"The narrative is we have a chance to elect the first woman as president of the United States, something I think we should have done a long time ago."

"I just don’t think it should be Hillary Clinton. There’s a lot of other women I can think of in the Republican Party who would be a much better alternative to that and some day will be. But if it’s a narrative like that, I think we run into trouble. If we shift the narrative, and I think, Hillary Clinton, you even saw with this story, with her book tour, the statements about her and Bill being broke when they came out of the White House. …You see the size of the fees she’s asking universities and colleges to pay, when you look at some of the other things, when she talks about not having driven a car in all those years, I get why that’s true, but it’s why I like to get on my Harley Davidson… every once in a while to drive myself and not have someone else do it for me. I just think those are all things that penetrate this out of touch persona. And to me to win I think the argument has got to be change it from a narrative of two personalities to Hillary Clinton represents Washington."

Said Scott Walker, on the important question of how the GOP candidate plans — or is willing to say he plans — to defeat the presumptive Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

This quote comes from the same event where Walker refused to comment on the secret contents of Barack Obama's heart after Rudy Giuliani proclaimed that Obama doesn't "love America." The event — I'm just seeing this now — was supposedly intended to be off the record, but — per Politico — "that request wasn’t made to POLITICO and other reporters attending the dinner until after he’d already begun speaking."

Obviously, the candidates have to assume that anything said at a sizable event like this — a big dinner at the 21 Club — will leak out. In fact, the very thing that is most useful to your opponents is likely to come out and get even more attention because you seem to be speaking confidentially to a subgroup in terms suitable only for them. To illustrate my point in the previous sentence, I need only show you the tiniest shorthand: bitter clingers and 47%.

"Under President Obama, the rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse and there are more people in poverty than ever before."

Mitt Romney makes income inequality his issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Necessary rebranding for Mr. 47%.

A civility matchup: Christie's "Sit down and shut up" versus Rand Paul's "The Republican brand sucks."

I greatly enjoyed Rand Paul's performance yesterday on "Face the Nation." At one point, I was moved to exclaim "He's very articulate," and Meade quipped, "And clean." Anyone other than Paul who's hoping to run for president better observe Paul carefully. He's setting a high standard in speaking skill. Now, Chris Christie also has his verbal ability, but it's different from Paul's, and Paul was invited to criticize the way Christie speaks, with that viral clip of Christie forcibly deflating a heckler:

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: There's been 23 months since then when all you have been doing is flapping your mouth and not doing anything. So, listen, you want to have the conversation later, I'm happy to have it, buddy. But until that time, sit down and shut up.

Now, when I hear that, I laugh and say something like "I love it!" But here's how Paul reacted, prompted by Bob Shieffer's question: "What do you think? Is that the right demeanor for somebody getting ready to run for president?" I'll boldface some notable word choices:

PAUL: I think this sort of bully demeanor may go over well in certain places. But I can't imagine that -- I grew up in the South. And we're, yes, ma'am, and, no, sir, and a little bit more polite. So, I don't think that -- I think people want someone to be bold. And there was a time when I thought, you know what? When he stands up and he says things boldly, that's kind of good. He's not taking any flak. But there can be [too] much of that too. We live in a world where we have so much cacophony of voices on TV sometimes of yelling back and forth. And I think there's a resurgence of people who want a little more civility and discourse.

Notice how subtle the critique is. We only need "a little" more politeness. He's not slamming Christie. He said the word "bully," but he didn't call Christie a bully. He referred to the "demeanor" as "sort of bully," and noted that in some regions of the country, it might not "go over well." He swapped out "bully" for "bold" as he continued, and he said that it was even "kind of good," but in the right dose, perhaps dispensed by someone with a better understanding of what the right dose is, which would, of course, be Dr. Paul. Paul deftly offers himself as the man with the good balance of boldness and politesse. He doesn't directly say that, but he's from the South, and the people in the South have more of a culture of polite speech.

And I love the form of his call for "civility," which is also indirect. He tells us that there are "people who want a little more civility." It's not that there's no civility now or that we need much more civility. We just need a little more civility. And, note, Paul doesn't even say that he likes or wants civility, only that he understands those people who want more civility. Best of all, he links "civility" with "discourse." It's not mere blandness that people want. They want the "cacophony" and "yelling" to give way to back-and-forth substantive conversation to make us more informed, thoughtful, and able to interact with those who have differing beliefs and preferences.

