It’s Santorum’s turn to be the non-Romney

The New Neo Posted on by

This year’s Republican voters remind me of a guy who’s been going out with a girl for a long time, maybe even living with her. He’s being pressured to marry her, but he knows in his heart she’s not the one he wants.

He can’t leave her, though, because there’s just something about her. Maybe it’s that she’s the kind of girl his mom would like. And anyway, the other girls he’s meeting when he sneaks off to bars and clubs (or wherever he may find them) aren’t much more to his liking. Nobody he’s meeting is really the girl of his dreams, who’s a combination of Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie with a bit of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe thrown in for nostalgia’s sake.

He keeps leaving his girlfriend for a new flame and then keeps coming back. But he’s not happy about any of it, and maybe some day he’ll leave for good.

It’s not the first time the voters have flirted with Santorum; the first time was at the very beginning, in Iowa. Yesterday’s results are somewhat difficult to evaluate, because the Missouri primary yielded no delegates, and the turnout was accordingly low and only Santorum did much campaigning. Colorado and Minnesota were caucuses, which are always atypical of the voters as a whole and favor conservatives. So, what’s it all about, Alfie?

I think it does indicate something, and that something is the continuing dissatisfaction with Mitt Romney. He’s not coalesced as a solid frontrunner, and the real question is whether he ever will. Another related question is whether one of the other candidates will drop out (it won’t be Paul); if so, when; and to whom will his voters then turn their lonely eyes? This could make a whole lot of difference.

And by the way, don’t start saying, “See, you were wrong! Romney was never the inevitable nominee.” You’ve read that in other places, but you never read it here because I never said it, never thought it, and still do not think it.

[NOTE: John Fund wonders why Romney did worse in these states in 2012 than in 2008:

Mitt Romney’s campaign will have lots of explanations for their man’s poor showing tonight. Yes, Colorado and Minnesota were caucus states ”” the turnout is skewed in such contests toward a more conservative electorate. Yes, Missouri’s primary was a “beauty contest” and didn’t award any delegates.

But what Romney won’t be able to explain away is just how much more poorly he did tonight in those three states than in his 2008 showing ”” when he lost the GOP nomination for president.

But actually, there’s a pretty simple explanation—if Fund could only take a good look at his second sentence, and then recall one salient fact about 2008 that he has apparently forgotten: Romney was considered a conservative alternative to McCain in 2008. To take just one of many, many examples, here’s what Rick Santorum (yes, that Rick Santorum) had to say about Romney when he endorsed Mitt back in 2008:

The former senator from Pennsylvania has recently criticized Romney in his TV ads for being too liberal, a far cry from the press release he sent out during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries calling Romney the “clear conservative candidate” who will “stand up for the conservative principles we hold dear.”

It’s all relative; this year Santorum is the conservative alternative to Romney. So what is so puzzling about him doing better than Romney in caucus states that favor conservatives?

Note also that in 2008 John McCain won the nomination despite doing rather poorly in these three states. That doesn’t mean that Romney will follow suit, of course. But it indicates that yesterday’s losses won’t necessarily hold him back from doing so.]

Famous Blue Raincoat: the provenance of a familiar tune

The New Neo Posted on by

My favorite YouTube activity these days seems to involve watching singer/songwriters morph from young to old almost instantaneously. There’s something both creepy and magical about getting into the YouTube time machine and seeing ten different live versions of a song spanning thirty years or more, something that simply could not have been done in the privacy of one’s home just a few short years ago.

My last subject was Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam. Today it’s Leonard Cohen, and most particularly his “Famous Blue Raincoat,” one of the most bittersweet songs ever, and also one of the most quietly beautiful. Here’s the handsome (at least to me), black-haired, youngish (well, he’s 45; sure sounds young now) Cohen with what has long been his standard touring company—two female vocalists with hypnotic higher tones to set off his lugubrious lows, and a jazzy backup band with a sax and a mandolin:

About thirty years later, Cohen’s face is lined and droopy (“Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older”), the lights bluer, the backup singers more glam—although, amazingly enough, Sharon Robinson (the black singer on both videos) has returned looking like only a couple of years have passed for her. Sax and mandolin are still around, although the guys playing them have been swapped out for different models. Cohen’s voice has deepened and he sounds even more weary here (and not just world-weary, either, as before). He can be forgiven, though; the man’s in his mid-70s now:

If the melody sounds familiar, it may be because you’ve heard the song before. Or it may be because you’ve heard this one, which was written later, and features a musical phrase that is virtually the same:

“Somebody sued them on my behalf ”¦ and they did settle,” even though, [Cohen] laughs, “they hired a musicologist who said that particular motif was in the public domain and, in fact, could be traced back as far as Schubert.”

