Winning The Brooks Primary (Losing The Nomination)

David Brooks gauges the temper of the times and concludes that Mitt Romney will lose the Republican Presidential nomination to Texas Governor Rick Perry.  This seems to trouble him:

The events of 2009 and 2010 also concentrated the Republican mind. It used to be that there were many themes in the Republican hymnal. Now there is only one: Government is too big, and it needs to be brought under control. It used to be there were many threats on the horizon. Now there is only one: the interlocking oligarchy of politicians, academics, journalists, consultants and financiers who live along the Acela corridor want to rip America from its traditional moorings.

Perry is benefiting from these shifts. He does best among the most conservative voters. He has a simple and fashionable message: I will bring government under control. His persona is perfectly tuned to offend people along the Acela corridor and to rally those who oppose those people. He does very well with the alternative-reality right — those who don’t believe in global warming, evolution or that Obama was born in the U.S.

His advice for Romney is unconvincing:

It’s more likely that sooner or later Romney is going to have to prove his own toughness by taking Perry on directly. Two lines of attack are pretty obvious.

First, Romney could accuse Perry of being the latest iteration of Tom DeLay Republicanism. On the one hand, he is ideologically slippery. The man who sounds so right wing today was the Texas chairman of the Al Gore for President campaign in 1988. The man who now vows to appoint only anti-abortion officials to relevant administration jobs endorsed Rudy Giuliani four short years ago. On the other hand, he is unwavering in his commitment to the government-cash nexus. Even this week — amid much attention to his pay-to-play proclivities — Perry named two big donors to powerful state jobs.

Romney will want to attack Perry as an ideologically inconsistent shape-shifter?  That should be fun to watch, in a "Pot Meeets Kettle In Brawl To Settle It All" sort of way.

The second line of attack is to shift what the campaign is about. If voters think Nancy Pelosi is the biggest threat to their children’s prosperity, they will hire Perry. If they think competition from Chinese and Indian workers is the biggest threat, they will hire Romney. He’s just more credible as someone who can manage economic problems, build human capital and nurture an innovation-based global economy.

I deplore this xenophobia.  America's problem is not competition from India or China; America's problem is that we need to get out of our own way and start doing our American thing again.  Our sprawling big government, typified by the jobs-killing ObamaCare fostered by Nancy Pelosi et al, is the target of Rick Perry and his supporters.  Perry is running on the Texas jobs boom - the idea that this economic battlefield favors Romney is dubious.

 

Comments

[Clarice]

Sometimes I think the NYT exists only to provide fodder for this blog.

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

Wrong end - that's fertilizer, not fodder.

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

Wrong end - that's fertilizer, not fodder.

[Mark Folkestad]

Rick, I agree with you, but your comment wasn't quite good enough to bear repeating.

[Captain Hate]

Tom DeLay Republicanism

Can somebody explain what this means? I liked the Hammer ok because he seemed to have the right people hating him; but I have a feeling that he spent way too much money.

[Cecil Turner]

This bit had me laughing through the rest of it:

A few weeks ago it was possible to believe that Mitt Romney would win the New Hampshire primary and cruise easily to the Republican nomination. It’s harder to see that now.

"Believe"? Only if you're a frickin' moron. Did it even dawn on him why a no-background Congresswoman was running practically neck-and-neck with Romney from the get-go? Hey, I managed to figure out Perry would be the front-runner almost immediately upon entering the race . . . and that he'd suck all the air out of the Bachmann campaign. That was hard? Maybe I'm just not seeing all the nuance.

With the biggest threat to the nation the looming fiscal calamity, the nation is desperate for a fiscal conservative . . . and the leftists can't see it at all. The neo-Journolist meme appears to be: [Klein] "what could he have done differently?"; and [Alter] "what has he done wrong?" (And "everything" isn't specific enough for 'em.) Makes you wonder who they tested that on, and how many of 'em found it convincing. (And if you have to "believe" first.)

