Moderate Mitt vs. Nimble Obama

As I expected, Romney brought Moderate Mitt to this debate. Practically the first word out of his mouth was "peace" -- and throughout, he stressed that he wanted to foster peace. In fact, he had a simple two-track message, peace/strength.  And I do think, taking his performance as a solo, that he hit his core objectives: he was 1) moderate Mitt, and 2) versed Mitt, reeling off for-show nuances like the power hierarchy in Pakistan, and rattling off 4- and 5-point plans and systematic rebuttals. .  Oh, and as always, 3) Dominating Mitt, talking over everyone.  Objective 4) was to paint a weak Obama, and that one didn't go so well.

One thing Romney did well --advancing his image as a peacemaker not a warmonger -- was deliver firm one-word answers to "should we" questions.  Should we divorce Pakistan? No. Should we have propped up Mubarek? No.  Should we take more decisive military action in Syria (beyond arming the 'right' rebels)? No.

Obama, beware of Romnesia on foreign policy tomorrow night

Noting that vast majorities of Americans of all parties favor less U.S. involvement in Middle East leadership changes, not more, Daniel Larison warns Romney:

The Pew survey result matches findings from other surveys about what U.S. policy towards Syria should be, which show support for sanctions and not much else. The 23% that favors more U.S. involvement in the politics of the region are very likely the same people who think the U.S. should be directly arming the Syrian opposition and bombing Syrian air defenses. Their preferences are also wrong on the merits, but these results show that there is no real electoral price to be paid by ignoring what they want. That 23% is the audience to which Romney has been pandering for the last several months, and he probably has almost all of their votes locked up anyway. If most viewers correctly perceive that Romney is the more aggressive, activist candidate on Syria and on other international issues, he will lose the debate. Insofar as the last debate has an effect on the outcome of the election, he will be sabotaging himself in the final weeks.

Given Romney's recent renewed facility with the Etch-A-Sketch, I take this more as a warning for Obama than for Romney: expect Romney to shape-shift on this front as he did on taxes during (and indeed before) the first debate.

Romney's pandering fools no one

Is the post-truth campaign engendering the post-belief vote?

Political scientists Larry Bartels and Lynn Vavrek have put together a fascinating portrait of the small and elusive segment of the electorate that remains undecided.  The majority of them are not independents. Those with party affiliations obviously are not pleased with their party's nominee, and the Democrats among them provide some troubling feedback for Obama, along with some apparent opportunity.  The survey, however, reveals something astonishing about Republican attitudes toward Romney:

What poli-sci can't quantify

When Eric Fehrnstrom came out with his indelible Etch-A-Sketch metaphor for the Romney campaign's intention to wipe the slate clean for the general election, I took issue with political scientist Brendan Nyhan's assertion that all such gaffes have "little electoral significance":

There are gaffes and gaffes, however.  The evidence that they don't matter is often gathered from polls taken shortly before and after the incident in question, showing little difference -- e.g., in this John Sides post cited by Nyhan.  Some campaign blowups sink deep, however, and some are gifts that keep giving for the opposition.  When making phone calls for Obama in the fall campaign in '08, I spoke to several people whose opinion of Obama had seemingly been shaped by the Jeremiah Wright affair or by his "cling to guns and religion" riff.  Perhaps their fears about him -- in some cases racist ones - -simply seized on those handy objects. But who's to say whether some such explosive objects-to-hand may not pack more charge than others? That anxieties about Obama's "black agenda," as one person characterized it to me, would not have been less intense if that particular fodder had not been furnished?  And when a potent negative perception works its way over time into people's overall perception of the candidate, is it detectable in polling?

It seems to me that Fehrnstrom has put a weapon with staying power in the hands of Romney's opponents, chiefly Obama.  Any time an antagonist wants to call attention either to a new tack-to-the-center policy shift or an old one, he or she can figuratively shake an Etch-A-Sketch

Well, the Obama campaign at least takes this view -- at the highest levels.  Obama's May 10 interview with Robin Roberts (famous for other reasons) included this exchange:

Paint Romney as a conservative who's flipped his last flop

Some see a contradiction in the Obama camp trying to paint Mitt Romney both as a flip-flopping opportunist and as an extreme conservative.  If it comes down a choice, both sides of the equation have their detractors. Political scientist John Sides has suggested that the flip-flop charge won't resonate (a view seconded by Kevin Drum), while Romney supporter Saul Anuzis asserts, in an article by Washington Post reporter Amy Gardner framing the two attack approaches, “Mitt Romney does not scare people. He’s not a scary candidate. Regardless of his views or how he’s expressed them, he’s always been very thoughtful, rational."

That is true. But the point is not that Romney is inherently a raving lunatic but that he's let the demands of his hard-right party remake him.  I  have argued before that the two approaches -- Romney as opportunist and Romney as ultraconservative vehicle -- are complementary.  And it seems to me that Obama campaign spox Ben LaBolt, quoted by Gardner, combines them effectively:

The GOP conjures up a candidate

Rebutting the notion that Mitt Romney is winning the GOP nomination because his rivals failed to put together professional campaign organizations, Conor Friedersdorf argues that Romney faced no viable competition, but rather a crew with "glaring substantive flaws."  Well, sure. But why did Romney face no viable competition?  The current state of the GOP allowed no "better" candidate to emerge.

If Mitt Romney didn't exist -- and in his current incarnation, he didn't, until circa 2005 -- GOP voters would have had to invent him.  In fact, they did invent him. Forget the Etch-A-Sketch: he is the Ouija board of the GOP base.  Whatever position they collectively demand, he adopts.

If Republican voters are reluctant to back Romney , it's because he caters simultaneously to contradictory desires.  Collectively, the party wants to seem moderate enough to win without compromising far-right fantasy positions.  Romney can perhaps win because people don't see him as an extremist: he had a moderate record as governor, preceded by a long successful career in a field that demands pragmatism and a respect for data, which he credibly claims to possess.  And yet he is sworn to advance every jot and tittle of an extremist agenda: deficit reduction without tax increases or defense cuts, foreign policy without negotiation, dismantling of Obamneycare, broader defenestration of the federal government , defunding of Planned Parenthood, reversal of Rove v. Wade, ruthless hounding of undocumented aliens out the door.

Erasing the context of Fehrnstrom's gaffe

Blogging political scientists are useful killjoys, constantly reminding us that the things that feel like they matter most in daily political warfare usually matter not at all, or very little. Reagan's ability to sway public opinion from the bully pulpit? A mirage.  The 'driver's license' debate debacle that killed Hilliary's momentum? It didn't. The Etch-A-Sketch candidate, etched in stone? It'll shake clean by fall.

But this time I don't buy it. That is, I don't buy Brendan Nyhan's debunk in Columbia Journalism Review. Nyhan has two beefs about the coverage of Eric Fehrnstrom's Etch-A-Sketch gaffe: an ethical complaint about the way Fehrnstrom's remark has been interpreted, and a debunking of the widely forecast likely dramatic effects. On the latter front, I suspect he may be partly wrong. On the charge of unfairness to Fehrnstrom and Romney, I think he's almost completely off base.