rommey column anymore than she will drag the feminist vote to Romney. She will tain his campaign with the memory of Bush 43. The black and feminist votes are solidly locked into Obama. End of story.
What Romney needs is a solid conservative (which Rice is not) that has some fire in the belly (which Portman does not have) and who the nation knows who they are immediately. Romney also needs someone who will appeal to the fastest growing voter bloc in the nation; Hispanics. Even if that person is not Hispanic themselves.
Ohio holds little importance in this election although there are those who will disagree with that. But take a look at the states that are, after almost four years of the most disasterous preidency in the last 100 years, in play and considered toss ups: Michigan (with its solid union vote), Wisconsin, Ohio (who lost electoral votes in 2011), Florida (still the king maker) and Colorado. Add Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina to the toss up list.
Those states that went for Obama should be solid blue after four years. But they’re not.
Romney needs to find someone who will excite the core base and who can guarantee the voted in those states. Portman and Rice ain’t gonna git er done.
Crosspatch After reading your veep pick in #3 it was painful to read your straight Repub. analysis in #5. Carly Fiorini–why??
Repubs. can’t win without Ohio. Portman brings it,but risk is there to give up possible deciding Senate seat.Rice does bring indies and some African American women. A Great pick. Rubio still the best as he assures Fla. and makes Obama play defense in Col. Nev.and Va. He may so outshine Romney that he won’t be picked.
Problem for Repubs. is to think this election a done deal. It’s gonna be close and Veep will matter. Romney only favored if he chooses Rice, Rubio or most likely Portman.
I used to feel that same way and I did some digging. It is an easy emotional response but I found that it doesn’t hold up. As late as last fall I was rather vehemently anti-Romney. My opinion at that time was “cucumber sandwich Republican hanging out at the country club with Biff and Buffy”. When it became obvious to me in the first quarter of this year that he stood a chance of getting the nomination, I went and did some research. Now I regret not supporting him in 2008. Lets look at the context surrounding it first:
The Mass legislature had roughly an 85% majority of Democrats. That means the legislature didn’t care if the governor signed or vetoed a law, it could do whatever it wanted anyway. Yep, Romney could have played the role of knucklehead, dug in his heels, refused to engage in order to protect a “political career”. When he came into office about 7% of Mass was without health insurance (a smaller scope of a problem than most other states). The people WANTED a government solution to that issue, so this wasn’t something that was being forced on them against their will, this is something they actively wanted. The Democrats had been talking about basically eliminating private medical insurance in Mass and going to a single-payer state system like Vermont has. Had Romney dug in his heels and just said “no, no, no” that is what Mass would have today. By doing that, he would have basically enabled the Democrats in the legislature to get everything they wanted and would have destroyed private health care options for the people of Mass. In other words, by doing that, he would give the Democrats everything they wanted for free. In other words, by being a hard-line Republican, he would have allowed things to go more to the left.
Romney wanted to preserve private health insurance choices for people. The problem with having the government run health care is that when the government goes broke, everyone loses their health care. If you have an array of choices, if one goes belly-up, it limits the damage to only the customers of that provider. It also provides people with choices for the provider that best meets their needs.
The bill that passed was not the bill that Romney proposed. In the final bill, Romney vetoed 8 whole sections of the bill but the legislature put them back in and passed it over his veto. But overall, about 70% of the people of Mass today LIKE their health insurance law. The average person has seen their health insurance premium DROP by around 20%, some as much as 40%. Most importantly, Romney said at the time this his plan should NOT be used as a model at the federal level because it was designed for Massachusetts’ unique situation and probably wouldn’t even work in a different state. Romney clearly understands what a STATE can do under the Constitution and the limits of the federal government.
It has been assumed that the 7% of the population of Mass who didn’t have health insurance were too poor to afford it. That turned out to be untrue once they began researching the issue. Only about 1/5 of those without insurance were too poor to afford it. The other 4/5 could either afford it and chose not to have it or could afford a partial premium but not the whole thing. So that is the reason why they decided to make a proposal that said people who could afford it must buy it and people who could afford part of it would get a partial subsidy. That left only about 1.5% of the population to be insured by the government and the addition of those other 80% into the premium paying pool GREATLY reduced expenses from doctors and hospitals in dealing with uninsured people involved in accidents or other injuries. This reduction in operating losses caused a reduction in costs by hospitals that eventually found their way to the consumer in reduced premiums. That is why nearly everyone in MA saw their health insurance premium drop.
This is a rather fair description of it from the Heritage Foundation in 2006. Romney uses free market economics and actually REDUCED government intervention in the health insurance industry. Also, a state DOES have the constitutional authority for an insurance mandate, the federal government does not. But most of all, the people in MA wanted this and are happy with this. Obamacare was shoved down the people’s throats against their will, the people are NOT happy with it, and it does not reduce premiums or reduce government intervention, it does the opposite:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/04/the-significance-of-massachusetts-health-reform
Romney’s plan was done by involving hospitals and doctors in the decision process, Obamacare was done by involving big drug companies in the decision process. The medical device tax that is part of Obamacare is already costing jobs in this country.