[sue]

Captain,

I couldn't stand him. Until democrats went after him. Then I held my nose and fought back for him.

[Clarice]

Cecil, they tested it on the same journolists they always do--that is, each other.

[Ignatz]

David Brooks prefers a North East, flip-flopping moderate Republican with trousers creased even more nattily than Barry's to a Texas Republican who wears cowboy boots.
In late breaking news, dog bites man.

[Gmax]

Godd thing that no one in the Republican Party pays any attention to Brooks these days. No more mail it in McCain types. I want a fighter.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Saw a poll this morning, think it was a Florida poll, where Romney beats Obama 51% to 43%, Perry ties 46-46, and Bachmann was two points behind Obama.

Also watched Romney at the Dover Town Hall meeting broadcast last night on cSPAN. He answered some very hard questions, discussed some very complicated issues, and was very very good. It was obvious the crowd liked him and they were quite receptive. He has a way of interacting with his audience in such a way that it is clear to them that he takes them seriously, thinks they are smart enough to understand issues and principles/values. In other words, he has conversations with them, rather than talking down to them.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Rick, I agree with you, but your comment wasn't quite good enough to bear repeating.

Typepad has developed a serious echo.

[Strawman Cometh]

His advice for Romney _______ is unconvincing:

[rse]

Looking forward to Walter's lobsterfest pictures. We were there one year for the August meteor shower and I made my cioppino with that nice fresh Bahamian lobster and grouper.

Elbow Cay also has one of the best hurricane holes in that part of the Atlantic. Sailboats get brought in and then left and a candystripe lighthouse that is a great climb.

Back to writing. Yes I am finally cranking it out and I must say it is almost writing itself. Red is playing secretary and thinks I have found the right level of snarkiness.

Ah to be drinking Goombay smashes instead.

[Uncle BigBad]

Cecil

Right on!

Sue

Who him?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

If you missed Fred Thompson interview Dr. Grosclose last night, here is the Video.

UCLA Professor: Without Media Bias the Average US State Would Vote Like Texas or Tennessee (VIdeo)

[Danube of Thought]

My urge to punch David Brooks in the face simply won't go away.

[Captain Hate]

Here's a shocker: Rick Perry gives Nooner the vapours because he displays "a lack of reflection, a lack of gravitas, carelessness". Oh the humanity.

[PD]

Maybe I'm just not seeing all the nuance.

On the contrary. You see clearly because you don't have pant creases obscuring your field of view.

[Ignatz]

--Here's a shocker: Rick Perry gives Nooner the vapours because he displays "a lack of reflection, a lack of gravitas, carelessness". Oh the humanity.--

I'm beginning to wonder if Peggy drops the dress at the WSJ, put's on the ol' horn rims and Brooks Bros-3-piece and doesn't shave for a day or so to get that nice Brooksian five o'clock stubble going and moonlights over at the Times.
Have anyone here ever seen them together?

[Ignatz]

Or maybe "Has" anyone, would work a little better.

[MayBee]

I like Mitt and I think he'd make a great president.

I'm amused by people who get the vapors over Perry because of the way he talks. Why is that? We've got Obama talking about having his boot on the throat of BP, punching back twice as hard, and bringing his gun to a knife fight. Is it just because it doesn't seem credible when scrawny Obama says it?

[Chubby]

((Rick Perry gives Nooner the vapours because he displays "a lack of reflection, a lack of gravitas, carelessness))

after being dead wrong about Obama, you'd think she'd be too embarrassed to pontificate on such matters any more

[Chubby]

((Back to writing. Yes I am finally cranking it out ...))

are you working with an outline or letting it unfold organically?

[Captain Hate]

I like Mitt and I think he'd make a great president.

