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Romney’s Anti-Trump Speech a Rousing Success
Earlier today, politicos across America proclaimed that Mitt Romney’s speech denouncing Donald Trump was a complete bust. Morning Consult polled Republicans and found that the broadside had barely moved the needle in the race:
Thirty-one percent of GOP voters said they were more likely to vote for Trump, while 20 percent said less likely, and 43 percent said it had no impact either way.
The poll, which was conducted March 4 through March 6, also finds that only five percent of Trump supporters said they are now less likely to vote for Trump. And, of those who voted for Romney in 2012, 30 percent said they were more likely to vote for Trump, compared to 20 percent who said less likely. Nearly half (48 percent) said it wouldn’t affect their vote either way.
The 2012 GOP nominee is the foremost representative of the loathed establishment, so it’s no surprise that his University of Utah speech didn’t change the minds of angry voters. But, of course, that wasn’t the purpose of Romney’s speech. Likewise, Marco Rubio’s mockery and Ted Cruz’s lawyerly deconstruction of The Donald weren’t primarily designed to make the Trumpenproletariat abandon their leader. Instead, they wanted to get inside Trump’s OODA Loop.
The OODA Loop
While in the US Air Force, fighter pilot Col. John R. Boyd created a decision-making model which allowed American pilots to dominate every dogfight. Marshaling his exhaustive knowledge of big thinkers from Sun Tzu to Werner Heisenberg, Boyd determined that victory isn’t merely a matter of superior technology and firepower. More important are brainpower, decisiveness, and fast choices.
OODA stands for Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action. The pilot must quickly observe the conditions, orient his jet before the opponent does, decide upon a plan, and then act against the enemy’s weakness. The faster through this cycle, the better. After the pilot’s initial decisive act, he immediately observes the new environment, re-orients himself, decides a second move, and acts on it. By employing this framework, Boyd promised he could best any of his fellow pilots despite starting a mock battle in a vulnerable position. He achieved his goal every time in less than 40 seconds.
The OODA loop is as applicable to business and politics as it is to dogfights. If you run a tech company, success isn’t merely having the best product, being fastest to market, or having the largest marketing budget. Those are helpful, but the essential element is to outmaneuver the competition. By taking fast, decisive action, you can get inside your opponent’s OODA loop, which Boyd said will “make us appear ambiguous, [and] thereby generate confusion and disorder.”
Getting Inside Trump’s OODA Loop
Until the past couple of weeks, Donald Trump has been the only candidate generating confusion and disorder. Always on offense, the media covers him non-stop, whether it’s for the petty insult of the day, a false claim, or strange behavior. When the news channels do cover his rivals, they mostly ask the candidates about Trump’s latest outrage. Nearly all of his opponents’ decisions have been defensive, responding to the frontrunner.
But as anyone who has watched The Donald knows, he is an insecure and undisciplined man who can’t resist responding to any perceived slight — often in embarrassing ways. So Rubio mocked his finger size … to which the Donald assured a vast debate audience that he had a large penis. Rubio exposed the Trump University scam … to which The Donald lied about an “A” rating from the Better Business Bureau which had actually granted it a D-minus. He spent days on Twitter calling the Florida senator a “leightweight” and a “chocker,” fueling even more mockery.
Around the time Rubio was taking it to The Donald, Romney demanded that Trump release his taxes and implied that the multizillionaire was hiding a far less impressive net worth. Trump responded in a long Twitter rant with more insults and over-the-top boasts about his financial acumen. Then Mitt implied The Donald might be hiding financial mismanagement and business failures. Trump jumped on the airwaves to respond, his face red with anger as he lied about his bankruptcies and hiring foreign workers. The press couldn’t help but explain the scandals to their viewers.
