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Imaginary flap over Marco Rubio

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Imaginary flap over Marco Rubio

The VP flap yesterday over Marco Rubio’s not being ‘vetted’ as Mitt Romney’s pick for the second spot on the Republican ticket was pretty weird, even for television. I’m all for imagination, the play of color and the zodiac of human wit and all that, but there’s supposed to be a limit. Lo-mein-for-brains took over the airwaves yesterday, at least in politics.

Rubio

Seriously: Not that this writer bears any brief for Romney, but to call him out for not vetting Rubio for the GOP nomination for Vice President of the United States is just baseless.  This is what passes for political analysis nowadays–a flap because Marco Rubio is reportedly not being considered for the VP spot?

Why should he be considered? Why in the world should the Romney campaign, or any presidential campaign, spend time and resources vetting Marco Rubio?

Let’s run down a quick list of the premises of this remarkable criticism of Romney. For perspective, it might be remembered that Romney is the man who, as they say in convention nominating speeches, recommended letting Detroit go bankrupt; who has never met a war he didn’t like except the one in which he could have served; who gives every sign of wanting another trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich and another trillion-dollar war if he can get it.

So what are they talking about, chez Romney? –Rubio. Marco Rubio?!?

Let’s have a little correction here, or at least a rethinking of some of those glib assertions all over the place yesterday.

No, passing over Rubio is not somehow an ‘insult to Hispanics’. There is less than no evidence that Rubio would draw Latino voters to the GOP or to the Romney ticket. Rubio is Cuban-American, not from Mexico or points south–and not even a refugee from Castro at that. His parents fled Cuba, as we know from the reporting of the WashPost’s Manuel Roig-Franzia, under the Batista regime. More importantly, every typical GOP policy Rubio supports is antithetical to the preferences of most Latino voters as expressed in recent elections. Immigration is only a partial exception–and Rubio’s comparative mildness or non-xenophobic position on immigration runs counter to that GOP ‘base’ we hear so much about. Back to Latinos, it would be more insulting to assume that Latinos are going to vote in a bloc for a man just because his last name ends in a vowel.

No, Rubio is not overwhelmingly ‘popular’ nationwide. He did well for himself in Florida, where the civic infrastructure has been laid waste by GOP state administrations and legs. The general public knows little about him except that he is young and Republican and male and married. There is no indication that he would help carry any other state. In fact, there is no hard evidence that he would help Romney carry Florida. If placed under nationwide scrutiny, his policies, his finances–that misuse of official credit cards, for example–and his misstatements about family history might well catch up with him. Then there’s the nature of his donors. He is no shoo-in, not somebody to be considered automatically a plus.

No, Rubio would not necessarily carry Florida. If Florida voters get a clear choice and a clear look at GOP policy–another trillion-dollar war, another trillion-dollar drain of public resources set up by tax policy for the wealthy and for corporations–there is no reason to think Rubio would somehow outweigh that in the balance. Self-adoration is not the same as the adoration of a multitude.

No, Rubio is not qualified to be Vice President. Cast of thousands, admittedly. Virginia’s Gov. McDonnell Douglas is also not qualified to be VP–unless VP stands for vaginal probe–but gets talked about that way anyway, as does Rubio.

No, Rubio is not such a significant political figure that he automatically gets entered in the veepstakes. What, exactly, has Marco Rubio done as a senator? What if anything did he accomplish in Florida, aside from some credit-card shopping?

No, Rubio would not necessarily be an overwhelmingly popular choice for the Republican ‘base’. The first choice of the GOP ‘base’ is not black; not female; not Latino. Never. They don’t say it, they are chagrined at being considered prejudiced, they tend to be defensive about it–except in private conversations–and they put up with tokens, exceptions and the Herman Cains of the world cheerfully. They don’t have a high opinion of politics, of candidates for office, for public office or for civic engagement in the first place, after all. But they still have their preferences, their base attitude so to speak. The national political press has spent a good fifty years ignoring this attitude and thus covering up for it. Meanwhile, the politicians the  insiders have protected have spent decades ignoring the racial disparity in applying the death penalty, just to take one example.

