Media Criticism

I have to apologize for not posting in the last few days. I wanted to take in the collective experience of the Florida primary and the debates on both sides before posting. I watched the CNN Republican debate in the Ronald Reagan Library with great interest, mostly to see how ugly it would get between John McCain and Mitt Romney. I also tried keeping track of Ronald Reagan references but I ran out of fingers.

I think that John McCain has the same problem in debates as George W. Bush had in 2000 and 2004. Bush smirked and smiled his way through the debates while his opponents earnestly wrote notes and listened attentively. I am not sure if sitting down in front of Reagan’s Air Force One made McCain more prone to smiling at his new momentum but the Arizona senator was smirking his way through the entire debate. I cannot believe that I am siding with Mitt Romney in this debate but I thought he seemed more presidential, for whatever that is worth.

I don’t want to get into my problems with CNN’s debate rules notably the lack of strict time restrictions (check out my next entry on the Democratic debates). My bigger problem was the utter lack of coverage for Governor Mike Huckabee and Representative Ron Paul. The stage was not that big and there were only four candidates to speak with over 90 minutes. I found the fact that Ron Paul got the biggest applause of the night for his anti-war stance to be heartening considering the Republican audience.

I am not a big fan of Mitt Romney for a number of reasons. He is not atypical in his desire to stick to a script though his script seems to vary little from state to state. Political observers are beginning to see Romney’s appeal in Michigan where the candidate is breaking loose from his outsider script and going with speeches based on reforming the economy. I may not like Romney and I may not be a Republican Party operative but I have a few pieces of advice that he can take for free.

Governor Romney needs to stop with the Olympics talk. His incessant references to his role in “saving�? the Salt Lake City Olympics do not impress anyone. I think he needs to highlight specific instances in his “25 years in business�? to highlight how he would help the American economy.

The Olympics references lead to another problem for Romney. When observers hear Romney say that he won“silver�? in New Hampshire and Iowa, he sounds like someone who accepts second best. I understand that a silver medal in the Olympics is impressive but it means nothing in American politics, much less the diluted Republican primaries. Primary voters want someone who is going to fight for THEIR votes, whether it is in Wyoming or California. Romney is not the only one guilty of manipulating expectations through the media but his rhetoric is the most annoying.

Mitt Romney also needs to stop peppering negative references to his opponents in his speeches. It is bad enough that Romney criticizes the frontrunner in every state he is campaigning in but he also attacks Democrats like Barack Obama who he may never face. It is popular to go after Hillary Clinton in the Republican Party but it won’t lead to any votes.

My final point for Mitt Romney is to stay in the race beyond Michigan. The governor has pulled out funding from South Carolina, Nevada and other places to put on a full-court press in Michigan. There are 23 states holding primaries on February 5th, many with economic problems on the same scale as Michigan. If Romney manages to win in Michigan, he can parlay a mandate for economic change (“change�? being this cycle’s “flip-flopper�?) into a few victories on this crucial day. The Republican race won’t end on February 5th but there will be a few viable candidates for the remainder of the primary season. If Romney can cut out the Olympics talk, the trash talking of his opponents and the strict adherence to an outsider message, he will be a contender in a long primary race.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a much anticipated speech on Thursday regarding the role of his Mormonism in a potential Romney White House. Romney gave a well-orchestrated speech that did not delve into the specifics of the Mormon belief system while trying to reassure voters that his beliefs would not influence his decision making. There are a number of reasons his speech on Thursday will be totally irrelevant in the long run, not the least of which is the fact that Romney did not speak about his actual beliefs in any detail.

The fact that Romney did not go into the specifics of Mormonism is not as troubling as Romney’s judgment about his role in the Republican Party. Romney is not an overwhelming favorite nor is he a lone front runner in the primary season. The fact that Mitt Romney felt the need to give this speech presumes a stature in the Republican Party that does not necessarily exist. This speech will be long forgotten if Romney fails in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Romney’s speech did not reveal anything to the American public that they could not have gathered from the primary debates. Romney peppered in references about fighting terrorism and other right wing values that had nothing to do with Mormonism. This speech was just another stump speech without redeeming value for Romney’s campaign, the future of the Republican Party and the status of religion in politics. I only hope that Iowans and Granite State voters are smart enough not to be swayed by the media hype around this speech.

Romney’s JFK moment was just another campaign appearance in a bloated, money-driven campaign by a man who flip-flops more than anyone in politics. I don’t care how significant the media says this speech was; the election coverage hypes everything out of proportion to fill time until actual votes are cast.

The religious conservatism that arose in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and in the 1994 Republican revolution promised an increasing role for leaders like Gary Bauer. Bauer failed in 2000 to gain the Republican Party nomination and has focused his attention on affecting change on the party from the outside. This past weekend’s Values Voter Summit gave evangelicals an opportunity to listen to speeches by Republican candidates while leaders of the Holier-Than-Thou club met in private in their version of the smoke filled room.

The conference did not seem to accomplish anything that had not already been determined through televised debates and live events. Rudy Giuliani is a secular devil, Fred Thompson is a conservative, Mitt Romney is religious but the wrong kind of religious and so forth. The New York Times article discussing the Values Voter Summit mentions support among the brain trust for Governor Mike Huckabee which makes sense if value voters are solely concerned about their values.

One reason this type of conference does not work is that Christian conservatives are becoming increasingly irrelevant in politics. The ties of religious conservatives to President Bush at every step of his administration have been disastrous. American voters are worried about those stupid secular concerns like Social Security, health insurance and international affairs that diehard evangelicals are only loosely concerned with. The concentration of the eyes of the faithful toward what is wrong with American politics including the potential evils of two New York politicians gaining party nominations shows that evangelicals are guilty of politics as usual. Americans need to blend the good parts of their religious faith like justice and compassion with their political concerns when they vote for president.

This title is fairly melodramatic but after writing my entry yesterday on Senator Hillary Clinton gaining the lead in the Des Moines Register poll Sunday, I noticed an article discussing Mitt Romney’s polling numbers in the Hawkeye State. Romney won the meaningless Iowa straw poll, has the good looks and charms to win over menopausal voters and seems to have one thing working for him: the Republicans don’t know what they are doing at this point.

While Romney’s ridiculous grin and tough guy talk seem to win over some voters in Iowa, the national polls indicate otherwise. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani maintains a lead over other candidates on a national level while Romney seems content to weight out the conservative backlash against Giuliani. Republicans and independents that plan on voting for Republicans in upcoming primaries need to look at national numbers when considering the value of their vote.

Giuliani may be questionable in the eyes of conservatives when it comes to homosexuality and abortion but that is not the calculation voters need to make. The pulley system of American politics ensures that both parties will nominate a moderate that looks evil to the opposition party but won’t really do that much for America. This system failed in 2000 and 2004 (I guess the pulleys were off their tracks) but both parties need this election badly. The Democrats need to push their mandate further while Republicans need to get past the failures of the Bush Administration and reclaim conservatism.

The X factor in this election is Fred Thompson. Thompson may not be gaining traction in the meaningless polls mentioned above but he is bringing in dollars. He stands as a conservative pillar among moderates and flip-floppers and I have a feeling many conservatives uneasy about Giuliani for President or a landslide for Hillary Clinton may flock to him. He has everything Ronald Reagan had: a penchant for blindly accepting conservative values and presence on camera.