I'm carefully parsing this and am impressed with the detail and the balance to these remarks that just rolled out of the man. But when I listened to the interview the first time, I'd thought I'd heard a contradiction. I wrote down 2 words to find in the transcript for this blog post. The words are "hell" and "sucks." "Hell" actually doesn't appear in the transcript. Seconds after hearing Christie's "sit down and shut up," I'd remembered it as "sit the hell down and shut up" or "sit down and shut the hell up." But "sucks" is in there, and it's Rand Paul who said it. This was an earlier part of the interview which became relevant to me after I heard what he said about polite speech:

SCHIEFFER: You know, you had a somewhat surprising comment the other day. You said -- and this is your quote -- "The Republican brand sucks." That's a pretty unusual rallying cry in an election year. What do you mean by that?

PAUL: Well, you know, what I meant by that is that, if I were to go into a college campus today and I were to talk to a young person and say, hey, you want to be part of the Republican Party, or let's say I go and talk to a young African-American male or woman, do you want to be part of the Republican Party, the initial perception of our brand is, hmm. Like, for example, I had a meeting with some conservative African-Americans recently. And I said, let's try to get something moving nationally. And they said, well, yes, but we may not want to put the word Republican in it. So, that means essentially our brand is broken. I don't think what we stand for is bad. I believe in what the Republican Party values. But we have a wall or a barrier between us and African-American voters. So, I have spent last year trying to break down some of that wall and say, look, maybe what the Democrats have been doing for you or maybe you're being taken for granted. Maybe it's not working. Maybe we could look at some of these Republican proposals for poverty, for long-term unemployment.

That was a great answer on what was the real substance of the question: Why is "Republican" considered a bad brand? But he did say "sucks." If Christie shouldn't say "sit down and shut up," why is Paul saying "sucks"? One answer is that Paul wasn't in the South. He was in Detroit, speaking in what the newspaper called "a predominantly middle-class African-American neighborhood." He said:

"Remember Domino's Pizza? They admitted, 'Hey, our pizza crust sucks.' The Republican Party brand sucks, and so people don't want to be a Republican, and for 80 years, African-Americans have had nothing to do with Republicans."

It's smart to talk about Domino's in southern Michigan, where the big brand got its start. And it's entertaining to remind us of the old campaign that featured Domino's haters insulting the brand: "Worst excuse for pizza I ever had," etc. I don't think the word "sucks" ever appeared in those ads, but "sucks" sums it up quickly and sharply, and those ads are the classic example of a "mea culpa ad campaign":

Domino's very public admission of its own awfulness might represent the most elaborate mea culpa ad in history. But it's hardly the first. Companies sometimes admit their flaws and faults in a bid for public empathy. The strategy usually has two parts. Part one: Fess up. Part two: Vow to do better. While Domino's never quite expresses remorse, the crusty comments in its commercial do set up the company's promise to improve, with better ingredients and a new pizza recipe.

Airlines such as United and JetBlue have prostrated themselves in public to mollify travelers enraged by scheduling snafus. Fast-food outfits have done it, too; Hardee's trashed the poor quality of its hamburgers in an ad campaign a few years ago. Domestic car manufacturers have practically made an art of acknowledging their shortcomings; General Motors went on an apology tour starting in late 2008 when it began lobbying for billions of dollars in federal bailout funds. Last summer, as it went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, it flooded the airwaves with a commercial that acknowledged, "General Motors needs to start over in order to get stronger."

So Rand Paul seems to be doing some deep thinking about restoring the GOP brand. He's openly talking about it, inviting discourse on the subject. "Sucks" may be a bit strong. Even if it's not too strong for northerners — as Mitt Romney learned — whatever you say anywhere will be heard everywhere.

It's possible — and don't freak out, stay calm! — that Rand Paul is using the word "sucks" to create anxiety about the likely Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton. Do people want Bill Clinton back in the White House? I hasten to note that the "sucks" in phrases like "that sucks" does not have its etymology in blow jobs. That creates nice deniability if anyone ever corners Rand Paul about saying "sucks," but etymology isn't enough to keep people from thinking about blow jobs.

