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President Romney Would Govern Like Someone Who Wants to Keep His Job

By Scott Galupo • May 17, 2012, 3:39 PM

In a preview of what will certainly become a central argument of the Obama reelection campaign, the American Prospect’s Jamelle Bouie says that Mitt Romney will serve at the pleasure of the Republican party’s rightwing base:

Romney is running for president as a right-wing Republican with right-wing ideas, and it is absurd to think that he would suddenly revert to the Mitt who governed Massachusetts. Even if he wanted to, he would first have to contend with a conservative movement that sees itself as the dominant partner in this relationship. … If conservatives expect to set the agenda — and if Romney, as president, wants to maintain their support — then he can’t govern from the center. Nor does he plan to.

My opinion of Romney is as low, perhaps lower, than Bouie’s. But I think he’s hanging his speculation in the wrong frame.

On the one hand, yes: Mitt Romney is quintessentially the kind of guy who enters politics in order to be something, not do something. In this respect, it’s easy to imagine him dangling on the strings of his puppet master.

Much as a general election campaign is fundamentally different in nature than a primary campaign, things change once a party gains power on both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. The grenade-throwing backbenchers are wrangled and pressed into good-soldier service. The national party committees become more closely aligned with the internal communications staffs in the White House and congressional leadership offices. Partisan pollsters and focus-group maestros package weekly messaging hymnals that everyone’s supposed to sing from on the Sunday-morning public affairs shows.

Bouie imagines that the right wing of the party is going to drive this agenda, and that Romney will in effect march like just another good soldier.

But rather than try to anticipate how a Romney administration will interact with conservative Republicans in Congress, why not step back and ask a different question: How would the GOP, as a whole, maintain enough popularity to keep its grip on the White House and Congress?

Looked at this way, Bouie’s vision of conservatives forcing Romney to impose an unpopular agenda of deep spending cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy seems farfetched. The more likely scenario is that Romney and a Republican-led Congress are going to do everything in their power to stay in power.

In practice, I think this means we could see stimulus measures that are called something other than “stimulus”; a proposal to re-close the “Donut Hole” in Medicare’s prescription drug program if ObamaCare is struck down by the Supreme Court; and, lest we forget, Medicare reforms that conveniently exempt everyone age 55 and over.

In short, liberals are dreaming (nightmaring?) if they think Republicans are going to position themselves far out of step with public opinion on budget reform and taxes. The Romney administration is going to look a lot more like Bush’s third term than Goldwater’s imaginary first term.

Posted in Election, Politics.

8 Responses to President Romney Would Govern Like Someone Who Wants to Keep His Job

WinstonC says:

May 17, 2012 at 5:52 pm

I could not disagree with you more here. First, it is quite apparent that the Tea Party is controlling the Republicans in the House, and is making inroads in the Senate. And they have no interest or belief in “moderating” their positions in order to ensure their re-election. Quite the contrary: Anyone who is willing to compromise in any way is labeled a RINO and is subject to attack in the primaries. Second, you totally underestimate the extent to which conservative Republicans, Romney included, believe their own rhetoric. I would be willing to bet any sum that some version of the Ryan plan – one of the most radical federal budget schemes ever proposed – will be front and center in a Romney administration.

And I won’t even begin to list all the foreign policy entanglements to which Romney is already committed.

Anyone who votes Republican should be under no illusion about what we’re likely to see in a Romney presidency.
WinstonC says:

May 17, 2012 at 9:46 pm

You can read a more comprehensive argument against the idea of Romney and the Republicans governing to ensure their re-election here: http://prospect.org/article/mitt-romney-servant-right
Eisenhower says:

May 18, 2012 at 2:06 pm

“The Romney administration is going to look a lot more like Bush’s third term than Goldwater’s imaginary first term.”

I agree that where not gonna see anything close to Goldwater conservatism under a Romney administration, however such an administration will only look similar to Bush’s if we’re talking about his last couple of years in office. 2013 is gonna be a much different political terrain than 2001, after a decade of war, reckless spending, and a couple of years of economic recession you have a base that is far more volatile then 11 years ago.

