Conservatives Take Romney's Lack of Interest in Them as Sign Romney Might Lack Interest in Conservatives
From the television studios of Fox News to the pages of The Weekly Standard, the refrain of the conservative opinion machine is virtually the same: Mitt Romney doesn’t talk to us, doesn’t get us….
Mr. Romney’s distant, complicated relationship with many of the conservative media’s leading voices has heightened concerns that his convictions are not as genuine and deep-seated as their own….
Andrea Tantaros, co-host of “The Five” on Fox News, said she was surprised the Romney campaign has not tried to push back against some of the more withering criticisms that commentators make every day on cable television and online.
In 2008, Ms. Tantaros could expect a phone call from an irritated Romney adviser if she made critical comments about him. But now, the silence is noticeable, she said….
Offering a possible explanation for the silence, she said, “He and his staff believe we’ll eventually fall in line.”
So, How’s that Compromise Working Out?
Not too good! —
President Obama’s net approval rating among Catholic voters is down to minus-19 percent in the latest Rasmussen polling. Among Catholics, Obama’s approval rating is now 40 percent, while his disapproval rating is 59 percent.
Exit polling from the 2008 election showed that Catholics supported Obama by a margin of 9 percentage points (54 to 45 percent). So Catholics’ support for Obama has swung 28 points against him (from +9 points to minus-19 points) since the day he was elected. (In 2008, 27 percent of all voters were Catholic.)
In The US Territories Just A Few Hundred Voters Pick More Delegates Than 37 U.S. States
The five territories wield no fewer than 50 delegates at the national convention, more than 37 US states, but how many people are those delegates actually representing?
Not very many. Here are the voting results for the 2008 nominationcontest…
N.B.: This should be read to mean the five territories pick more delegates than any one of the 37 states, not more delegates than all 37 states collectively.
So Who’s the Dummy?
Dana Milbank of the WaPo observes that Mitt Romney reminds him of another amazingly lifelike robo-candidate:
To see Romney, in his Gap jeans, laughing awkwardly at his own jokes and making patently disingenuous claims, brings back all those bad memories of 2000: “Love Story.” Inventing the Internet. Earth tones. Three-button suits. The alpha male in cowboy boots. The iced-tea defense. The Buddhist temple. The sighing during the debate.
It’s familiar, as well, to Michael Feldman, a longtime Gore aide who watched his boss get undone by the inauthentic label. “When an impression like that hardens, you’re communicating into a stiff wind,” he told me. “These caricatures can form impressions that are really hard to turn around.”
Three Cheers for Citizens United!
It was a great victory for the First Amendment:
Media corporations … which spend huge sums of money talking about politicians, just can’t stand it when non-media corporations get to do the same thing.
And lest anyone forget, that is precisely what the case was about. In 2008 a nonprofit, incorporated group called Citizens United wanted to distribute a documentary about Hillary Clinton. But doing so during an election campaign would have violated a 2002 campaign-finance law prohibiting “electioneering communications” within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election.
A law that forbids American citizens to urge the election or defeat of a political candidate raises some obvious First Amendment concerns. During oral arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that book publishers are corporations. He asked the government’s lawyer if the law could prohibit publishing a book that said, “Vote for X.”
Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said yes — the government: “could prohibit the publication of the book.” Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 and former head of Common Cause, later agreed that “a campaign document in the form of a book can be banned.”
To its credit, the ACLU did not side with liberal censors. The provision in dispute is “facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” the ACLU said, “because it permits the suppression of core political speech.” And that is just how the high court ruled. …
