Mitt Romney: Winning With a Whimper

This week voters went to the polls in five American states in an effort to select the Republican Party candidate for the presidency of the United States. In case anyone is uncertain, it will be a moderate Mormon from Massachusetts. One of those states was New York, one of the most important states in the nation politically, socially, culturally and electorally, but did anyone notice? The lack of coverage this event has received is an indication that the Republican race is effectively over and threatens to end with a whimper rather than a bang.

That’s both good and bad news for the Republican Party: Good news since it means that they will finally be able to coalesce around a single candidate, but bad news as the lack of excitement threatens to reduce media coverage and whatever public interest there was in the story or in their candidate.

Until recently, the April 24 primaries had promised to be a showdown between Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner and his closest rival, Rick Santorum in what would almost certainly have been a knockout for Romney had he defeated former Senator Santorum in his home state of Pennsylvania.  However, the former senator chose to throw in the sweater-vest just days after promising not to disenfranchise the remaining 50% of U.S. states that had yet to hold primaries or caucuses. Clearly Santorum elected to get out ahead of the vote and before a potentially devastating defeat in his home state.

As a result, Mitt Romney swept the board in Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island and in Pennsylvania, securing between 56-67% of the vote. Ron Paul came in second in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island, whilst Santorum secured second place in Pennsylvania despite having suspended his campaign. The big looser was the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich had campaigned hard in Delaware, although how this fit with his previously declared ‘Southern Strategy’ is a mystery at this point. Delaware proved to be the only state where Gingrich received more than 13% of the vote, as he came third in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island and a dismal fourth in Pennsylvania. In a week when it was reported that his Secret Service detail alone is costing a reported $40,000 a day even Newt could no longer justify his continued ego-trip and promptly announced the suspension of his campaign, effective May 1. No doubt he is waiting for some cheques to clear.

So after months of campaigning, what have Romney’s competitors achieved other than a short-term boost to the sweater vest-manufacturing sector? Santorum has, unexpectedly perhaps, emerged as a national candidate. This will help erase memories of his crushing defeat in his 2006 bid for re-election that he lost by over 700,000 votes, receiving only 41% of the vote to his opponents 59%, the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent senator in 26 years. A future career as a Fox News Contributor may be his just reward.

Santorum, of course, emerged as the true winner of the Iowa Caucuses, and won 11 of the first 25 states to vote. The shockingly antiquated voting methods adopted in Iowa must surely be looked at in light of this. Were it not for this he could, and I stress could, have developed the momentum leading into New Hampshire that could have kept him in the race today. In 2000, the voting methods in Florida highlighted the antiquated methods used to elect the most powerful office in the world. Twelve years later, it seems, little has improved.

Importantly, Santorum succeeded in pulling Romney to the right, keeping him honest, perhaps, but honest to whom? Honest to Conservative values? Barely. Honest to Romney's convictions? Far from it.  It is apparent that Romney has little in common with mainstream Republican sentiment, belief or tradition. No one gets elected Governor of Massachusetts by espousing Conservative values that would be embraced in the heartland. He is, it would seem, the epitome of a RINO: Republican in Name Only.

By forcing Romney to challenge him for the traditional Republican vote Santorum may well have done more harm than good for the eventual Republican nominee heading into the general election against Obama. Romney’s campaign has already stated that they intend to say one thing in the Primaries and then essentially re-set these policies for the general election, giving rise to the allegation of being an ‘Etch-a-Sketch’ candidate, prepared to say or do anything and utterly unconcerned with investing in a set of irreversible policies.

Such statements and lack of philosophical commitment to a cause will be taken apart by the Obama campaign as the election heads into the autumn and the knives are sharpened on all sides.  The president has spoken this week of not having been raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, a non-too subtle reminder of Romney’s great wealth and the divisions that clearly exist in the United States between those who have and those who do not. The White House has clearly decided which side it is going to campaign on this year, irrespective of Obamas’ own personal wealth.

With issues of race, international tensions in the Gulf and an economy that is still sluggish at best, this should be one of the most contentious and closely run presidential elections in living memory. It would be all the more so if the Republican Party had a candidate that could appeal to independents, the mainstream party faithful and Tea Party activists. In Mitt Romney, they do not and this fact alone could well lead to the re-election of Barack Obama, by default rather than by adulation.