No wonder; it’s a pretty nice motif:

But that’s not the end of it. Granted, the following may not be Schubert. But it’s the same dang melody, “suddenly shiny and new”:

New judicial ruling on gay marriage ban

The New Neo Posted on by

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld, by a vote of 2-1, a judge’s lower court ruling that California’s “Proposition 8 ”” a response to an earlier state court decision that legalized gay marriage ”” was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians.”

The case will almost undoubtedly end up in the Supreme Court, so these rulings are in the nature of preliminary skirmishes on a front in a larger war. The current ruling was very narrow, and applies only to a right that had been given (gay marriage in California, which was judicially given) and then taken away (by the people, in voting for Proposition 8).

So it’s not just a fight between advocates of gay marriage and those who oppose it. It’s also a fight between the judicial branch and the people’s ability to legislate—or, rather, to overrule the ability of the judiciary branch to make decisions for it. In other words, a power struggle.

[NOTE: I wrote about previous rulings in the case here, here, and here.]

Spambot (and word) of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Flighty bot:

That is because I am a bit of a fliberttygibbet

Although spelled incorrectly, this is charming to me because it reminds me that there exists a delightful word, “flibbertigibbet,” which I’ve neither heard nor thought of in many a long decade. Thank you, spambot o’ mine!

Here’s the word’s origin and usage:

Flibbertigibbet is a Middle English word referring to a flighty or whimsical person, usually a young woman. In modern use, it is used as a slang term, especially in Yorkshire, for a gossipy or overly talkative person. Its origin is in a meaningless representation of chattering. It does not always apply to females, however; it has also been used to describe Jiminy Cricket due to his whimsical, chatty nature.

This word also has a historical use as a name for a fiend, devil or spirit…

We are reminded, also, that it appears in the lyrics of the song “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria,” from the musical “The Sound of Music:” “A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!”

Obama and Romney and the latest polls

The New Neo Posted on by

Today there’s lots of news about the fact that a new Obama poll shows Obama up somewhat.

No surprise, really. Lately the focus has been away from Obama, which almost always raises his standing in the eyes of the public. The economy appears to be better, as well (perhaps it only “appears,” but that matters, too). And most importantly, the focus has been on the Republican candidates’ bitter fights and the charges each has leveled against the other. If this didn’t raise Obama’s polls and lower theirs—especially Romney, whose work with Bain, etc., was previously less well-known—I’d be shocked.

The polls were conducted Wednesday through Saturday, right after the Florida primary and the President’s State of the Union message. Could a contrast between nasty squabbling and presidential gravitas be any greater?

Right from the start of this election season I’ve been thinking that Obama’s chances of re-election are good, and that whomever is nominated on the Republican side will have a tough battle, despite Obama’s weaknesses and the opportunity 2012 presents to beat him. And that would be true, by the way, even if some of my more favored candidates (Paul Ryan, anyone?) had entered the race.

Obama has the advantage not only of his incumbency and the lingering goodwill a lot of people still seem to feel for him, and that any good news in the economy will be attributed to him, but of the fact that he’s a clever campaigner who knows how to fight dirty while seeming to keep himself above the fray.

It’s early yet. Fasten your seat belts, folks, we’re in for the usual bumpy ride.

A trip back in time: Gingrich

The New Neo Posted on by

I find this article from 1995 quite disturbing for what it reveals about Newt Gingrich’s psyche. And by the way, that has nothing to do with whether I like his politics or not. I would find the sort of information disclosed there disturbing even in a candidate I otherwise supported.

