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Leamington Letters #32: Pragmatic? Or cynical?

17/10/2012

11 Comments

 
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Over here, the last politician to ‘win’ a televised election debate was Nick Clegg, and we all know what happened then. Pleasant and plausible, he impressed enough people and subsequently won enough votes to play a leading role in one of the most unpleasant and implausible governments of recent times.

So I watched the debates between Romney and Obama with more scepticism than is normal, even with two American politicians in my face.

Yes, I am afraid that Obama is now merely another American politician. The tears of joy four years ago, the awed silence in Wilde’s as we relayed his post-victory speech over the net, the belief that ‘yes, he can’ – they are all long gone. He has not seized the moment that was presented to him, and although it is true, as one of my heroes, Water Mosley, points out, that he was like “a surgeon with a rusty scalpel”, he has disappointed profoundly.

But.

The alternative is far worse.

Not because Romney is an ideologue. He is, of all the Republican candidates, the least ideological, although he has ‘balanced’ the ticket with one of the most ideological in Ryan. What he tries to do, in the context of Republican ideology, is become ideological. And that’s where his problems start.

The Boston Globe quoted a classmate of Romney at Harvard Business School. He was, then, a “driven pragmatist”. Each day he, pragmatically, adjusts. There has been no significant philosophical shift, because there has never been a significant philosophy in his life. On health care and gay rights, climate change and the economy, he has pragmatically adjusted and even reversed his views according to the prevailing Republican wisdom.

In his campaign for election as governor of Massachusetts, he claimed that “I think people recognize that I’m not a partisan Republican, that I’m someone who is moderate and my views are progressive.”

That worked, then. But you can’t run against Obama, who is moderate and progressive, saying things like that. And you can’t gain the support of the anti-Obama electorate saying things like that. You have to be conservative. The driven pragmatist has therefore changed.

He is now, he says, a “conservative businessman”, and he is:

Pro-life
Pro second amendment
Pro less regulation
Pro lower taxes
Pro repealing Obamacare
Anti an amnesty for illegal Immigrants
Anti gay marriage

When these positions are held, not with genuine ideological fervour but with a cynical ‘pragmatism’ to win votes, that’s when you get very worried.

And how about this? Romney claims to support the Sox, but he invested in the Yankees.

Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?

Today's listening: Babel, the new album from Mumford & Sons. Frankly, a tad disappointed.

11 Comments
Guy
17/10/2012 11:39:52

Tad disappointed with Babel too.

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Max
20/10/2012 08:50:21

It's more of the same, but not as good. B sides of the A sides on Sigh No More. Shame. Thought they had more innovation in them. X

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myers
19/10/2012 04:14:33

Better the devil you know than a right wing Mormon - "less tax for the rich so they can look after themselves" [he pays 13.7% on 250 million]

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Max
20/10/2012 08:52:25

True. I would like to think that there were more positive reasons for Obama. Second term, please, will show us.

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parn123
19/10/2012 13:32:45

Do look up Obama's concept of "Romnesia", as reported here eg. :
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/19/1147052/-Obama-defines-Romnesia?fb_action_ids=486270858070434&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Reviewing Obama's record, you have to remember that in the US system most presidents' efforts at radical change have always been stymied by Congress - usually controlled by the opposition. It takes at least the 2 terms to do anything serious.

Re Obama's election eve at Wilde's, I remember the excitement and tears of joy among leftie students we knew when Tony Blair got elected. Now they want him at the Hague to answer for war crimes.
Are there any political leaders who haven't fallen out with the voters who elected them? Take the case of Hollande just a few months after his election as the guy promising the biggest lollipop to the French.

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Max
20/10/2012 09:00:26

Remember a mature student leaving our house and running down the street in the early hours shouting 'you now have a LABOUR GOVERNMENT!' We didn't of course, as we realised when their first act was to give bankers control over interest rates.

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parn123
20/10/2012 15:36:50

Wasn't the reason for that if things went wrong for Brown as the new chancellor he could then blame the bankers and keep his hands clean. Seems that's what Cameron et al are doing today. but even so not wanting any control over the sacrosanct City.

Rick Hough
19/10/2012 13:53:39

Well stated and nicely put.

Romney is a an undisguised hack whose venality becomes frightenly evident when we look at his Bain Capitol-pack-of-velociraptors behavior. If he pulls this one out of Karl Rove's posterior - as he still well might - we're seriously fooked.

I'll gladly settle for the glimmer of vestigal Hope (and Change) wherein the incumbant has 24 to30 months to remember his notions and act accordingly, before the duck goes lame.

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Max
20/10/2012 09:04:31

Thanks Rick. I'll settle for that too. A consummation devoutly to be wished. But stuff emerging from Rove's posterior is scary in the extreme. And even more scary is the number of people prepared to - ahem - lap it up. Best to you and yours.

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Rick Hough
24/10/2012 22:31:12

Yeah, sort of an unfortunate image to have visited upon these excellent confines and I apologize. Best to you and yours as well.

Sean
25/10/2012 05:51:29

I just find him, and the idea of him being in charge of the US, utterly revolting.

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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