Why This Election Year America Is Nurse Jackie
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Many conservatives felt disappointment with Mitt Romney for not taking charge more during the foreign policy debate. Talking with my friends Lisa Richards, Lisa Graas, and Rebecca Diserio of Fidelis Radio Network Monday night after the debate, I expressed a sentiment others would admit the next morning: Romney just didn’t hit hard enough. He said great things but, as with Obamacare, again deferred from attacking the president on his most vulnerable failure, Benghazi.
I thought that he “won” the debate on points but knew the establishment narrative would still spin it into a victory for the president.
Turns out that was Romney’s plan all along. He wasn’t talking to either his base or the journalistic saboteurs who would declare his failure. His goal: get the undecideds to realize he wasn’t a wide-eyed warmonger. And, as we began to realize as the polls and reactions came in, it worked:
Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Republican Mitt Romney has erased President Barack Obama’s 16-point advantage among women, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. And the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney’s edge among men.
Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential race still a virtual dead heat, with Romney favored by 47 percent of likely voters and Obama by 45 percent, a result within the poll’s margin of sampling error, the survey shows.
After a commanding first debate performance and a generally good month, Romney has gained ground with Americans on a number of important fronts, including their confidence in how he would handle the economy and their impressions of his ability to understand their problems.
At the Corner after the debate, Obama’s most underrated critic, Spreading the Wealth author Stanley Kurtz, invoked Aesop’s Fables to explain Romney’s long-game method, “Tortoise Ties: Hare’s Concerned“:
During the first half of the debate, Romney was playing for a tie while Obama was playing for a win. That made a certain sense. As commander-in-chief, Obama has an inherent advantage on foreign policy. So long as Romney stands toe-to-toe and achieves a rough equality with a sitting president on foreign policy, he gains credibility and keeps his momentum in this race…. Partway through the debate, however, Romney started pushing for the win. His pivot to the economy might have seemed like evasion, but Obama followed him into domestic policy because he saw the risk of not answering the challenge. This put Romney on familiar ground and you could see his confidence grow.
Then Romney came hard at Obama on Iran, Israel, and the general decline of America’s influence in the world. The look on Obama’s face as Romney was discussing Democratic concerns about his Israel policy was pained. It was the first time he lost his confident stare. Then Romney did what he does best, paint a picture of general decline in America’s fortunes abroad under Obama’s stewardship. This worked almost as well on foreign policy as it does when Romney applies it to domestic policy. It was the pivotal moment of the debate.
By the end I thought Romney had at least won his tie, and maybe even inched out victory by a nose. He did it by playing offense at critical moments during a generally restrained, respectful, and competent performance. In effect, Romney carefully pivoted between playing for a tie and a win, and the strategy worked.
That’s what we need in a commander-in-chief: someone who can analyze the threat and “carefully pivot” to the appropriate option whether it’s to pull back, negotiate, or strike hard. Even though he restrained himself, Romney still managed to deliver some precise strikes, like this sharp hit referencing “Mr. Putin“:
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How did Mitt Romney develop such a level of self-control?
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Grace, serenity, realism, courage, insight, wisdom. Oh! and God.
Romney landslide in November.
Amen!
Willard M. Romney’s Mormon faith, with its historic roots in Freemasonry, does trouble me. I find that its followers avoid making a careful scrutiny into their faith’s foundings, preferring to accept the narrative their church gives to them. In this way, I find Mormonism somewhat like Islam. But Mormons I tolerate because rarely have they been prone to violence. What human has no flaws? So W. Mitt Romney holds a belief that holds no historic water. I find some of the beliefs of the Founding Fathers of this nation troubling too. So I’ve voted already, but not for a community agitator.
I agree up until you said the Founding Fathers were troubling….they are not, they were/are awesome.
Mormons are a cult, not a religion and the the bedrock of their “faith” the Pearl and the Great Price confirms their “non-Christian” status. That being said, they do do good things and are generally upstanding citizens, they are just not Christian.