"The GOP's Giddiness Over Hillary Clinton's Jobs 'Gaffe' Will Backfire."

That's the title of a New Republic article by Brian Beutler, and I'm sure it makes some liberal-lefty readers feel good, but a competent consumer of propaganda begins with a thought like: So I guess Democrats are terrified that Hillary's pandering to the you-didn't-build that crowd is going to destroy her.

How can Beutler purport to predict that this sound bite cannot be exploited without backfiring? The Democrats won the last presidential election by exploiting one awkward thing Mitt Romney said.

Beutler doesn't mention that, but he makes much of the Republicans' use of Obama's "you didn’t build that" remark, which didn't prevent him from winning in 2012. 

[I]n hindsight, many conservatives acknowledged that the GOP’s obsession with that gaffe revealed more damaging truths about the Republican Party than the gaffe itself revealed about Obama.

“One after another, [Republican businessowners] talked about the business they had built. But not a single—not a single—factory worker went out there,” Rick Santorum told activists at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last year. “Not a single janitor, waitress or person who worked in that company! We didn’t care about them. You know what? They built that company too! And we should have had them on that stage.”

The fixation on [Hillary's] gaffe foreshadows another Republican presidential campaign centered on the preeminence of the entrepreneur, to the exclusion of the wage worker and the trade unionist and the jobless.

"Gaffe" is not the right word. The point isn't: Ha ha, you made a ridiculous mistake. It's: You said what you really think in a revealing way and we're going to use that against you. That's obviously part of American politics, and in 2012, both the 47% thing and "You didn't build that" were revealing and useful. Both were used, and if Obama won, I doubt that it's because the Republicans shouldn't have exploited "You didn't build that." It's more likely that Democrats (and their media friends) jumped on the 47% remark and used it ruthlessly.

The trick is to use these revealing statements well. It would be foolish for Republicans to take the advice to leave the Democrats' overly leftist lines alone. If it's good advice, you'd have to believe that Democrats would leave the Republicans' overly right-wing lines alone. Who believes that?

"If I had to do this again, I’d insist that you literally had a camera on me at all times," said Mitt Romney...

... quoted by Mark Leibovich in a NYT Magazine article titled "Mitt Isn’t Ready to Call It Quits."

"I want to be reminded that this is not off the cuff." This, as he saw it, was what got him in trouble at that Boca Raton fund-raiser, when Romney told the crowd he was writing off the 47 percent of the electorate that supported Obama (a.k.a. “those people”; “victims” who take no “personal responsibility”). Romney told me that the statement came out wrong, because it was an attempt to placate a rambling supporter who was saying that Obama voters were essentially deadbeats.

Hillary Clinton says something quite like Mitt Romney's old 47% remark.

When I opened this blog at 7:15 a.m., I said I had 2 things I wanted to write about from the Hillary Town Hall transcript. I got the first thing out at 9:27 — it's not easy! — "Hillary Clinton cannot let you hold a viewpoint about guns that is terrorizing the vast majority of Americans."

Now, it's almost noon, and I've got to tell you the other thing, which is something I am going to connect to Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" remark. You remember the "SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters" that hurt him more than anything in the 2012 election. He said that there were "47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," who believe what they believe — "that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it" — and it was his "job... not to worry about those people," because he could "never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Ted Cruz's office says "in the mid-1990s, the Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of 'critical legal studies'..."

"... a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism – and they far outnumbered Republicans."

That's in response to a New Yorker article quoting something Cruz said in a speech 3 years ago. (What Cruz said back then, at an Americans for Prosperity conference, was that when he was at Harvard Law School "There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.")

The Cruz spokesperson called it "curious that the New Yorker would dredge up a three-year-old speech and call it 'news.'"

Curious... there's a noncommittal word. I don't see anything wrong with digging stuff out of old Cruz speeches. He's a new character on the national stage, so it's not like old territory is being reworked. It was an inflammatory statement, and he needs to stand by it (and back it up), defend it as hyperbole, or concede he was wrong.

"President Barack Obama expressed gratitude last week to former President Jimmy Carter's grandson..."

"... who had a role in leaking secretly-recorded video of Mitt Romney's infamous '47%' comments, James Carter said Thursday on CNN."

Paul Krugman is "feeling so despondent."

