Morning Jolt - Romney: I Said I Wanted a Running Mate WITH Intelligence, Not IN Intelligence.

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

August 8, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. Romney: I Said I Wanted a Running Mate WITH Intelligence, Not IN Intelligence.

2. Our Twisted Political Culture's Bizarre Sense of What Is 'Dirty Campaigning'

3. What You Need to Know about Voter Fraud

4. Addendum

Here's your Wednesday Morning Jolt.

Enjoy!

Jim

1. Romney: I Said I Wanted a Running Mate WITH Intelligence, Not IN Intelligence

So, let's dissect the latest kerfuffle-inducing nugget from Drudge (arriving shortly after the Condi Rice one):

President Obama whispered to a top fundraiser this week that he believes GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney wants to name. Gen. David Petraeus to the VP slot!

"The president wasn't joking," the insider explains to the DRUDGE REPORT.

A Petraeus drama has been quietly building behind the scenes.

Romney is believed to have secretly met with the four-star general in New Hampshire.

One: We have an unnamed "insider," who may or may not be the same person as the "top fundraiser," who claims that Obama said this.

Two: Now Obama is leaking who Romney is considering for his running mate. Short of listening devices, how would Obama know? What, did Eric Holder plant bugs in Romney's campaign plane -- eh, okay, I guess once the federal government has been caught shipping guns to Mexican drug cartels, we can't rule anything out.

Three: David Petraeus currently has a rather challenging day job as director of the CIA. A man in that position can probably travel around the country without attracting press attention . . . but in an administration that has all kinds of classified information appearing on the front page of the New York Times, how likely is it that Petraeus could meet with Romney and no word would leak?

At Just One Minute, Tom Maguire sees other complications to this story:

Hmm. First, *IF* Petraeus is being vetted by Team Romney the President ought to have an inkling; I can't believe Petraeus would simply accept the VP slot and resign as CIA head with an hour's notice.

As to whether this would be a good pick by Romney, well, Petraeus is a great general and a great American, but his skills as a politician are untested. Maybe he is the next Wesley Clark, who flamed out in 2004.

I think Romney is committed dullness with VP pick; Romney's basic plan is to keep the spotlight on Obama, who will continue to shrink and wither under the bright lights. Petraeus does not advance that plan.

So, how comfortable would the Central Intelligence Agency as an institution be with Beth Myers and Romney campaign staffers digging into the personal history, personal finances, etc., of the CIA director? Or is the idea that Petraeus is already vetted, as any man entrusted with all of America's most closely-guarded secrets is already free from skeletons in his closet?

I'm picturing two tight-lipped security folks in dark glasses and suits staring at each other across a table:

CIA: I'll say this again, that information is on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know.

Romney Vetting Staff: I'm vetting the man who may be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and thus I need to know.

CIA: I'm protecting the personal information of the man who reports to the president, and thus you don't need to know.

Romney Vetting Staff: My boss may very well end up being your boss in January, and thus I need to know.

CIA: Your boss might not replace my boss unless you accept my other boss helping your boss, and thus you don't need to know.

Romney Vetting Staff: My boss may replace your other boss if he replaces your boss, and thus I need to know.

CIA: I'm telling you, the director's personal financial information is classified.

Romney Vetting Staff: Your face is classified.

Finally, Bryan Preston notices, "But isn't it fascinating that President GotALotOnHisPlate keeps not meeting with his jobs council, and keeps dodging questions from actual reporters, but keeps in close contact with the people who matter to him most: People who have money and are inclined to give it to him."

2. Out Twisted Political Culture's Bizarre Sense of What Is 'Dirty Campaigning'

A former steelworker, in a new ad from Priorities USA, the super PAC run by former Obama staffers:

"When Mitt Romney and Bain shut down the plant, I lost my health care. A short time after that, my wife became ill. I don't know how long she was sick. . . . I took her to the Jackson County hospital, and admitted her for pneumonia, and that's when they found the cancer. By then it was stage four. . . . She passed away in 22 days."

The "short time" mentioned in the ad: Five and a half years later, in 2006. Romney left Bain in 1999 to run the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. The layoff in question occurred in 2001.

Oh, hey, and CNN found she had health insurance for another two years after the layoff, anyway. So you can't even argue that the husband's layoff took away her health insurance.