Romney’s proposal did not amount to a government takeover of the health care industry. It did not put MORE people on government programs.
But most importantly, Romney was extremely opposed to the employer mandate. While he was in favor of a requirement that people have insurance, he was not in favor of mandating that all employers provide it. I agree with that. Having health care associated with employers is a bad idea. There are a lot of people in jobs they don’t want because of health insurance. They should have their own that moves with them from job to job. Romney was not in favor of the minimum requirements part. If a person can afford a higher deductible, they should have that option. Romney wanted there to be an “opt-out” option if you had the means to self-insure. Romney wanted EVERYONE to pay at least SOME portion of their health care expenses and didn’t want anyone getting it for “free”. That causes unnecessary visits and drives up costs. Romney was not in favor of a tax penalty for not having insurance, he was in favor of a tax deduction for having it. The math works out the same but it is an important philosophical difference.
I would suggest reading his book “No Apology”. Once I started learning more about what really went on and what his vision really is, and how he operates, I came to the conclusion that he was a pretty brave guy even running for that office. He also impressed me as the best guy since Reagan when Reagan said:
Romney does not need a “solid conservative”. People in “solid conservative” areas are NOT going to vote for Obama. He needs someone who can help him in the states where he is either tied or just barely behind. Ohio, for example is not a “solidly conservative” state. He doesn’t need someone to help him in states where he is already leading by 10 or more points.
And you seem to also believe that the extreme right of the party is the “core base”. It isn’t. It is a fickle fringe. The “core base” is the people whose vote you can count on through thick and thin. The people who voted for McCain in 2008 would be the “core base”.
Maybe not her but someone of her ilk. I believe Romney is going to want someone with considerable executive experience in industry, particularly someone experienced in restructuring and reorienting things. He is going to want someone who can act aggressively to get these changes made. I believe Romney is going to act very quickly and very aggressively in reorganizing many departments within the government. He is going to pare them down in size and ship more money to the states and let the states develop their own solutions to their own problems based on the resources they have available and the scope of the problem in that state. One-size-fits-all solutions out of Washington are generally wasteful. No state has the “average” of a problem or an “average” of resources to faces those problems. Each one is unique.
I believe Romney is going to rely on a VP more than any other President to birddog these changes. I get that sense from learning how Romney works. I don’t believe he is going to want a politician or someone with a “political career” at stake for a job that is going to be about goring a lot of sacred cows.
Fiorina has done just exactly that at HP, and Meg Whitman is doing that right now at HP. When Carly came in, HP was still building a lot of dinosaur hardware with dinosaur operating systems but these dinosaurs had been core portions of HP that employed people for decades, many of whom were close to the Packard family. She saw the bulk of the computer market going from large enterprise mainframes to data centers with hundreds of racks of thousands of smaller servers in internet services applications. When she started goring those sacred cows, there was a price to be paid. Members of her board whose ears were had by senior employees of those product lines started slipping the knives in. But she prevailed. Eventually she was forced out through what amounted to internal politics but she positioned HP to explode and under the guy who took her place, HP surpassed IBM as the world’s leader in computer manufacturing. Trouble was that they wanted a rather passive guy after Carly who wouldn’t make waves. That guy didn’t see the next wave of change in the computer market which was a decline in sales of laptops due to tablets, and the changes in the internet data center where things moved from thousands of small servers to fewer, larger servers running virtualized servers (things like VMware and KVM). As a result, HP started to fall behind and they hired Meg Whitman who is now in the process of goring some younger sacred cows and laying off tens of thousands of people in a new restructuring effort that will result in tens of thousands of new hires in new lines of business.
Romney is on a mission to reorganize the executive branch of government and he needs someone to kick butt and take names and someone with a track record of success in doing that sort of reorganization. He isn’t just a politician trying to win an office by telling people what they want to hear. He showed that at the NAACP meeting. He isn’t going to pander.
Romney is going to be a great President.
In other words, I believe Romney is going to look for a VP to play more of a role seen in corporate America of an Executive Vice President or in a military organization of an Executive Officer (XO) and not the traditional political figurehead role. This role will also be important if we end up with a tied Senate.
“I want to note that President-elect Obama was inspirational, and I am certain he will continue to be.”
— Condi Rice
These words would never cross the lips of a patriot.
@StrangernFiction: “Inspirational” doesn’t imply effective. He certainly might “inspire” other back Americans to get involved in politics no matter what their ideology. He certainly is inspiring a lot of people to go to the polls this fall and vote him out of office, too.