Since the article is a PBS Frontline product, you might protest that it’s obviously a liberal hit piece on Gingrich, using the usual “disgruntled employees.” But there sure are an awful lot of them—and the article does a pretty good job explaining why. And many of the worst quotes there are from Gingrich himself. Even more importantly, it seems to me that Gingrich’s psyche and behavior as described in the article is almost perfectly concordant with his utterances and actions during this 2012 campaign.

It’s worth reading the whole thing. Here’s a sampler from it:

“I’m a mythical person,” says Newt, no stranger to revolutions. “I had a period of thinking that I would have been called ‘Newt the McPherson,’ as in Robert the Bruce.” He is referring to his childhood, when he strongly identified with his biological father, Newton McPherson.

“Robert the Bruce,” Newt continues, “is the guy who would not, could not, avoid fighting…He carried the burden of being Scotland…

“It’s not altruism! It’s not altruism!” he proclaimed to The Washington Post in 1985. “I have an enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it…Oh, this is just the beginning of a 20-or-30-year movement. I’ll get credit for it…

Dolores Adamson, Gingrich’s district administrator from 1978 to 1983, remembers, “[Gingrich’s first wife] Jackie put him all the way through school. All the way through the P.h.D…He didn’t work.” Adds Adamson, “Personal funds have never meant anything to him. He’s worse than a six-year-old trying to keep his bank balance…Jackie did that.”

When I ask Marianne [his wife at the time of the article] if she keeps the checkbook for the man determined to balance the nation’s budget, she laughs quietly: “Yes, I do a lot of our finances…I pretty much handle the money.” She acknowledges that at the time of their marriage, in 1981, Newt was in great personal debt, “so we had to work our way out of it,” a feat she says was accomplished only last year [1994]…

Newt Gingrich is hardly the first young politician to exhibit relentlessness or tenacity. But from the beginning there has been an overheated quality to Gingrich’s ambition that has caused remark. It still does. “He’s the man overtaken by his own energy,” says Mary Kahn. “He’s just all over himself. It’s like ‘Take a pill. Calm yourself down.’ If he calmed himself and could be more thoughtful, then perhaps he could be more effective.”

Dot Crews calls Newt “a frenetic psyche.” Frank Gregorsky, who began working for Newt in 1978 while still in college and served as his chief of staff in the early 80s, says, “All of his colleagues have had the rug pulled out from under them enough to know that Newt’s a bright bulb with no dimmer switch. It’s either on or off…either pitch-black or you’re blinded by the light…He can’t modulate or nuance or taper.”…

“Newt read books,” says Eddie Mahe. “He doesn’t do friendship.” …

Unlike Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich cannot easily transmit empathy to the camera or a gathered audience. Like Nixon, he does not easily communicate sympathy, trustworthiness, or compassion. His eyes do not meet the camera. He meets the world with the gaze of an outsider whose attention is inwardly engaged. People willingly give to Newt for quite an extended period of time because they are electrified by his tenacity and vision. But as time passes and they expect their relationship with the man to deepen, it doesn’t. And when he is finished using them, he moves on, discarding former loyalists like so much used ammo. Gingrich routinely dismisses any negative public statements as the work of disgruntled former employees, but the depth of feeling among his former allies is remarkable. “There are no former disgruntled employees,” says Dot Crews. “We’re all just sorry that we ever went to work for him in the first place and that we didn’t get out sooner.”…

Echoes Dolores Adamson, “He would say, ‘You have to understand that I am a think tank, I can save the West, and when I come up with a new idea, we need to move on it immediately.’ We’d have this big project going, and all of a sudden it just faded away. Everybody went into swarms to try and get something accomplished. And then he turned on them and did something else.”…

Of course, there’s also a lot in there about Gingrich’s marriages and sex life, all of it unpleasant. I’ll skip it; it’s not my focus here. But I can’t help but note one very interesting (and prescient) detail, considering that the piece was written in 1995, five years before Gingrich’s divorce from second wife Marianne. After revealing the rather sad fact that, when she first met Gingrich and started her affair with him, Marianne had been involved with another married man whom she ditched for Newt, the author writes—in one of the strangest juxtapositions ever, considering how things have turned out for both women mentioned:

But in Washington there are many demands on the Speaker’s time. Since Newt became a national celebrity, he has no shortage of female admirers –from Callista Bisek, a former aide in Congressman Steve Gunderson’s office who has been a favorite breakfast companion, to the ubiquitous Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, who has become a self-appointed guardian to the newly desirable Newt.

