Morning Jolt - Obama's Allies Let Out What They Really Think of Ann Romney

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

April 12, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. Obama's Allies Let Out What They Really Think of Ann Romney

2. This Just In from North Korea: Stay Tuned For New Kaboom

3. Conservatives Wonder, 'Will We Ever Unify?'

4. Addendum

Here's your Thursday Morning Jolt!

Enjoy.

Jim

1. Obama's Allies Let Out What They Really Think of Ann Romney

What?

What?

On CNN last night, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen felt the best way to help her preferred candidate, Barack Obama, was to go after Ann Romney, Mitt's wife.

ANDERSON COOPER: To the Romney campaign's point, they say they're focusing on the economy, and that's what women say they overwhelmingly care about right now in poll after poll. And whether it's a typical pattern or not, women are seeing jobs come back much more slowly than men are. Is there anything really wrong then, on reaching out to women on an issue that they care about, on the economy?

HILARY ROSEN: Well, first, can we just get rid of this word, "war on women"? The Obama campaign does not use it, President Obama does not use it -- this is something that the Republicans are accusing people of using, but they're actually the ones spreading it. With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney's right, that ultimately, women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But he doesn't connect on that issue either. What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, "Well, my wife tells me what women really care about are economic issues." And, "When I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing." Guess what? His wife has never actually worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing -- in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and how do -- why we worry about their future.

Brittany Cohan: "Democrats are all about choice. Until you are a pro-life woman who stays at home and raises her kids. Then you're wrong. Or something."

Erick Erickson: "If raising 5 sons through breast cancer and MS isn't a real job, I'm not sure what is."

Our Charles Cooke observes, "An astonishing number of liberals on Twitter have feeds featuring both nonsensical 'war on women' claims and mean comments about Ann Romney." He adds, "Actually, @hilaryr, if the federal government ran its budgets like most mothers do, we wouldn't have a $900bn structural annual deficit."

Dana Perino scoffs, "The problem with saying something explosive on a network no one watches is that everyone hears about it and few hear the hollow apology."

Moe Lane notices, "Hey, do you know what Hilary Rosen considers real work? Pushing copy-protected CDs. That's right: she was a RIAA lobbyist."

Ryan Williams, Romney spokesman, notices a report from the Wall Street Journal from February 16: "'Obama advisers have occasionally told [DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz] to 'tone it down.' . . . She agreed with them to enlist . . . Anita Dunn and Hilary Rosen."

Chelsea Grunwald: "Question for Hillary Rosen, Michelle Obama is technically not employed right now, is her input on female economic issues invalid too?"

Drew M. asks, "Does she have to report her CNN appearance to the FCC as an in-kind contribution to the Romney campaign?"

How bad did it get?

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, 10:42 p.m. eastern time: "I could not disagree with Hilary Rosen any more strongly. Her comments were wrong and family should be off limits. She should apologize."

David Axelrod, 10:48 p.m. eastern time: "Also Disappointed in Hilary Rosen's comments about Ann Romney. They were inappropriate and offensive."

One of the regrettable trends in modern politics is that just about any aspect of a candidate and his life is deemed fair game and instantly cited, dissected, and oftentimes twisted into evidence of his poor quality as a potential president.

For example, Michelle Obama wants to see Americans enjoy better health and to do so through eating a healthier diet. In the abstract, this is a perfectly innocuous good goal. Mike Huckabee talks about a lot of the same issues. (The problem is, consciously or not, she keeps drifting into nanny-state or government-control-oriented rhetoric in discussing this goal of a healthier America. Rhetoric like, "When our kids spend so much of their time each day in school, and when many children get up to half their daily calories from school meals, it's clear that we as a nation have a responsibility to meet as well. We can't just leave it up to the parents.") But of all the reasons to vote against Barack Obama, Michelle Obama's healthy-eating cause is pretty low on the list.

A lot of partisans completely invert their criteria cycle by cycle depending on the qualities of their party's candidates. In 1996, a race that matched an injured war veteran against an alleged draft dodger, Democrats believed that military service was irrelevant to evaluating the quality of a presidential candidate. In 2004, Democrats felt that military service was front and center, and a huge reason to support John Kerry over George W. Bush. By 2008, military service was irrelevant again.

