Category Archives: ethos

Self-Cancelling Romney

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Mitt Romney has covered his tracks so many times in this campaign that he’s left  no footprints in the sand whatsoever. Nobody knows how he will govern, what policies he will pursue, or even what he might say tomorrow. He may be the first entirely self-cancelling Presidential candidate. His demagoguery has turned into a case of self-erasure.

The self-cancellation goes beyond mere flip-flopping, hedging  or prevaricating, into the realm of Alice-In-Wonderland absurdity. For example, his “$5 billion tax cut” plan is said to be “revenue neutral,” but this benign-sounding “neutrality” relies on a complex two step: cut taxes 20 percent across the board (on top of renewing the 35% Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent), but then “neutralize” those tax cuts by eliminating certain (unspecified) deductions and loopholes. When pressed as to the details of these proposed deduction and loophole eliminations , Romney says “take any number you like–say 15%” (or “say 20%”). He really seems to just be making this stuff up as he goes along. Take any position you want.

What he hasn’t explained is why bother with any of this at all if it is “revenue neutral?” What will be gained in the process? Again, when pressed, he offers yet another shimmering chimera that melts away upon further inspection: good old “job-creation.” He of course never bothers to go much into cause and effect, nor explains why old-school Keynesian stimulus won’t be a much easier way to create jobs.

The same process of self-cancellation occurs in his ever-shifting foreign policy positions. Pivoting from bellicosity to peace and reconciliation makes him sound like he agrees with all of Obama’s foreign policies. Again, why bother to change if the change won’t amount to any real difference? Running as an “severe conservative” for two years, and then suddenly, seeing the campaign slip away, Romney abandoned the hard-edged right and started talking up the role of government, the importance of bi-partisanship, the need to compromise in foreign policy, etc.  But–as all abusive personalities realize, too late–menace trumps reconciliation emotionally. The threat lingers on, not mitigated by empty words of apology or placation.The Afghans, Russians, Syrians, Palestinians and Iranians will no doubt lose sleep starting Nov. 7 if Mitt is elected because they have no idea where he’ll come down on questions of hard-edged, confrontational American force vs. American “soft” persuasion. He’s either irrational, diabolic or confused, but which is it? His contradictory policy statements disappear into  a black hole of self-abnegation as he veers from reckless to feckless.

And then there’s everything else:
  • He was for ObamaCare before he was against it. But then he’s sort of for parts of it again.
  • He was all for voucherizing and privatizing (and thus effectively ending) Medicare, but now he’s sort of for keeping part of it, for now.
  • He was all for eliminating FEMA by turning it over to the states or privatizing it, but now he sees FEMA as a legitimate government function.
  • He was against Roe v. Wade but now says he has no plans to end it.
And so on, ad infinitum. There is seemingly no public issue of consequence that he doesn’t have two or three positions on. Mitt’s like one of those impossible natural wonders, like a gravity-defying house or a “cave of wonder.” He is a walking void, to be avoided.

Rockefeller Romney or Ayn Rand Romney?

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Mitt Romney has, in the space of a single week, shifted his positions on tax cuts, the social safety net, Medicare coverage, abortion rights & women’s right to choose. The Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan Romney has been sublimated to the Rockefeller Romney. It will be fascinating in tonight’s VP debate to see which of the dueling Romneys Paul Ryan chooses to channel.

Interestingly enough, Ryan himself hasn’t always been permitted to “play himself” during the campaign as Republicans desperately try to soften his hard-edged economic austerity, Social Darwinism, puritanical approaches to birth control and sexuality, and pandering to the rich.  And when he tries to play the “boy genius” role, he gets especially truculent when challenged. The numbers wonk has little patience for explication–he prefers declaratives.

Being two-faced, Romney and Ryan  always want to have things both ways.

Let the Chess Game Begin: Rope-A-Dope

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If rhetoric is akin to a chess game, with strategies, maneuvers, feints and sudden attacks (sort of like boxing), then Wednesday’s first debate was just the opening gambit. Neither candidate performed his expected role: Romney became a born-again moderate redistributionist, while Obama retreated to the chilly Olympian heights of the Presidency, giving all the correct answers but conveying none of the necessary emotions. So everyone says Obama lost the rhetorical battle (which is always to persuade your audience by connecting to them both emotionally and substantively), though if you read the transcript he pretty much countered everything Romney claims. It just didn’t feel that way.

In Aristotelian terms (Rhetoric, 1356 A), oratorical persuasion relies on three elements: ethos (establishing an image or identity), logos (the appeal to reason through argumentation), and pathos (arousing the audience’s passion).  All three have to work in tandem. On Wednesday, Obama failed at pathos, but Romney is now even more vulnerable on ethos and logos because his identity is ever-shifting and his arguments don’t add up.

Romney’s is now totally exposed as Etch-A-Sketch Man, Hollow Man. The rhetorical key is that Obama did not surrender his authenticity or authority, and did not shape-shift. His identity, gravitas, and dignity remained firmly intact. He banked his fires and  stayed within himself because he’s the one with a core and a consistency. He still has authority because he is the author of himself. He just needs sharper focus and cogency, as Jonathan Alter put it to Rachel Maddow.

He needs presence, not just reporting as present.

The Town Hall format of the next encounter should prove more conducive to openly challenging Romney face to face. Obama can try a little more of that scoffing, mocking tone he clearly excels at when he allows himself off the leash. (He did it a bit on Wednesday, like when he said that Romney’s new campaign slogan should be “never mind.”)

And let’s also hope for the return of Wednesday’s no-show memes that play so well for Obama–practically every women’s issue, “the 47%”, immigration, labor rights, Republican obstructionism, Bain, Romney’s offshore tax shelters, etc. Obama is playing the long game and betting that Romney will not wear well over the next few weeks as his evasions, hypocrisies and contradictions become transparent. Like Warren Buffet says, you don’t know who’s not wearing trunks until the tide goes out.