It should be remembered that George W. Bush was a evangelical social conservative from Texas and he had 9/11 occur in first term. Those were advantages for him that gave him almost absolute loyalty/authority in his party. Romney the Moderate Mormon Flip-Flopper from Massachusetts will have none of these advantages if he enters the oval. He’s already shown that he can be rolled and pushed around, the idea that this is all gone change once he enters the White House, would be wishful thinking on his part. This is especially true if things don’t change with the GOP’s Congressional leadership.

There’s no Tom Delay anymore, no Speaker Hassert, and no Dick Cheney corralling the Senate. Boehner’s control over his caucus is only maintained if he stays completely right of center if he doesn’t then they’ll embarrass like they did last year with the Patriot Act. Or better yet they’ll handicap him like they did during the debt ceiling debate. The same can be said for Mitch McConnell whose only saving grace is that his party doesn’t control the Senate so any failures there can be blamed on the Democrats. It is laughable just how much the GOP is lacking in Strong leadership from Congress. And Romney definitely won’t be making up for that in the White House.
Ryan says:

May 18, 2012 at 7:50 pm

The problem with this analysis is that it ignores that Republicans must balance winning the general election with winning the primary. Examples such as Sens. Lugar and Bennett may make Republicans wary crossing the conservative orthodoxy even if doing so hurts their chances in the general election.
wjca says:

May 18, 2012 at 8:53 pm

I would like to believe you are correct. But I see two major impediments:

– There is a huge segment of the new Republicans in Congress who are far more dedicated to being politically correct (to use a term which they would hate, but which accurately describes their determination to support their ideology no matter what it turns out to mean in practice) than they are to remaining in office. They are not happy being in Washington (however much they may want to be there to do particular things), to the extent that they have not even moved their families there; they camp out in apartments during the week and go home on the weekends. So why would they care about what actions would make them popular and re-electable? If they can do the things that they want, who cares about the next election?

– Even those who do care about getting re-elected have a problem. There is a serious echo-chamber effect going on. That is, they hear (loudly and at length) from those who agree with their particular mindset, and hardly at all from those who disagree with them. That makes it very hard to grasp the fact that there is a significant part of the population which does disagree with them on some issues. And if you don’t know what your constituents actually think, you cannot be guided at all by it — you just assume that everybody (well except for a few liberal nutcases) wants the same things that your base wants.
Ian says:

May 18, 2012 at 8:58 pm

Gallupo is making a poor argument. It wasn’t Congressional back benchers who pulled GWBs wires. It was ideologues within his own cabinet and the office of the VP cheered on by Neoconservative iluminati, the same clowns Rmoney is surrounding self with as advisors. Mittens has no national vision and is so completely feckless that he would tie the country to the roof of his car if it meant getting elected. This article supported Bouie’s contentions more than countered them.
Gmorbgmibgnikgnok says:

May 18, 2012 at 10:19 pm

The Romney administration is going to look a lot more like Bush’s third term than Goldwater’s imaginary first term.

Bush had no need of pandering to his base in order to stay elected. He had already satisfied their thirst for red meat in the first term, having stolen an election and declared war on the Middle East. Thus, having established his bona fides, he didn’t have to worry about losing face when the consequences of his actions came to hit him in the second term.

Romney has no such credibility with “his” base. He’s going to have to stand on top of the White House, blowing that dog whistle morning, noon, and night in order to keep them motivated to come back four years later.

As Rove once said, he only needs to be president for a little over half the country.
maxdi says:

May 19, 2012 at 10:54 am

Mr. Galupo promotes the charming conceit that the Republicans/Romney would actually listen to the electorate (as opposed to their corporate overlords) and give them what they want — end to the failed Drug War; lower military expenditure; better national healthcare policies; reduced deficit spending toward a balanced budget while maintaining social welfare programs; fairer tax structure; and so on. Recent history proves that assumption completely fallacious. The Republican rightwing fundamentally desire a S American-style plutocracy and are steadily moving the US in that direction— 10% haves and everybody else.