It’s still remarkable that they can get away with it, after all these years.

That said, from a certain perspective it might be beneficial if Rubio did actually end up getting put through what former Vice President Dick Cheney called the meat grinder.

In narrowly political terms, however, that’s another good reason for the Romney campaign not to subject him to it. All these commentators speaking, ostensibly, from the perspective of Romney’s political advantage–suppose the Romney team found out something about Rubio? What then?

BizarroWorld veepstakes.

Indirectly the flap yesterday may have been of benefit to the public, at that. If Romney can be pushed around this easily–doing an apparent 180 on a potential VP choice, just because some television commentators discussed Rubio’s not being on the list–then it’s good for American voters to know it.

Funny how you never hear the blowhards on air talking about a ‘Sistah Souljah moment’ when a Republican candidate is involved.

Policy matters

But then it is seldom suggested that a Republican candidate is actually trying to help a disadvantaged person or group, so there’s no bar to raise for hypocrisy in that regard.

 

Live-blogging Iowa caucus day

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Live-blogging coverage of the Iowa caucuses: First voting of the new year, first voting in 2012, as we are often reminded.

Romney in Iowa

The unspoken refrain here btw is ongoing apologies for repeating things that have already been said, sort of like a continuing objection by defense attorneys in a deposition hearing.

Wish the network and cable commentators felt the same way. Some items from left-over Xmas stockings:

  • as ever, some network analysts are trying desperately to home in on their default analysis for every election cycle–the scenario boiling down to an establishment front-runner and an insurgent challenger from the wings of the party. This narrative has been applied to every GOP race and most Democratic races in adult memory. It seems not to be working this year, but that’s not stopping them.
  • commentators, guest interviewers and guest interviewees alike are by-and-large working to boost Mitt Romney. We’re seeing it right now, on the day of the caucuses, especially. The Reverend Mr. Franklin Graham weighed thus in last night on CNN, not endorsing any candidate including Romney but saying repeatedly that “We are not voting for a pastor-in-chief. We are voting for a commander-in-chief.” He used the word “qualified” more than once, too, generally shorthand for Romney among supporters. Graham said nothing to boost any Christian-conservative candidate against other candidates.
  • Trying to shoehorn this election season into a winnowing-the-field narrative. So far, the winnowing has not occurred.
  • Trying to figure out whether to characterize this primary season as a marathon or a sprint. Both are cliches. Neither illuminates much of anything.
  • Avoiding discussion, in a political context, that would shed light on what Republicans in Congress have actually done this year.
  • Legitimizing dreadful policies and mean statements.
  • Leveling out the differences between the parties, downgrading or burying the Dems and rehabilitating or dignifying Repubs.
  • Refusing to say directly that the GOP top crust in office is trying to break the middle class. You don’t hear that. You do hear NBC’s David Gregory saying, with straight face, that Mitt Romney has a message for the middle class.

Not once do regressive tax policies get brought up. Only infrequently do the costs of GWBush’s two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and unbridled incompentence and fraud on Wall Street get brought up.

Simple, but accurate–almost every Republican in federal office is working for one overarching trend: rich-get-richer.

Regardless of the wishes of ordinary people who voted for them, now being terrorized by rhetorical hammering on ‘the debt’, the function they fulfill in public office is to benefit the few who will hire/retain them in parasitic functions such as consulting and lobbying, once they leave office.

It is no demagoguery to boil down their message for the middle class: Drop dead!

Speaking of winnowing, Sarah Palin is trying to get into the game. Palin is calling on Huntsman and Bachmann to leave the race.

I see Huntsman (counter-intuitively) as vice-presidential material for Romney. None of these candidates has a very good shot against President Obama.