Reflections on 2012's Super Tuesday

This GOP primary season has becoming a variant on the Wizard of Oz; Romney lacks a Soul, Santorum has too big a Heart, Gingrich has too large an Ego and Paul lacks a Prayer.

Romney’s victories in six out of ten states last night signified a triumph of money and organisation over ideology and passion. Romney simply had more money and a better ground team to organise victory in the states he had to win, as well as in states that he could have afforded to lose and yet won anyway, such as Alaska. Despite his victories Romney is singularly failing to win the hearts and minds of voters. His will therefore be an autocratic victory at best, lacking in Soul. He will be the nominee but no one will ever love him.

In contrast, Rick Santorum is loved by his supporters, but he can’t organise them sufficiently. He was ahead in several key states that he eventually lost last night. This is the weakness in his entire campaign: Sanatorium appears to have the heart of the voters but this is insufficient to win the nomination. His story is the opposite of Romney; all heart and passion but lacking the funds and organization to secure the nomination.

Newt Gingrich won his home state of Georgia, which was no more of a surprise than Massachusetts voting heavily for its former governor, Mitt Romney. The dilemma for Gingrich is what to do now? His Nixon-inspired Southern strategy has failed to deliver him the much-needed victories he needed to offset the heavy defeats he suffered in the North, East and West. If nothing else, his defeat in Tennessee last night proved his consistency: He is unpopular EVERYWHERE.

Ron Paul is still in the race and continues to pick up an occasional delegate, but like Gingrich, all he is doing now is splitting the anti-Romney vote. Like Ralph Nader in 2000, his tiny percentage of the vote could serve to deliver up the exact opposite of what his supporters would most want. Just as Nader helped enable a Bush presidency in Florida, so too could Paul guarantee a Romney nomination.

So have we learned anything from Super Tuesday? Arguably not. We already knew that Romney was very well financed, well organised and certain to win his home state of Massachusetts and by extension, regional states such as Vermont. We knew that Rick Santorum has the passionate support of those Republicans who are more conservative and that he would win a state or two. We also knew that Gingrich would lament the temerity of his opponents to campaign against him, talk about his battle against the Washington insiders and make the most out of any victory he could lay claim to.

Gingrich claims to be staying in the race and looking to benefit from the forthcoming southern states, but so far he has lost in Florida and Tennessee and has only won 2 states; his home state of Georgia and neighbouring South Carolina. His continued presence on the ballot serves only to massage his inflated ego and to split the anti-Romney vote, ironically ensuring that Romney will almost certainly receive the nomination.

What we also knew before a vote had been cast is that this is probably all in vain. With his approval on the rise, unemployment figures declining, a potentially difficult speech at AIPAC and meting with Netanyahu handled adroitly, President Obama demonstrated this week that he is a force to be reckoned with who will not go quietly into the night. At this rate, unless the GOP comes up with a Game Changer, the President will be smiling all the way to the ballot in November…

Murdoch & the Politics of Revenge

Over the past several weeks, the media has gleefully engaged in its favourite game of reporting on itself and the comings and goings at News International, presided over by everyone’s favourite new bad guy, Rupert Murdoch. For a generation, Murdoch has presided over an ever-increasing stable of media outlets, to a point whereby he appears to own every single level of output; newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, film studios, television networks. Murdoch has the ability to make a star over night through his many companies. He can print an article, turn it into a book, review it in his newspapers, have it discussed on his TV shows, turn it into a movie at Twentieth Century Fox, have it reviewed across his platforms, sold on demand on his TV platforms etc…

It has been clear for many years, however, that Murdoch didn’t just own things, but people as well. Most worryingly, he appeared to own politicians. Not in the old fashioned way of course, no one is suggesting bribery. But there was a sense of fear, of dread, of not wanting to have him supporting your opponent. Rightfully or not, the Murdoch press gleefully claimed credit for the 1992 Conservative Party victory, claiming “It was the Sun What Won It!” having previously advised its readers that following a potential victory for Neil Kinnock, the last person to leave the country should turn the light off. Theparty that carried the Murdoch press had an uncanny habit of winning general elections in the UK. Tony Blair realised this and flew half way around the world to court his support.What is fascinating is the degree to which those politicians who had previously knelt at the Court of King Rupert are now fleeing in droves, lining up to attack the journalistic practices of the man who had been feared for so long.