Then came March 3, the morning of a crucial debate in the delegate-rich state of Michigan: The ideal time for Mitt to really rattle the GOP frontrunner. Instead of resting up or doing debate prep, Trump watched Mitt’s speech denouncing him, then hastily staged a shouty, rambling speech of his own. He called in to talk shows and spoke of Mitt “dropping to his knees” for him. He again took to Twitter, focused entirely on a man who isn’t running against him. By the time the debate began, Trump was tired, peevish, and completely off his game.
Rubio and Cruz observed this fact, reoriented, decided on new attacks, and acted with vigor.
I’m sure Mitt and Marco would be happy if their attacks on Trump had convinced his fans to abandon their hero and join one of his rivals. They would have loved to see his poll numbers plummet overnight and his frontrunner status collapse like Herman Cain’s did in the 2012 race. But that wasn’t their primary goal.
Instead, they wanted to get inside Trump’s OODA loop, put him on the defensive for the first time in this campaign, and force him into costly mistakes. And, in that, they succeeded.
Published in General
Only time will tell, but there is no doubt that the last 2 debates have destroyed Drumpf’s illusion of invulnerability. He can no longer claim to be a great debater after Rubio roasted and Cruz crossed him.
His has lost his “fighter” status and that probably lost him a chunk of would be supporters. Further electoral victories to non trump candidates will only further weaken his claim.
Regrettably or righteously, Ted Cruz took on Donald Trump for 6 weeks and got no where. This is another tribute to Ted Cruz’s not so nimble political sense.
Rubio did more to create Peak Trump in three days, and deserves the Medal of Honor for falling on that grenade. Rubio has already endured more negative advertising than the other top four combined and he is still walking – if not running. The most appealing candidate in the General Election, Marco Rubio, is the only fully tested and vetted candidate.
Trump and Cruz have not come close to meeting that test. Even Kasich with his Lehman wealth cannot pass the test.
Mitt Romney’s speech was devastating – it said to others you don’t have to become a POW of Trump like Chris Christie. It also confirmed that Trump is not inevitable so you don’t have to go along.
Cruz can’t take the cup either. Trump has hi-jacked Cruz’s Uncompromising Conservative Establishment (Tea Party, Evangelicals, and some Constitutional Conservatives and Texas Posse). So Cruz is stranded, like Rubio is stranded.
Romney, Rubio, Kasich or even Jindal, Perry or Walker could benefit from a brokered convention. Cruz could extract a promise for a Supreme Court nomination. The GOP could come out stronger and should figure out how to allow Trump to play kingmaker with some limits.
Holding Trump from 51% is what is required for now. That is what appears to be happening – tonight will confirm this again.
Whether Trump wins or loses Michigan today will not make much difference in the delegate count because it is a proportional state. But if he loses, it will be another example that he can’t win in the Midwest after Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas and Oklahoma (Is OK still Midwest?). And if he can’t win in depressed Michigan, he probably can’t win in Ohio and others. This thing could collapse faster than a Trump Entertainment Resorts bond.
Mitt Romney is a leightweight and a chocker. He wears little girlglovshisgloves are so small a little girlcouldnI have big beautiful hansI was talking to Vladimir Putin he said you should be a hand modlDonaldBut you’re so rich!!why would you model hands?that doesn’t make any senseDonald to model your handseven though they are big and SObeautiful……
That he has one, or that he is one? Because I’m still not clear.
Who are you?
Since I personally believe that Romney was speaking more towards late deciders, and moderates I’d have to agree that his speech was a success.
I don’t think so, and even Kansas is on the edge.
We now allow sockpuppet trolls on Ricochet?
[Editors’ Note: SBR briefly took a new screen name that was not in accord with the CoC. We requested he change it back, which he did promptly.]
And the message received by the 3 1/2 million who have already cast their vote for Trump in a primary: the RNC is pulling out all the stops to make your vote count for zero.
Heavens! An honest-to-goodness troll?
[Editors’ Note: See above.]
According to the user’s account its a 5 year old troll (and it is changing its bio info currently, I noticed it had San Diego California has its home town and now it doesn’t; it also changed its bio: from Make America White Again to Make America Great Again).