Marianne Gingrich, however, doesn’t see her husband very often.

Here’s another oddly prescient observation, in light of 2012:

One well-known television interviewer recently observed Newt at very close range. “When Gingrich was being made up for his interview, he looked beat, lifeless, exhausted.” Once the interview started, he came to life. “But you know from seeing people that wrung out and still under high pressure, their judgement isn’t great and they can make disastrous decisions,” says the interviewer. “I think Gingrich will inevitably self-destruct.”

[NOTE: If you read the whole thing you may wonder, as I did, what’s up with all these fatherless presidents? Clinton, Obama, and wannabee Gingrich? Either that or fathers who were very much present and larger than life: Bush and Romney.

And almost as soon as I wrote that, I saw that Michael Medved had made the same observation.]

Watch out for this baby

The New Neo Posted on by

I hear he’s a real hustler.

I have no explanation for how this kid can do that. It doesn’t seem to be a trick, either, except for the fact that his father has to get the ball in the right zone in order for the baby to hit it. But there’s no question that the baby’s hand-eye coordination is almost impossibly advanced for his age.

Here’s his nearest competitor. Not in the same league. Although dad’s aim isn’t bad:

Romney and emotional intensity

The New Neo Posted on by

In yesterday’s thread about Romney and the conservative message, commenter “kolnai” had an observation about Romney’s conservatism that I found interesting:

I don’t believe [Romney when espouses conservative thoughts]. But I’m going to vote for him.

So what’s the difference? I’m resigned to his inevitability, if not to him.

Why don’t I believe him? Because, to me, he’s not believable. That’s it. He seems like a cipher, a throughput for weird alien forces and focus groups. I guess that can be an advantage if he winds up like Jonah Goldberg said, a transactional guy. But it doesn’t change my opinion of his conservatism. If he genuinely believes what he says, then he is truly a singular creature on this big blue ball. I have never in my life seen someone speak as unconvincingly on behalf of his convictions as Romney (if they are his convictions). That, dear friends, is quite a talent indeed.

We’re humans but animals too. And we have animal ways of inferring the content of other people’s minds based on cues. All I can say is that every single cue ”“ with no exceptions I can think of ”“ that I have received from Romney has not just suggested, but screamed with glass-shattering violence that he doesn’t believe a word of what he’s saying. He doesn’t even know how to believe what he’s saying.

How do we decide whether people are believable or not when they are speaking? For the artificial purposes of this discussion, let’s take away consideration of their past actions. Right now, we’re just talking about their words and their affect, and how we evaluate the truth of the first based on the second. It’s very similar to the sort of thing that trial lawyers call a witness’s demeanor, composed of a thousand or more verbal and non-verbal cues regarding emotion.

We all rely on these signals in our day-to-day existence. I certainly do—and I will continue to do so, despite the fact that research has shown that the vast majority of people are quite bad at spotting liars. Unfortunately, it’s an iffier proposition than we like to think it is.

But back to Romney. I have a different impression of him than kolnai does, although I understand what kolnai’s talking about. I happen to believe Romney (at least, as much as I believe almost all politicians, and maybe a bit more than some). I “read” his acknowledged emotional stiffness as just that: emotional stiffness. He seems earnest to me, and perhaps awkward. But there’s nothing there that I read as dissemblance.

You may disagree. In fact, I fully expect many of you to disagree. That’s okay; judging demeanor is awfully difficult. But while I was researching this post I came across a video that I’d like you to watch. The following conversation took place in 1994, during Romney’s debates with Ted Kennedy for his Senate position. Please take note that, in the very liberal state of Massachusetts, Romney appears to be articulating some conservative thoughts here, and he does it with what I would submit is both sincerity and intensity. Plus, what reason would he have to say these things if he didn’t believe them, since he was running in ultra-liberal Massachusetts?