The Prime Minster has adopted a balanced view on this, recognising and conceding that both parties had been too cosy for too long with the Murdoch press and it was revealing that a semblance of cross party unity on the issue was rocked only by the typically adversarial and hypocritical tone struck by Gordon Brown’s overblown address to Parliament, which did much to remind us why he is no longer a resident in Downing Street. His flawed and self-pitying attempts to reach the moral high ground have actually done much to assist Murdoch and his Labour Party colleagues appear to have recognised this.

In all of this is the politics of revenge. For decades Murdoch has been able to control the debate, manipulate politicians and the tone of political debate. Now parliamentarians are scenting blood and are rounding on the Dark Lord. It is likely that they are being premature, for if Murdoch has proved anything over the years, it is his ability to survive. The News of the World may have gone, but does anyone not think that it will be back in its new guise, The Sun on Sunday, at some point in the new year? For their own sakes, they had better be right about their assessment of Murdoch’s inability to survive this storm for if they are wrong, then the season of revenge may yet have another turn to take.

Forget what you think you know about the current furore surrounding Rupert Murdoch and News International. If you imagine that what is transpiring here in the UK will bring down News International or its illustrious leader, think again. What has started here will not conclude the story, or come anywhere close to it. The real damage will likely be done 3,000 miles away, across a vast expanse of water, on Capitol Hill.

You may recall that the story was slow to build in the UK. As long as phone hacking was confined to a few overpaid celebrities, more famous for being famous than anything else there was not too much to feel sorrow or anger over. What caused the great sea change? As soon as it was revealed that the organisation had acquired access to the phone messages of a murdered schoolgirl and of fallen members of the armed services. Once that occurred, all hell broke loose.

Well, America and Britain are not the same, as the Washington Post reminds us. In this case the Americans are not messing about with the preamble. What will prove to be the undoing of the Murdoch empire will be any evidence that can be found that connects his business dealings to similar activity regarding fallen US armed service personnel, or worse still, victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The events of 9/11 remain an open wound in the United States; open for exploitation by politicians and the media. If the FBI establishes a link here, then what has transpired here in London this past week, will be but a sideshow to what will occur in the United States. Legal representatives from both the UK and US governments are already in conversation with regard to the situation and possible developments. Politicians are already lining up to call for charges to be filed against Murdoch. Blood is in the water and the feeding frenzy is about to start.

The great danger for Murdoch is that politicians from all walks of life, from all locations and from both sides of the political aisle are lining up to call for hearings and investigations. This is not a partisan issue but rather one on which no politician dare side with Murdoch. That Peter King, the Republican from New York who recently held hearings into the role of Muslims in American society, has refused to do so, speaks volumes. King is also, for the record, a Fox News contributor.

For do not forget that Murdoch’s holdings extend to the formidable Fox News, an organisation that many would love to give a bloody nose. Its critics may well now have the perfect opportunity to deliver this right to the face of the man himself. The network’s repeated efforts to critique its opponents as unpatriotic and lacking in empathy with the military or the victims of 9/11 appears likely to boomerang back on them in a dramatic twist of fate. The very least that this could lead to is the downfall of the Fox News Network. The folks at MSNBC must be loving it.

The scandal also threatens Piers Morgan, Larry King’s replacement on CNN, due to his past ties to the Murdoch Empire. Like Murdoch, Morgan is another foreigner making his way in a land that will not take kindly to them if they are shown to have exploited the great national tragedy in any way.

The United Sates is the land of opportunity, where fortunes and reputations can be made. However, Rupert Murdoch risks discovering that what goes up can also come down. Having rejected his Australian passport in the 1980s to comply with US media ownership laws, Murdoch may well have exposed himself and his family to the full extent of American law if the FBI investigations go forward and if members of Congress decide to hold hearings into the actions of his organisation. The resignation of Rebekah Brooks has left his son and heir apparent, James Murdoch, terribly exposed to the investigations that are sure to be announced in the coming days. Murdoch may well have purchased his citizenship, but he will find that as a foreigner, he will not have been able to purchase himself any good will when times are tough. Americans are rightly loyal to their own and Murdoch may well find this out to his great cost.

Twenty years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s great rival in the UK, Robert Maxwell, disappeared in mysterious circumstances and turned up drowned in the AtlanticOcean at the height of a scandal surrounding his company’s pension fund. Dishonour, ignominy, scandal: How history loves to repeat itself. It appears that, like Maxwell, the very methods that raised the Murdoch family to great wealth and privilege, risk bringing them shame and ignominy on a terrible scale.