At Hot Air, Allahpundit observes, "You know what's really interesting about this spot? It's not even a health-care ad. It'd be sleazy under any circumstances, but there'd at least be a concrete policy angle if Burton was selling it as an argument for, say, single-payer, to decouple insurance from employment. He's not. There appears to be no actual policy argument here at all, unless The One now opposes layoffs on principle, for fear that someone somewhere might be left without insurance. Is that where our very pro-business president -- seriously, just ask him -- is now at? As John Sexton says, does this mean O himself is on the hook until 2014 for any deaths that resulted from GM dealerships being closed in 2009? I thought workers bore some responsibility to find a new job with insurance after they're laid off, but if he wants to take the blame for human tragedies at Government Motors, fine by me."

After I lamented that "there was a time when presidential campaigns did not casually accuse their opponent of murder," some ninny on Twitter brought up Willie Horton.

It's kind of amazing how certain news events and controversies can come to be remembered as the precise opposite of reality. In many circles, mentioning the name "Willie Horton" is now a synonym for dirty campaigning or "below the belt" tactics, isn't it? I'll bet at this moment many readers are jumping to point out that "it was Al Gore who first mentioned Willie Horton!" (Actually, it was in one of the 1988 Democratic presidential primary debates that Gore mentioned that two furloughed prisoners had committed new murders while on weekend leave -- the same "weekends away" program that covered Horton, but different criminals.)

Permit me to attempt to shovel off massive layers of accumulated conventional-wisdom detritus here: Good for Al Gore! The Massachusetts weekend furlough program and criminals like Willie Horton completely deserved to be brought up, and it was a terrific, vivid example of bad judgment on Dukakis's part. To refresh:

Horton had been sentenced to life imprisonment and was incarcerated at the Concord Correctional Facility in Massachusetts when he was released in June 1986 as part of a weekend furlough program.

While on furlough in April 1987, Horton twice raped a woman in Oxon Hill, Md. He stabbed and pistol-whipped her fiancé.

At the time, Michael Dukakis was the Democratic governor of Massachusetts. While Dukakis had not initiated the furlough program, he supported it as a measure to help with criminal rehabilitation.

After the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that this right extended to first-degree murderers, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill prohibiting furloughs for such inmates. However, in 1976, Dukakis vetoed this bill.

Thus, the program remained in effect, and Dukakis continued to support it.

Michael Dukakis thought that denying weekends away from prison from convicted murderers was a bad idea, and so he ensured that these weekend excursions would continue. And two people were murdered as a result of this policy, separately from Willie Horton's raping and stabbing rampage. This may rank as among the worst ideas in the history of the criminal-justice system. This was the precise opposite of "dirty politics" or a "smear campaign" or some nonsensical charge.

3. What You Need to Know about Voter Fraud

Something fascinating about voter-fraud discussions: Republicans will generally assert that we need to require voters to show voter ID to verify their identity; Democrats will charge that some voters cannot get photo ID, and this would take away their right to vote.

What seems like a really sensible next step is to (a) require photo ID (b) make a serious effort to make sure everyone who wants to vote is able to get a photo ID and (c) create provisional ballots so that those who somehow can't get a photo ID but are not fraudulently voting can cast a valid ballot after their identity has been verified. The issue here isn't to make sure everyone in America has a state-issued driver's license or whatever, but to make sure everyone who casts a ballot is indeed who they say they are and that they aren't voting twice.

Our old friend Byron York shares some news from a new book by John Fund and former Bush Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky:

During the controversy a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons -- all ineligible to vote -- who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.

Minnesota Majority took the information to prosecutors across the state, many of whom showed no interest in pursuing it. But Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads. And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted -- not just accused, but convicted -- of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial. "The numbers aren't greater," the authors say, "because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and 'knowingly' voted unlawfully." The accused can get off by claiming not to have known they did anything wrong.

Still, that's a total of 243 people either convicted of voter fraud or awaiting trial in an election that was decided by 312 votes. With 1,099 examples identified by Minnesota Majority, and with evidence suggesting that felons, when they do vote, strongly favor Democrats, it doesn't require a leap to suggest there might one day be proof that Al Franken was elected on the strength of voter fraud.

4. Addendum

Pour Me Coffee: "If Tim Pawlenty gets passed over again, I hope he turns it into art like Adele."

Nevermind, I'll find some running mate like you.