Why? "Because of the way Obama negotiated" the fiscal cliff deal.

He gave every indication of being more or less desperate to cut a deal before the year ended....

He did? Funny, Rush Limbaugh kept saying Obama wanted to go over the cliff. It was his preference. The idea was to get rid of the hated Bush tax cuts and the cliff was there as a device to make it possible to blame the GOP. Back to Krugman:

The only thing that might save this situation is the fact that Obama has to be aware just how much is now riding on his willingness to finally stand up for his side; if he doesn’t, nobody will ever trust him again, and he will go down in history as the wimp who threw it all away.

The wimp?! Hey, remember when they were calling Romney a wimp?



That was back in July. Was Romney "just too insecure to be President"? Meade and I were just talking this morning about exactly that. There were 2 crucial points when Romney failed to stand his ground. He crumpled under intimidation. One was when the 47% video leaked out. Romney went beta, instead of doubling down, getting hardcore. The other was during the second debate, when he was going big on Benghazi, and Obama and Candy Crowley performed their check-the-transcript routine, and Romney deflated into oh, am I wrong?

So, anyway... is Obama just too insecure to be President?

"Billionaire Thomas Peterffy's ‘socialist’ ads raise questions."

Headlines Politico, pointing its readers at a very effective ad that they might otherwise avoid:



The "questions" referred to in the headline are about who is helping Peterffy, a political neophyte, to make and place such ad. But there's nothing interesting there, and Peterffy comes across as an intelligent, persuasive independent:

Typically, such ads call for supporting or opposing specific candidates, but Peterffy’s ad is more vague because it doesn’t mention specific candidates — only an encouragement to vote Republican....

Peterffy said he supports Republican candidates because he sees the rhetoric of social justice and fairness from Democrats, including President Barack Obama, as a slippery slope. He also said Romney’s 47 percent comment reflected his own fears about the future of the country and was taken out of context.

“My understanding was that he said he had no ability to influence the 47 percent,” Peterffy said. “That’s the very logic I’m based on. I’m worried about when that 47 percent goes to 60 percent.”

"He didn’t bring up the 47%!"

"He had a whole, you know, area to discuss the role of government and he didn’t talk about a philosophical divide!"

Obama must have determined in advance not to use the 47% material. The question is why. Perhaps the thinking was: Everyone will perk up, this will be the sound bite of the debate, and Romney's expecting it. He'll be prepared. He knows what you'll say, but you don't know what he'll say, in whatever excellent remarks he'll have planned. You'll have to think on the spot, and his whole plan will be to have something you'll stumble over on the spot, perhaps something you once said that you might stammer over explaining, as this sound bite of the evening is being recorded for exploitation everywhere.

He played it safe, which you may say wasn't really safe. But you're not seeing what would have happened down the road not taken.

***

I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:   
Two roads diverged in a debate, and I—   
I took the easy one to travel by,   
And that has made all the difference.

Paul Ryan tries to make the worrisome percentage 30, not 47.

"Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want the welfare state... Before too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers, not makers."

"There is so much that is heinous about Brittany being used for political gain in this way..."

"... but let’s start with the obvious thing, which is that neither Mitt Romney nor anybody running for office under the Republican banner is suggesting doing anything that would hurt her."

All right, National Review's The Corner, but I found it deeply affecting. I am a woman, and I vote.

"I'm pretty sure Obama owes Nakoula an apology."

Indeed.

We're barraged by new distractions, so let's catch things that are slipping down the memory hole. It's not just Nakoula. It's Chris Stevens. Our ambassador was murdered, and he was murdered after he was targeted and he was not given security.

Shame on those who disrespected Nakoula's freedom of speech. Their faults are apparent and need to be remembered. But what happened to Chris Stevens? I don't trust that we've learned the whole story. Why wasn't he protected? Was he an inconvenient man? We saw such an effort to create static around his death. Look — riots over here, here, and here! Offensive video on the internet! Man with a "towel" around his face! And hey check out the most important thing that happened all week: Romney said "47%" to some people back in May!

The very fact that we're thinking about Nakoula — and futzing with Romney rhetoric — makes me feel that Chris Stevens got stuffed down the memory hole.

Who wanted that forgetting and why?

The Obama campaign exploits Romney's 47% remark.

