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Feb. 8, 2013
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Jewish World Review
April 6, 2012/ 14 Nissan, 5772
Mitt Romney, talking to the press, keeps the press at a distance
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Leave it to Mitt Romney to restrict press access at a newspaper convention.
Just before his speech Wednesday to the American Society of News Editors, word emerged that the Republican presidential front-runner would not allow photographers to get closer than 150 feet while he spoke. The journalists protested, noting that President Obama, speaking to the same group Tuesday in the same ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park, allowed photographers to shoot just a few feet from him — but the Romney campaign rejected the appeal. “I shot the Springsteen concert and I was closer than this,” grumbled one veteran photographer, looking through his 600mm lens, a type more commonly used at football games. The juxtaposition — up-close Obama and stand-back Romney — was an apt beginning to the presidential campaign. By all accounts (except, perhaps, Rick Santorum’s), Romney’s primary wins on Tuesday made his nomination virtually certain, which makes this week the unofficial beginning of the general-election race. Obama’s and Romney’s speeches to the editors’ gathering on successive days gave a preview of their divergent campaign styles. Obama spoke to the group for exactly an hour and was relatively loose, making jokes about the Romney campaign’s Etch a Sketch episode and the moment his own private exchange with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was caught by an open microphone. Romney spoke for half that time, reading a slashing assault on the president from a teleprompter. When he went off script, during the Q&A session after the speech, he kept returning to the needs of corporate America. Asked to critique Obama’s speech, Romney uttered the phrase “I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal just a couple of days ago . . .” Asked why he is polling 18 points behind Obama with women, Romney went on a screed about business reaction to Obamacare, financial regulations, cap-and-trade proposals and labor decisions. “The economy is simply the addition of all the businesses in America,” Romney told the editors — an echo of his earlier claim that “corporations are people.” The performance, though stiff, was certainly not Romney’s worst. For the first time, he could safely turn his attention away from his Republican rivals, allowing him to tear into the president for the bulk of his speech. Obama will “state his true position only after the election is over,” Romney alleged, and he is “setting up a straw man to distract us from his record.” Obama “delayed the recovery and made it anemic,” enacted “the mother of all earmarks,” is “apologizing for America abroad” and gave money to “his friends and campaign contributors at companies like Solyndra.” The barrage was extensive: “trillion-dollar deficit . . . largest tax increase in history . . . end Medicare as we know it . . . inaction on entitlements . . . hide-and-seek campaign.” Taunted Romney: “It almost makes one long for the days when the president simply led from behind.” It’s potentially a strong line of attack, and some of the accusations have the virtue of being true. But it’s not clear whether voters will notice that substance through Romney’s unsettling style. Romney took the stage to a Sousa march and immediately tried out a few standard-issue jokes. He said he and his campaign press corps have “aired our dirty laundry together, sometimes literally as well as figuratively.” He made light of his eligibility for Medicare. He recalled LBJ’s line that if he were to walk on water, the headline would be “President Can’t Swim.” He even trotted out Yogi Berra: “Forecasting is very difficult, especially when it involves the future.” All met with weak laughter. He further warmed up his audience by complaining about the use of anonymous sources. When asked about a “shield law” for confidential sources, Romney demurred: “I’d want to hear from — from people in the industry.” Deferring to industry is a Romney trademark. Even his thoughts on his gender gap in the polls came straight from the boardroom. “Almost every measure that the president has taken made it harder for small business to decide to grow in America or big business to stay here,” he said, vowing to create “the best environment for business in the world — small business, big business, entrepreneurs, innovators, job creators of all kinds.” He continued his answer on the gender gap by quoting the Coca-Cola chief’s views on China. The candidate is clearly aware of his style deficit, because he closed with a wish for November that “our choice will not be one of party or personality.” And if the campaign is about personality? To paraphrase Yogi Berra, Romney will be an overwhelming underdog.
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Previously:
• 04/05/12 From tracking al-Qaeda to tracking the wayward spouse
• 04/04/12 Budget cuts as back-door deregulation
• 03/26/12 My pet Mitt
• 03/22/12 Mitt Romney's latest gaffe may be etched in history
• 03/20/12 Supreme Court conceives of life after death
• 03/15/12 Conservative for Obama: The British PM as campaign prop
• 03/14/12 In Section 60, a silent search for meaning
• 03/13/12 Super Friends, unite
• 03/12/12 It's time to believe: Romney's a winner
• 03/07/12 Settling in to Washington's ways
• 03/06/12 AIPAC beats the drums of war
• 03/05/12 Did Republicans forget the women's vote?
• 02/29/12 Mitt Romney's acceptance speech, in (mostly) his own words
• 02/28/12 Common ground becomes a great divide
• 02/27/12 An expert witness for the GOP gender gap
• 02/21/12 Where Romney shines
• 02/15/12 A Republican death wish?
• 02/14/12Obama's budget games
• 02/13/12 Are GOPers playing right into Obama's hands?
• 02/08/12 Obama pumps the compressor of Joe Hudy's Extreme Marshmallow Cannon
• 02/07/12 Abramoff's atonement
• 02/01/12 Why we in the media just love Newt
• 01/31/12 The end of the road for Newt Gingrich?
• 01/25/12 Gingrich is Obama's best surrogate
• 01/24/12 Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
• 01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
• 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina
• 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed
• 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem
• 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism
• 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control
• 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP
• 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument
• 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/20/11 Strange brews and views?
• 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction
• 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet
• 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012
• 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him
• 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement?
• 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington
• 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy
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• 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington
• 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee?
• 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last
• 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier
• 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama
• 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up
• 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive
• 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
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• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
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• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
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• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
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• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
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• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
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• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
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• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
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• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
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• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
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