[added]

Commentators also tend to position ‘electable’ versus everything else including every kind of merit. There is more than a kernel of truth to the observation that politics is not for the perfect. But the gross differences between better and worse do not necessarily boil down to a difference between character and being ‘electable’. The large media outlets do not have a good track record when it comes to picking the electable candidate, anyway.

Of course, they have been on the receiving end of a lot of obfuscation themselves. Bush and Cheney did not run on a platform of assaulting the Middle East abroad and the middle class at home. If they had, presumably they would have been perceived as less electable even by the corporate media outlets.

It was never about the debt ceiling

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It was never about the debt ceiling

What a time for my domain to become live again, just when Congress leaves town after finalizing a rise in the ‘debt ceiling.’

There will be several parts to this post.

First, to some of the more sweeping or superficial distortions and debt-ceiling politics:

  •  On balance, I think the Democrats in Congress, the White House, and the public came out better—given the situation–than has been indicated by some progressive outlets. Admittedly I am influenced by the fact that some of the most vitriolic ‘progressive’ voices against Dems and the WH are also corporate-allied. They do tend to get all rabble-rousing in the abstract, simultaneously resisting options to help improve the lot of working people (such as writers) themselves. They also tend not to be very effective, politically speaking. They also tend to have dismissed candidate Obama’s chance of winning early. So in a sense it is natural for them to lob attacks on the president, rather than fight 1) against the GOP corpo-party and 2) for working people. That aside, the final bill avoided default (more on default later); prohibited another debt-ceiling ruse for the next couple of years; and kept the GOP on the hook for its program cuts, government spending, and tax favoritism for the wealthy and corporations.
  • That last item is so significant that I have been a little surprised to see it so neglected in political commentary over the last few days. The lift on the debt ceiling was passed by Republicans in the House.
  • Let me repeat that: After all the hoopla about the Tea Party, a ‘rift’ or schism in the GOP, threats to John Boehner’s position as Speaker, etc., etc., the bill raising the debt ceiling was passed by Republicans in the House. The bill was supported by more Republicans than Democrats, with 174 Republicans voting to raise the debt ceiling and 95 Democrats. The bill was opposed by more Democrats than Republicans, with 95 Dems voting against it and only 66 GOPers.
  • Our political reporters have not highlighted this fact. While the final tally pretty much had to be reported, the party break-down is being spun so far as a revolt against the president in Democratic ranks; or as a sign of weakness for Dems/WH; or as a sticking point for progressives re 2012; etc. (Again the refrain: So much for the liberal media.)
  • Even in the Senate, where the bill passed 74-26 and more Democrats voted for it, more Republicans voted for it (28) than opposed it (19).
  • Btw, one factoid sheds some light on the supposed popularity of opposing, or rebelling, or shaking things up, re those Republican primaries. Of the 19 Republican senators who voted not to raise the debt ceiling, 13 are not up for re-election until 2016. Four are not up for re-election until 2014. Every GOPer up for election in 2010 voted to raise the debt ceiling, except Hatch (R-Utah) and Heller (R-Nev.). Theoretically Hatch and Heller know the electorates of their states best. In any case, the final vote tally casts some doubt on the much-vaunted electoral clout of the Tea Party, at least measured against the importance of Wall Street contributions.
  • Any Dem running for Congress who allows himself to be put on the defensive about ‘gummint spending’ after this deserves to lose.

 

The bigger distortions are misrepresentations on a more fundamental level. Some of the deeper issues go to the heart of political reporting in large media outlets:

  •  This fight in Congress was never about the debt ceiling. With the exception of a few Tea Party members, mainly from South Carolina, who were genuinely ready to become defaulters, the GOP in both House and Senate has repeatedly voted in the past to raise the debt ceiling, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, or to vote no only in a symbolic gesture after it was already clear that it would be raised. Every member of Congress had access to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s remarks on the debt ceiling, including Greenspan’s call for eliminating the debt ceiling. (Yes, the right wing distrusts the Fed. That doesn’t mean they mistake Greenspan for Greenpeace.) Every experienced Congress member knows that, as the president said, raising the debt ceiling simply allows the U.S. “to pay its bills on time, as we always have.”
  • The fight from Republicans in Congress was never about reducing the deficit. As President Obama said earlier, “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.” The congressional GOP could have attempted what Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is attempting, to find genuine examples of waste, fraud and abuse to cut. It could have voted—for the past thirty years—to trim military spending, reining in federal contractors. It could have eliminated tax breaks, unneeded by any measure, for Big Oil. It could have voted against the Iraq War. It could have reined in the intelligence establishment, which failed to prevent 9/11 and was rewarded for failure by more far-flung billions than ever, with the massive additional layer of bureaucracy known as the Department of Homeland Security. Congress could even have opted to run itself more frugally.

  • Instead, the Republican apparatus in government has worked, often behind the scenes, to drive up the cost of government more, regardless of the wishes of ordinary Republican voters. Every delay in Congress adds to the cost of government—added on top of other damage done in delaying needed legislation (the FAA is a prime example). Every delay in confirming judges and other federal appointees adds to the cost of running the agencies involved, and this GOP has delayed judicial confirmations and backlogged the courts more than any other party in U.S. history. The delay in raising the debt ceiling alone cost U.S. taxpayers billions. Furthermore, top GOPers have resisted efforts to make large federal contracts (mainly in military-security spending) more competitive, sometimes while simultaneously resisting efforts to exempt small contracts from competition. All this, of course, comes on top of the massive trillion-dollar hole of two wars and tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, all funneled into effect by the GOP with some acquiescent Democrats.
  • The fight was never over the national debt. What GOPer has seriously called (publicly) for refusing to pay the interest, let alone the principle, on U.S. Savings Bonds bought by Americans or by other people? Come to think of it, what Republican in office has mentioned U.S. Savings Bonds recently?

  • Conclusory statement: Regardless of ‘red-meat’ campaign rhetoric, the GOP in office never strays far from the Wall Street fold. If you really want to analyze current GOP politics you can forget guns, god and gays.
  • Second conclusory statement: Regardless of ‘the base,’ the middle class, or the rest of the electorate, Republican policy in office is about using the power of office to break the middle class. GOP honchos have tried to replace Social Security; they are trying to weaken Medicare and Medicaid, using Orwellianisms the while; they fought tooth and nail to prevent enlightened single-payer health coverage and to keep insurance companies the gatekeepers for health care. For three decades they have boosted corporate efforts to undermine pension plans. They support every corporate effort to jettison pensions and health benefits. Their financial policy, if you call it that, enabled the mortgage-derivatives industry to damage trillions of dollars worth of pension security. They support easy bankruptcy for corporations and impose stringent bankruptcy standards on the unemployed. They oppose every effort toward accountability and transparency (‘regulation’) in both government and corporate bureaucracies. They oppose every effort to protect ordinary people’s ability to seek redress for harm, harm up to and including death, in our taxpayer-funded courts. The strategy is to reduce the clout of the middle class—i.e. the bottom 90 percent of the population, as Inside Job puts it—and to make most of the population ever more dependent on the few. And when individual GOP congress members interrupt the over-all strategy on some particular legislation, they lose. The one exception to this big-picture GOP rule in his own way, the one congressional Republican who opposed the invasion of Iraq, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), is retiring from Congress.

All of this has passed largely unreported in the same news media that also missed (among other things) the lead-up to the Iraq War, the bubble and bust in the real estate boom, and the impending crisis in the mortgage-derivatives industry.

 

Thought for the week, passed along from Local 2336 of Communications Workers of America (CWA): “Do you remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401K’s, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses and paid no taxes?  YEAH, ME NEITHER!”

 

Side note: In what is being reported as bad news financially, Americans are spending less and saving more. Setting aside if one could that that is actually good news, what did they expect after the charade over what should have been a routine rise of the debt ceiling?

Did anyone catch the language coming out of Washington last month, along with the name-calling? Debtdebtdebtdebtdebtdebtdebt . . .

 

More later