This is a new ad from the official Obama campaign, using what is useful:

Could things possibly get any more 47-y?

After a barrage of media attention to Romney's infamous 47% remark, Romney and Obama are tied at 47% each, according to Gallup.

ADDED: I propose a new chant: We are the 6%.

"The pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, is quick out of the starting gate this morning with a new television ad..."

"... featuring footage of Mitt Romney’s candid comments from a private fundraiser that has rocked the political world this week."



And here are the Romney campaign's new ads about the "War on Coal":

The gap in the Romney "secret" video: Corn says "the recording device inadvertently turned off"...

... according to his unnamed source who, he says "noticed this quickly and turned it back one [sic]. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed."

Really only 2 minutes? You sure it wasn't 18 minutes? Could the name of the source be Rosemary?

Letterman says to Obama "You haven’t seen me naked," and Obama responds "We’re going to keep it that way."

They also talked about how "great" Obama looks, how "good" he feels, how much he weighs, and how "sharp" he looks. The 2 guys had to talk a lot to fill up the entire show. They talked about the 47% thing of Mitt's...

“If you want to be President, you have to work for everyone,” Obama said. “This is a big country. And people disagree a lot. But one thing I’ve never tried to do and I think none of us can do in public office is suggest that because someone doesn’t agree with me that they’re victims or they’re unpatriotic.”

Did Mitt say anybody's unpatriotic? No. Here's the full transcript of the "secret" Romney speech to donors. The word "unpatriotic" (or "patriotism" or "-patriot-" anything doesn't appear.) Did Romney call people "victims" because they "don't agree" with him? No. The word "victim" appears like this:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. 

He doesn't call them victims. He calls them "dependent" and says they "believe that they are victims." Obviously, Romney thinks they are wrong about that. And Romney's not calling them dependent because they don't agree with him. He's saying because they are dependent, they take the political position that says they are entitled to what they've become dependent on, and therefore they'll vote for Obama. I'm not saying Romney's right about all those things. Surely, some people accept government benefits that they qualify for — like unemployment compensation — but would prefer a government that doesn't provide such lavish benefits and might give conservatism a chance if they heard it explained well. I'm just saying Obama distorted what Romney said in the "secret" video. 

But as long as I'm being technical about rhetoric: Obama's distortion appeared in a statement about what he himself has "never tried to do" and that no one in public office should do. He doesn't say and this is what Romney did. So he has deniability. That was elegantly done, because you don't realize that he didn't directly say what it feels like he said. And yet he got the distorted accusation into your head. He made you feel that Romney said something he didn't say: Romney cruelly and falsely called the people who don't agree with him unpatriotic and victims.

After the Letterman taping:

Obama attended a cash grab at the Waldorf-Astoria, where about 200 deep-pocketed Dems paid at least $12,500 per family. Last stop was Jay-Z’s Chelsea hotspot, the 40/40 club, for a $40,000-per-plate affair that was expected to net $4 mil.

The President took the stage with “Jay-Z and Beyoncé, who wore a red dress....

He compared his upbringing to that of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s.

“We remember what it was like not having anything,” he said. “We know people just as talented as us who didn’t get that same break.”

If you're successful, you got a "break." Plenty of people are "just as talented" — do they work hard? — but unlike Jay-Z and Beyoncé and Obama, they just didn't get lucky. That sounds a lot more like calling them victims than what Romney said.

If anybody's really listening.

"The president’s view is one of a larger government... where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money..."

"I think... that’s the wrong course for America," said Mitt Romney today, trying to regain the offensive position as Democrats made what they could out of his "47%" remark. "We believe in free people and free enterprise, not redistribution."

Helping Romney in this effort to seize the narrative is Matt Drudge, headlining something Obama said in 1998 with the teaser "I actually believe in redistribution." But that video Drudge linked to only has 313 views! Wow. I'm surprised the click-through from Drudge is so extremely minimal.

And here's James Taranto, doing his part for Romney.

ADDED: I don't know why we're assuming that something Romney said to donors back in May was genuine. He might have been dishing out stock conservatism to extract money from rich folk. By the same token, Obama has said things to small groups to stroke them. There's an awful lot of crap that can be strewn in our path in this run-up to the election. But what can you do? Turn off the noise? Use everything useful, any which way you can? Run away screaming?