"Great" might be a reach but he'd certainly be an improvement over El JEFe. I'm just concerned that he won't be ready for the garbage that the O-bots will throw at him if he'd win the primary. This past week gave a good example of that when an obvious plant kept yammering over Mitt's answer to her question and Romney responded poorly imo by trying to reason with her and ended up sounding weak. You need a Christie in that situation to respond in a way that lets them know you're on to their game and tell them to STFU or GTFO. This will not be a "normal" campaign and I'm afraid Mitt is poorly prepared for what will hit him straight between the eyes.

[Chubby]

((I like Mitt and I think he'd make a great president.))

me too. and I also like Perry. and I also like Palin. I don't feel any love for Bachmann though.

[Chubby]

((I'm amused by people who get the vapors over Perry because of the way he talks. Why is that?))

because peecee is one of the best tools they've got in their toolbox to keep conservatives from saying what the libbies don't want anyone to hear. it's worked pretty good for them, but maybe it's time to end that.

[sbw]

I like Mitt and I think he'd make a great president.

Not until he decides that people should buy their own health insurance, that legislatures shouldn't load the insurance people buy with mandated coverage, that unfettering the economy from regulatory shackles is how you get jobs so people can afford to buy the insurance, and -- finally -- that Rick Perry is correct to say that Washington should be as little inconvenience in people's lives as possible.

In other words, Mitt, you're a RINO by record until you prove you are one no longer.

[Chubby]

peter, that is the sickest thing I have read in a long time.

[peter]

Indeed it is, Chubby. And definitely something to worry about that mainstreaming of pedophilia is something on the horizon. Will make for a very disturbed populace.

[Captain Hate]

And definitely something to worry about that mainstreaming of pedophilia is something on the horizon.

That has to be the final line in the sand from which there's no retreat. I'm hoping Perry or whoever is the Repub primary winner, makes this a very big deal in the campaign. If it's not a winning issue then we're lost as a culture.

[sbw]

Innocence is a gift for children. Even living on a farm, where nature goes its way, innocence is not for an adult to take away ... especially for the trumped up claim that it is "good for the children."

[Barbara-Lurking]

Our culture has been lost for a very long time. We're only beginning to reap what we as a culture have sown for decades.

The seeds of decay are finally bearing fruit, a harvest startling in both quality and quantity, but, given the principles of sowing and reaping, not at all surprising.

[rse]

chubby-

A little of both but what I am doing now is the most difficult because I had to decide which people and ideas were essential for framing the story I can now prove. Going back through my notes I discovered connections I had not appreciated at the time and that sent me off to do a bit more investigating. I just stopped and outlined precisely which sources I wanted to use to finish making the point. Lo and behold if the nice lovely point did not have a name I recognized when I looked up the accompanying footnote. Maxine Greene-Bill Ayers' mentor.

Let's just say there will be no formal dinner parties in my dining room.

I am discovering the most unplanned part is which of the many anecdotal stories I decide to use to illustrate a point. But yes. I know the conclusion and what the basic point of each chapter is to be. And I have all the documentation I need to prove what I am saying-usually in someone's own words as to what is really up. There are people in ed you have never heard of precisely because they were very graphic about what they were really up to and why. Most of them I stumbled over tracking something else and then recognized what I was reading and what it meant.

But I do write in pencil with a Pink Pearl handy.

[Comanche Voter]

"He does very well with the alternative reality right those who don't believe in global warming, evolution or that Obama was born in the US."

Brooks what a load of fertilizer that is.
Anthropogenic global warming is the new religion of the left; if you don't believe it, then you are a heretic to be forever banned, scorned, mocked etc. Since it looks like some "scientists" cooked the numbers, massaged the data et that's a pretty shaky religion to believe in.

On evolution--you don't look like quite such a lunatic if hold to that theory closely--there's a lot of data to back it up, it's been tested for 150 years or so.

But I would say that "intelligent design" is as worthwhile a hypothesis as is anthropogenic global warming. There's a lot of hubris involved in either theory.