Maybe crank back on those free trials fellas.
But this reminds me of another airman’s principle: If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target.
Well done Jon!
I would hope the message would be that there is competition in the race. No candidate has any right (by blood or other means) to the nomination. They have to win it, Romney is not a limb of some massive collective hive mind creature named the RNC. There are billionaires and millionaires (that are have supported the RNC before) that support Drumpf now, should I assume Drumpf is a puppet of the RNC? Hardly.
Besides, supporters of Drumpf are not the only voters who votes count in this nomination process.
Depending on the poll, Trump dropped 15 to 20 pts in two days before the Louisiana Primary.
The swing in actual votes from early to election-day votes in Louisiana was 18% to Cruz so whether that was tactical anti-Trump voting or Trump voters moving to Cruz is up in the air.
We’ll see tonight if the movement away from Trump (and/or Rubio) continues.
I’d say it was a success in that I learned Trump supporters were unwilling to engage on the substance of what Romney had to say. I did learn how Romney is a RINO loser who gave us Obamacare, but I think I’d heard that before.
Yes, you’re right. I’m just relating what someone with New York (95 Delegate) Values expressed to me.
I have found the characterization of Romney as a tool of the “establishment” somewhat disingenuous. I viewed Romney’s speech as the views of an individual who I respected enough to vote for in the last presidential election. He made mistakes that possibly cost him the election, but that does not lower him to the status of irrelevant. He is leader, a man who has demonstrated in the past that he has pretty good instincts about what is best for this country. What he said about Trump was both fair and appropriate. I suspect that a far larger number of us, who see ourselves as conservatives, agreed with what he said than disagreed. That is how democracy works. Attempting to marginalize him rather than respond to his charges is typical of those who have no counter argument.
Also, I think part of Romney’s point was to make any officeholder who might be toying with endorsing Trump have second thoughts. He told any “establishment” figures who might be thinking about making peace with Trump to get over it and get behind the conservatives in the race.
It’s a rebuke to people like Bob Dole saying Trump might be better than Cruz, for example.
Tom Kratman’s thoughts on the OODA Loop are considerably more skeptical.
Almost half of all votes in contested elections count for nothing. Why is this time any different? Isn’t Trump doing his best to make all the non-Trump votes count for nothing? Is Trump not to be opposed by all the people who oppose him?
Even though I believe in intelligent design, I do not think it applies to GOP strategy. Do not attribute to intelligence which more likely is randon chance.
The GOPe continues to double down on failure. And without any sense of irony, they continue to regard Trump and Cruz supporters as stupid.
Apologies to all for my ill advised attempt at humor. It seemed absurd to me that a mentally ill racist demagogue is Doin the Stanky Legg all over our national election.
Worthy of being mocked, I mean.
I had some good stuff in the chamber about Trump’s OODA loops, Kim Jong-un’s breathless admiration of the same, and Van Halen’s sound doctrine on M&Ms.
Never mind.
When I saw the debate Thursday night, my immediate reaction was that Romney had unnerved Trump. Then it occurred to me that this is perhaps what Romney had intended.
I think he did a great job.
Much to my chagrin… Mitt’s speech and Marco’s attacks seemed to benefit Cruz. On twitter many Rubio supporters report they helped Cruz in those states because they wanted to dent Trump.
The problem is in assuming Cruz supporters have the same goal. They aren’t going to be team players, because that is the opposite of their candidate.
I urge all the Rubio folks to stick with him. Cruz isn’t going to help any of us, it’s about him, not America.
When it comes down to it… Cruz is better than Trump or Hillary, but that still is the last resort.
Not a troll at all, then. I remember you!
I should hope so. The adults in the room need to be involved, given that Trump himself has maturity issues.
Mike, push your candidate (Cruz?) by all means. But this “GOPe” stuff does not play well.