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What Romney Said This Afternoon
From the Associated Press, a four-minute sampler of Romney’s remarks. I’m not going to say a word–at least not yet. But if you have a moment, would you take a look and let us all know what you think?
(Note that the video opens with a 15-second advertisement. Sorry about that. I haven’t been able to figure out any way around it.)
Published in General
The earnestness of his insincerity is a wonder to behold. I marvel at the salesman, so confident in his skills, to sell ice to Eskimos.
Who are his political advisors that try to play everything both ways? Does he not recognize that we are on the precipice of falling into European-style stagnation, and its no time for doublespeak?
What might be even worse is that he believes that Romneycare works. Longer wait lines to see a physician, doctor shortages, government price controls, hello?
Mitt is done. Stick a fork in him.
I could only take 54 seconds. Fuggedaboudhim.
Well, 1.5 minutes in , and not being interested enough to turn off the music ( Getting Better !) I admit it’s getting worse all the time.
He is kerrying the phrase as “I was stupid before I was smart”. Great , he was making beaucoup dough stupid, might be worth a try.
After all, we have to disabuse ourselves of the idea that everybody ought to have health insurance.
They ought to have iPhones !
4g and green iPads with 3g (whats with that ?)
With a conviction that government should not be in the healthcare business, I made it to about two minutes in. I tried, truly.
I’m confused. Does the plan he’s describing later bear any resemblance to Romneycare? It appears not. So why does he not admit Romneycare was a mistake?
If I may just ask a Reagan question, Peter… It is generally conceded that the 1986 amnesty sans border enforcement thing was a policy error. And even our heroes make mistakes. Would he have said “at the time, I thought it was the best course; looking back, it didn’t work,” or would he have stuck to his guns and damn the torpedoes?
Who are his political advisors that try to play everything both ways? Does he not recognize that we are on the precipice of falling into European-style stagnation, and its no time for doublespeak?
What might be even worse is that he believes that Romneycare works. Longer wait lines to see a physician, doctor shortages, government price controls, hello?
Mitt is done. Stick a fork in him. ·May 12 at 5:06pm
I’m not sure he’s being insincere at all. I think the WSJ opinion piece had him peggged: he’s a technocrat. He thinks he designed a good system in Romneycare and after he left office his successors messed it up. He thinks Obama designed a bad system and he should be given a chance to design a better one.
The problem is that he sees nothing wrong with the very idea that a President should take on the task of designing a national health care system in the first place.
I dunno. Is he currently for or against abortions?
Is the paint dry yet?
I kept wondering how he can comb his hair so neat when he apparently never bothers to look at himself in the mirror.
I was willing to give this squish the benefit of the doubt last time round but he’s actually lost ground with me since. I didn’t think he’d double-down on this but he has. If it does come down to him and Obama, I’ll have a hard time getting out of bed election day.
Hey Mitt, better to keep your mouth shut and people think you’re stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Hmm; not impressed & I voted for him in the primary last time. Btw, are candidates more sincere if they don’t wear ties?
“I in fact did what I believed was right for the people in my state” – I may be quibbling here, but shouldn’t he have used the present tense in that sentence if he thinks he has nothing to apologize for?
Every time he used the words “my plan” I got a shiver down my spine (not up my leg…this was the bad kind of shiver). Socialists plan societies, conservatives and libertarians believe in the emergent order of the market.
Lastly, Romney doesn’t look presidential at all. From what I have heard about him I kind of expected a more suave and sophisticated dude. Instead he looked insecure.
¡Chistoso, señor!
He really would make a great Democrat. You can see his tendency always to plan a better plan. That, with the right plan, the right and ever-more-complicated plan, the government can solve anything…..but then sell it to conservatives by saying it’s better to push requirements to the states and BAM your a Republican.