Next to Obama, Romney is George Washington as far as I’m concerned.
Mormons accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. That makes them Christians. Heretical Christians, at least according to the Episcopal Church (yeah, I know, I’m not sure how Christian they are these days! That’s why I’m not a member anymore. But still…), but still Christians.
“I find that its followers avoid making a careful scrutiny into their faith’s foundings, preferring to accept the narrative their church gives to them.”
This is whole-cloth nonsense.
I agree: if my Mormon neighbors have their Scout troop clean up one more trashy lot in our neighborhood or, if they bring one more plate of cookies or loaf of freshly baked bread to my home I shall SCREAM. In a world where one throws out apples and oranges received as Halloween graft, who brings food to neighbors like that ?
And what’s with encouraging all those young men and women to serve for 2 years, or whatever–at their own expense–and during the most selfish period of a young person’s life ? That’s just plain weird; they must do it at the point of a gun. At least my kid would not volunteer. And what is with ALL those kids ? They must support the minivan industry alone. Are they trying to give Catholics competition for maintaining US demographics ?
I hear our minister talk about “by their fruits you shall know them” and then totally bash the Mormons…somehow it doesn’t quite square: they’re so evil yet they do much ground level and unheralded good.
Weren’t many of the founders also Freemasons? Too much of the anti-freemason stuff is bound in with the International Jewish Conspiricy garbage. I do know a little bit about freemasonry and I’ve seen some of their “secret” stuff; it’s just a harmless bit of nonsense.
WHA?
Freemasons? Seriously, are you kidding me?
Whether Romney is a Mormon or belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is irrelevant. This country is on the edge of a precipice we will not avoid if Obama is re-elected.My husband’s partner at work is Mormon. He truly doesn’t have three heads, a small spaceship parked in his garage or a secret Jesse Ventura code ring. He’s a decent, honest man who gives to his community (and I mean the ENTIRE community) on a daily basis. My husband is a Jew. I am not religious. DOesn’t matter a hill of beans. We’re ALL voting for Mitt Romney.If you give anything resembling a damn about the future of this country you will, too.
Nobody who touts the Flying Spaghetti Monster actually believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That’s why I wouldn’t for any any FSM fanboy. And I don’t vote for people who claim to be Catholic without believing in Catholic Christianity nor people who claim to be Protestant Christians who put race before God – too bad, Plugs and Bambi.
Well, I don’t watch Nurse Jackie but I watch Vegas. And this week the conspicuously Mormon banker, Mr. Farwood (who has been portrayed in a good light), said the “..the things Mormons care about are relationships- with our family, our church, our community.” I could have fallen out of my chair. Maybe it’s just a tiny chink in the armor of Hollywood, but it was nice to see it in a top-rated show.
It almost makes me forgive CBS for Abby Sciuto saying she wanted to be stuck in an elevator with Michelle Obama.
A vote for magic underwear is a vote for America! Go Romney!
You may as well ask “Is America ready for some Muslim sobriety”? Romney isn’t a Christian. And who cares? It is time for sobriety, that only a non-Christian can bring. Just don’t expect a Christian perspective.
What Brutus said. Seems to me that lately most of the mainstream Christians have been a bit, well, reluctant, to defend their religion against a MAJOR competitor (or two, if you count communism as a religion). Maybe we should try something else. Either way, as Insty says, I prefer a syphilitic camel. Although Romney might not like the comparison, I hope he’ll still accept my vote…
Noah was not a drunk. Having just gone through a tragedy that makes the Holocaust pale in comparision (and that’s saying a lot) he accidentally got drunk ONCE, in private.
(I would argue about David also, but there’s not enough cultural similarity for me to convince you.)
As Little Carmine said (Sopranos), “We’re on the precipice of a crossroads.”
Very interesting piece, David. Methinks you may have a bit of hypomania yourself – how else do you find the time to write AND edit AND read so many damn books? Gimmee some of that!
Regards,
John.