A candidate's personal wealth, lifestyle, and spending habits were irrelevant in 2004 -- but became important by 2008, when it was important to contrast Barack Obama's humble beginnings with John McCain's seven homes. Of course, Sarah Palin lived perhaps the most middle-class lifestyle of any figure on a presidential ticket in the past 30 years -- she didn't even have a full campaign-appearance-ready wardrobe! -- and that was deemed a weakness of some kind. Lack of Washington experience was a plus for Obama -- but Sarah Palin was dangerously unprepared, etc.

This echoes a point in the Jonathan Haidt book, that people come to their conclusions instinctively (the candidate of the party I prefer is best) and reason backwards from there.

2. This Just In from North Korea: Stay Tuned For New Kaboom

As the president completed Day Two of a three-day festival of hyping the Buffett Rule, the rest of the world continued to deal with real problems:

Military forces in South Korea and Japan are standing by Thursday on the first day of a five-day window for a North Korean rocket launch that Pyongyang says will carry a weather satellite into space.

No notice had been given to a group of international journalists gathered in Pyongyang several hours after the opening of the launch window Thursday morning. Japan's Kyodo news agency reported cloudy weather over the North Korean capital, possibly accounting for the delay.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda repeated his nation's appeal for Pyongyang to cancel the launch but said Japanese forces are ready to shoot the rocket down if it strays over Japanese territory.

"In case it happens, we are on full alert. Up to the last minute, we urge North Korea to refrain from launching."

South Korea has also put its forces on heightened alert and threatened to shoot down the rocket if it appears likely to crash into South Korean territory. The Philippines, located near the planned splashdown site of the rocket's first stage, has diverted airline flights and ordered fishermen to avoid the area.

3. Conservatives Wonder, 'Will We Ever Unify?'

A lot of folks who were hoping for a GOP nominee more consistently conservative than Mitt Romney are looking at the events of the past few years and wondering how, once again, they failed to unify around a candidate, and find an alternative to the front-runner whom they deemed too "establishment," moderate, and unreliable.

At the American Spectator, James Antle wonders:

Imagine a candidate -- a Kentucky senator, perhaps -- who could hold onto the Ron Paul vote while reaching more deeply into the Republican base. A presidential contender who could win more evangelicals, more older voters, and more partisan Republicans while still putting up big numbers among the independents and young.

That combination could have won Iowa this time around. It also would have potentially made for a more competitive New Hampshire primary, marrying votes for Paul and Jon Huntsman to the Santorum and Gingrich voters. This hypothetical campaign wouldn't be dead on arrival in the South or closed primary states.

Perhaps the Pauls aren't your cup of tea, even when served cool. That is something a Tea Party candidate for the presidential nomination will have to resolve early because a divided conservative vote spells doom for a conservative insurgent. Imagine if the same candidate had won Iowa and South Carolina.

Conservative primary voters are more discriminating than ever, looking seriously at the flaws of old heroes like Gingrich and new saviors like Rick Perry. They are more willing to keep the primary contest going than before. All they need is a candidate to lead them.

I would argue that a conservative presidential candidate who aspires to be the actual president, not just the metaphorical president of the conservative movement or a president of a faction of the movement, has to clear a certain bar of credibility. When Reagan ran in 1976 and 1980, he was a successful two-term governor of the nation's largest state, and his body of work -- not merely his commentaries or speeches -- made him instantly a figure who deserved serious consideration as a national leader.

This year, among the non-Romneys, perhaps Rick Perry met that criteria. Just about all of the rest were iffier by the usual standards of experience and body of work: A showboating Manhattan real-estate developer, a former pizza-company executive, a congresswoman elected in 2006. Others had the body of work, but had been on the shelf for a while: a House Speaker who had been out of politics since 1999, a former senator whose once-promising career ended in an overwhelming defeat in a key swing state.

Who could have cleared that bar more handily? The Democratic waves of 2006 and 2008 clear-cut a lot of the Republican officeholders who might have been potential contenders this cycle: Santorum, Virginia senator George Allen, Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich, Missouri senator Jim Talent -- and the new crop elected in 2009-2010 is chock full of potential contenders who just weren't ready to run for president this cycle: Florida senator Marco Rubio, Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.

But this is what we have. And with any luck, Romney will prove such an effective conservative candidate and president that we don't have to contemplate these issues until 2020.

4. Addendum

Drew M: "David Axelrod has got to be watching Hilary Rosen's Twitter feed and screaming . . . 'Stop it! Stop Talking! Stop Tweeting! STOP STOP STOP!'"