Rather than explain himself, Mitt should state explicitly “the federal government has no constitutional authority to provide healthcare for Americans.” He might then plausibly make the case for repeal based on states’ rights. Probably machts nichts in the long run because he’s still stuck with the tar baby he created in Massachusetts. Mr. Romney, do your party a favor . . .
Sorry but Democrats could never be this good. And look ! there’s the tallest midget in town !
Oy. That was so much more disheartening than I could’ve imagined it would be. He has a Plan. Despite the fact that, by his own admission, the Plan is now maligned from one coast to the other and considered by many to be a complete failure, he has the same Plan he had before. Because he’s smart, you see, and so the Plan *will* work. Just sit back and take your medicine, people, and let the smart man do his thang.
Did anyone else listen to this and think, “Woodrow Wilson”? Lord, please deliver us from the technocrats.
CEOs like to poke, prod, tweak, and fiddle with things. It’s what they’re paid to do. That’s great for a corporation that needs to be turned around. A country? Not so much.
Well, he wasn’t proposing the same plan. Actually, I found Mitt quite charming. He won’t lead us down Euro-style stagnation (I doubt he’d even intervene as far as Switzerland or The Netherland’s style of “managed competition” market healthcare).
His argument that it was unfair to subsidize emergency rooms for the uninsured (due to federal rules) or allow the uninsured to die on the street was pretty good I think.
Do not compare the Dutch or Swiss private market healthcare systems with the Swedes or the UK. Mitt would be unlikely to go nearly as far as even what the Swiss and Dutch did (e.g. banning for-profit insurance companies, something I actually favor).
He is a technocrat, yes, but he’s a technocrat who acknowledges the primacy of state governments. That matters.
I feel bad for the guy because he’s in such a fix. His states’ rights argument is a good one, but it’s only a 50% argument; the other half of the argument being almost entirely unavailable to him, no matter how he attempts to parse.
“States like mine have the constitutional right to be wrong,” is, in essence, the strongest conservative argument at his disposal. Poor guy.
I have said it more than once. I will say it again. Mitt Romney is a managerial progressive. His argument is that he can manage the administrative state better than the next guy. Newt Gingrich is no better, and Mike Huckabee is an Arkansas version of the same thing. If we cannot do better than this in the wake of Barack Obama, we might as well surrender.
Let’s hope that Tim Pawlenty is better and Mitch Daniels as well.
The more I see of Mitt and his ilk, the more I think we need to cast caution to the wind and go with a fire-breathing barn-burner.
Allen West being the foremost example.
Just imagine a debate between Mitt and Obama – tedious and painful.
Now imagine one between West and Obama – high fives and cheers.
Agreed. We need a champion willing to put a stake through the heart of the big government, administrative state. Slash and burn, baby.
Having been a Mitt supporter last time around, I hoped that he’d come clean and admit that the Massachusetts experiment was a failed experiment, admit that he’d made a mistake, state that he’d got some conservative religion, and come out against any kind of government effort to provide universal care.
He didn’t do it, so I’m moving on.
I think Professor Rahe has this one pegged too. Romney is giving us a utilitarian argument rather than one from first principles. Then again, an argument from first principles might argue against his Massachusetts plan, which is probably why he approaches the issue as he does. I understand his desire to give details rather than speaking solely in lofty platitudes, but he’s missing the mood of the moment here. People want a return to Constitutional governance, rather than another policy specialist who promises he can make the leviathan state become our partner. He’s not helping himself with this.
He is a technocrat, yes, but he’s a technocrat who acknowledges the primacy of state governments. That matters.
Well, it would matter more if we weren’t more or less talking about expansions of Medicaid and matching federal dollars.
It’s one thing to talk about states’ rights when the states foot the entire bill…
I think you meant to write neatly; and yes, extremely handsome and successful men don’t need to look in the mirror!
If Mitt came out and said that Romneycare was a mistake it would be mere seconds before you were all hastily posting “Flip-Flopper! Flip-Flopper!”
Perhaps you should take your own advice…at least until you move out of your mother’s basement.