| Breaking News from Nationalreview.com Morning Jolt - November 19, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Monday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim The Irate of the Caribbean On the just-concluded National Review post-election cruise, I began things with Scott Rasmussen and Ralph Reed, discussing the results of the election; it was obviously pretty depressing. But we followed it up with our panel of economic experts, talking about the outlook for the coming year . . . and then their assessment was depressing. The following day Bing West talked about the state of the world and threats to U.S. national security . . . which was depressing. (West thinks March 2013 is the time period to watch for an Israeli strike on Iran.) But then we had the panel on media bias . . . which stirred up everyone's fury, and was depressing. Then we had the traditional "Night Owl" after-dinner session, spotlighting National Review's funniest voices Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, illustrator Roman Genn, James Lileks, with Peter Robinson along as the moderator/designated driver, and the opening question was . . . "Are we doomed?" By this point, we probably sound like the Voyage of the Damned. But the cruise was full of good spirits. And by that, I mean full of rum, vodka, and bourbon. No, as the week went on, it became clear that life will go on, that the country turned to Obama to rescue it from a seemingly endless recession, and in return for their judgment received additional announcements of layoffs, a steadily sliding stock market, and the death of the Twinkie. As Jonah said quoting Ed Koch, "The voters have made their decision, and now they have to be punished." I do have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of Republicans right now are looking back on what seemed like an extremely winnable race, unbelievably incredulous that it didn't go our way, full of "what if" and "could have, should have, and would have" thoughts and want to kvetch to someone . . . and on the boat, that seemed to be me. (As a pair of my favorite cruisers pointed out, between this newsletter, the blog, and the Three Martini Lunch podcast, readers feel like they "talk" to me all year long.) I deeply sympathize, but we can't change the past, and at some point the "if only Romney had done this" speculation gets counter-productive. In short, "I'm not Mitt Romney, and I didn't approve that message." One other thought, and before I go further, I want to emphasize I wish Romney had won. But I felt a strange sense of relief upon hearing our nominee's post-election remarks: Obama, Romney argued, had been "very generous" to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration's plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents' insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama's healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-age women to back the president. "The president's campaign," he said, "focused on giving targeted groups a big gift -- so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars." Reading that, we can only conclude that Romney's "47 percent" comments were not a gaffe or slip of the tongue but actually represent his genuine assessment of the nature of the American people right now. A president with that worldview wouldn't keep it under wraps for a four-year term, and it is a good thing for the Republican party and the conservative movement to not have to defend a president who effectively writes off nearly half the country as lazy and selfish, and even more important, unpersuadable, unreformable, and unchangeable. Put me strongly in the Bobby Jindal/Marco Rubio/Susana Martinez camp in the discussion of these enormously unhelpful comments from Romney. Again, it would have been better for the country if Romney had won, but this noble-us-and-those-hopeless-others worldview would have proved a serious liability for a Romney presidency. Whatever the Results, the Grassroots Have Earned a Rest In the cruise stop of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, I taped a podcast with the Ricochet guys, Rob Long, Peter Robinson, and James Lileks. They asked me the question they had asked the preceding guests, "What can conservatives do tomorrow, or in the very near future, to have a better outcome in 2014 and 2016?" I had an unusual answer, but one I'm sticking with: rest. We've just been through a marathon of a campaign, one that started not too long after the 2010 midterms. The tea-party movement was born in the immediate aftermath of Obama's initial actions in office, the stimulus and the beginnings of the Obamacare debate (along with a lingering anger over TARP). I dismiss most of the talk about the Tea Party being "over" or fading away, but I do worry about burnout. Most Americans don't pay attention to politics, and a lot of tea-party members are folks who wish they didn't have to pay attention to politics. They have other things they would like to spend time and energy and money on: their families, their businesses or professional lives, their other passions. But they were spurred by the events of 2008 and 2009 to get active, because they felt their livelihoods, their chance for a better future, and their country's future were endangered by reckless policies in Washington, and they proved an immensely powerful political force. But you can't expect every tea-party activist to operate at 110 percent passion and dedication in perpetuity. Online and elsewhere I hear some activists respond to this month's defeat with comments in the vein of, "We just have to fight harder! We have to double our efforts! The fate of the nation is at stake, and we need to be twice as committed, twice as active, twice as passionate, twice as . . ." As a dear friend said shortly after the election, "It is heartbreaking when you give your all and you learn it wasn't enough." The problem in this campaign was not that grassroots conservatives didn't try hard enough, or put in enough effort, or that any of us didn't want it bad enough. There will be more fights down the road (probably soon with the fiscal cliff, etc.), and they will surely ignite our passions and furies naturally, but the Right will sputter if there isn't some recognition of the activists' need to rest and recharge their batteries -- particularly after such a Herculean effort that still resulted in such a disappointing result. Back to Shore, Back to the Same Old Media The firebrand of the Corner, Michael Walsh, had said on the cruise, "If I had ten Bob Costas [plural of our top-notch reporter, not the NBC Sports guy], I could have completely changed the way the election was covered this year." I responded, "Yes, you could, but the problem is that there's only one Bob Costa. He's pretty darn good at this, and guys like him don't grow on trees or roll off an assembly line." (At least, not yet! Donate to National Review's Experimental Human Cloning Program today!) I actually don't think the problem with the conservative movement is that it lacks enough good, young, hungry reporters at institutions. Add up the reporting staff of NR and NRO, The Weekly Standard, the Daily Caller, the Breitbart crew, the Washington Free Beacon, the Washington Examiner, and some others I'm sure I'm slighting by forgetting and you have a sizable and very solid cadre of reporters. Maybe it's just the circles I travel in, but the folks who I hear most often bewailing the lack of good conservative reporters are . . . conservative columnists, op-ed writers, and other folks with non-reporting media roles. Of course, there's nothing stopping any of those folks from doing original reporting. And maybe I'm growing cynical as I grow older, but I sense a dollop of competition-averting "stop trying to do what I do" in the columnists' lament. But it shouldn't be a mystery as to why so many young folks on the right are drawn to opining and column-writing instead of hard-news beat reporting. Periodically I'll ask people, "How many New York Times columnists can you name?" And most folks can, after thinking a moment or two, mention Paul Krugman, or Maureen Dowd, or David Brooks or some others. Then I ask, "How many New York Times reporters can you name?" And the answer is almost always none. You can substitute almost any other publication in this measure. We praise, denounce, cite, and critique the columnists, while reading the news pages and rarely noticing the byline. Column-writing and opining are the glamour gigs in political journalism; reporting, no matter how much we need it, rarely gets as celebrated or as recognized. If you want more of something, you need to reward it. I hope the conservative columnists who so often say, "We need more good conservative reporters" frequently cite or mention the work of the existing good conservative reporters in their columns. Of course, we may soon see another vivid example of the predictable-narrative media at work; there was reportedly a New York magazine reporter on board, doing an article on the state of conservatism after the election. We'll see how it turns out; we've seen quite a few versions of this article over the years -- look at these nutty conservatives saying nutty things on this cruise ship. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised, and I'll be really impressed if I am, since my knee-jerk thought is that the audience of New York magazine wants to read about conservatives growing unhinged, despairing, blaming the electorate as stupid, claiming the election was stolen, and so on. (The guy who has owned the vote fraud story from day one, John Fund, from the stage, on the boat: "This election was not stolen." This morning he offers an update on the outlook for Allen West.) ADDENDUM: We'll get back to "normal" Jolt non-cruise coverage shortly, but this observation from Mickey Kaus amused me: "John Kerry wants answers on Benghazi! And he doesnt care who gets hurt! #especiallyifitsSusanRice" Editor's Note:
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