But if you want to take a snarky shot at "alternative reality" out in the heartland, you also need to realize (as Brooksie doesn't) that there's also a real alternative reality among the Beltway/East Coast/Limousine Liberal set.

Perry doesn't play well to the Accela train riding crowd---but Brooks ought to be able to count. (He did go through 6th grade didn't he?) When he looks at the count, there are more of us, than of the Accella bunch.

[Boatbuilder]

"Idealogically slippery" because he was a [Texas] Democrat in 1988 and chaired the Gore campaign. Would it be too much to ask Brooksie to look up the positions that Gore was running on in 1988? As I recall Gore was running as the common-sense conservative, Scoop Jackson Democrat. He was to the right of GHWB.
By the way, any Republican candidate who publicly suggests that any other Republican candidate is a "Tom Delay Republican" or that to be so is a negative will immediately descend below John Huntsman--and David Brooks--in my esteem. And that is lower than whale shit.

[MayBee]

I remember when it was politically dangerous to disagree with the science that vaccines caused autism.

[Chubby]

rse,

big thanks for your post. I love reading about how writers practice their craft.

I can hardly wait to read your book, it will be an important contribution toward the betterment of society, of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

[Chubby]

((And definitely something to worry about that mainstreaming of pedophilia is something on the horizon))

Kids today are exposed to sex through magazine ads, billboards, daytime teevee, and just about everywhere, so it is very hard to protect them.

The sexploitation of the 10 year old model Thylane Blondeau by Vogue magazine is another case in point. LUN

quote: ((Personally, I did not have that much of a problem with that Vogue Paris shoot. I don't interpret it as an attempt to sexualize an inappropriately young girl — I read it as a parody of the attempts fashion makes to sexualize inappropriately young girls every day, which overwhelmingly pass without notice.))

I call BS

[glenda]

Agree, agree..CH, Chubby, Iggy..Noonan & Brooks RINO horns need trimming..condescending elites got us where we are..

and sue,,I'm with you about our Gov.Perry, but I still believe Palin is miles of Texas and Alaska above him in ideas, grit and heart..

btw, thanks for all the b-day wishes, all!

chubby, your story about Glenda's was very kind..I hope to live up to your "Glenda's"
story. First impressions do matter!

[Janet]

Amen to Barbara-Lurking's 1:54 post.

[PD]

And definitely something to worry about that mainstreaming of pedophilia is something on the horizon.

So, following this to its logical conclusion, Catholic priests and alter boys is nothing to get worked up over?

[maryrose]

PD:
Speaking of which Our lefty rag the Plan Dealer has a story from the 50's about sexual misconduct at a Cleveland catholic boys's high school. The paper itself is anti-catholic and has skeewered our new Bishop from Boston for consolidating and closing churches in the inner city. That makes these priests to now be in their 70's or 80's.I had 4 brothers who were servers and they all were fine. The yellow rag of a paper never misses an opportunity to dump on the catholic schools.My boycott of said rag continues.

[I've never heard so loud the message in a cloud.]

Godspeed rse. Maria blows the wind in your favor.
===========

[Jumpstart]

Brooks does make one itch to punch him--right it that smarmy kisser of his. I hear this often, and from the most unlikely corners.

No doubt Brooks managed to avoid this all of his life--not duck it, just avoid it. If he would have suffered just one good decking somewhere between 13 and graduating college, we all could have been spared a lot of aggravation. So it is with that whole gaggle of metrosexuals (of both sexes). A true Demimonde if ever there was one.

It is like living through all the tedium, agony and idiocy of High School "Student Government" all over again. Just Horrid!

One hopes for a Perry win if only to see the country cast off from the whole flaccid, incompetent and self-absorbed coastal elites and all their self-serving posturing and grandiosity. Perhaps we can deliver that thrashing Election Day 2012. Granted that it s unclear at this point if Perry is really any different, but at least his election would signal the desire to once again behave live Americans. This would be an advance.

Time will tell.

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