I’m curious to hear your opinion:

[NOTE: (I realize that now I’m talking about acts rather than words—that’s why this is in a note rather than the body of the post.)

For those of you who might say that Romneycare violated some of these things that Romney says in the video that he’s against, I want to point out that when Romneycare was passed in 2006, twelve years after his debate with Kennedy, Romney was quite consistent in being against those same things; the legislature inserted some of them anyway over his strong objections (and/or his veto; the vote was almost unanimous):

Romney…hated the employer mandate and vetoed the provision that employers of 11 or more offer coverage or face a penalty of $295 per employee. This veto, and seven others aimed at less controversial aspects of the law, were easily overridden by the Democratic Legislature.

Romney considers the Massachusetts plan needlessly gold-plated; he would have pushed for a much cheaper version that allowed minimal coverage options.

He believes the Massachusetts health connector, the insurance exchange which the Obama plan would emulate, has created an excessive regulatory burden, imposing too many requirements on what commercial insurers must offer for a policy to qualify as “minimum creditable coverage’’ under the law. His proposal, to require only a bare-bones policy that covered hospitalization and catastrophic illness, was rejected by the Legislature…

Romney also wanted a way for those of means to opt out of the mandate by posting a bond ”” essentially a promise to pay for future uninsured health care costs. Critics called it a “fig leaf’’ and Romney concedes that few would have taken advantage ”” just as only a handful choose a similar option to post a $10,000 bond rather than buy compulsory auto insurance in Massachusetts.

But the principle mattered to him, and the failure of the Legislature to agree still rankles…

And as for those on the economic margin, Romney thought that no one, however poor, should get insurance for no cost at all. He advocated a small premium, even a few dollars a month, for the neediest, but the Legislature balked.

Today, under the Commonwealth Care program, about half of the 160,000 receiving subsidized coverage pay no premium because their incomes fall below certain federal poverty level guidelines.

“When you give something away that is entirely free, people don’t value it as much as they should,’’ Romney said.]

Gingrich: no more Mr. Nice Guy

The New Neo Posted on by

Even though I keep vowing to lay off Gingrich, he keeps tempting me and pulling me back in. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

The title above is somewhat ironic, of course. But Gingrich has made periodic vows to be positive, although those vows seem to be about as sacred as his marriage vows were in the past.

But I have to say that this repels me even further from the man:

In some of his harshest words yet, Newt Gingrich explained Friday why he didn’t call rival Mitt Romney after the former Massachusetts pulled a decisive Florida primary victory earlier in the week.

Pointing to Romney’s post-South Carolina campaign strategy, which turned noticeably negative against the former House speaker, Gingrich said Romney didn’t earn any kudos.

“They outspent me five to one to quote destroy Newt Gingrich?” Gingrich said in an interview on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” “You know, I think that doesn’t deserve congratulations. I think that’s reprehensible, I think it’s dishonest, and I think it’s shameful.”

I know this isn’t what Gingrich meant, but the way the sentence is constructed it sounds like he thinks the reprehensible, dishonest, and shameful thing is that Romney outspent him.

Among other things, Gingrich is a whiner. And he doesn’t seem to understand how statements and actions like this reveal that for all to see.

And the positive Newt is nowhere in sight.

Post-February 2nd reflections: how long does Bill Murray spend in Ground Hog Day?

The New Neo Posted on by

One blogger’s answer: “8 years, 8 months, and 16 days.”

Director Harold Ramis replies:

I think the 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and alloting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years”¦ People [like the blogger] have way too much time on their hands. They could be learning to play the piano or speak French or sculpt.

After the election, Harold, after the election.

But I’ll go on record as saying that I always felt it was a time way longer than a human life. First, the character had to master his depression and rage and acting out before he could even begin to learn any skills at all. Then, I always figured the skills we actually see in the movie are just the tip of the iceberg of what he knows. In addition, he’s memorized the movements of everyone in town on that day, and also everything about the Rita character’s likes and dislikes and history.

Maybe not infinity. But definitely a long, long, super-long time.