Mitt's secret weapon may keep
bombing By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG - Ahead of the Republican
convention and on the opening night of the
hurricane-abbreviated affair, presidential
candidate Mitt Romney unleashed his secret weapon,
his wife Ann. Her jaw-droppingly vapid, smugly
delivered speech qualified for immediate induction
into the lost opportunity hall of fame for its
lack of genuine detail, memorable anecdotes and
authentic emotion.
The Republicans are
counting on Ann Romney primarily to humanize their
candidate and make him seem more likeable. But
even if she had delivered her words with perfect
execution, the decision to feature Ann Romney
underscores parts of the
presidential candidate's
story and platform that may well do Romney more
harm than good.
Playing the political
spouse card always holds risks. Betty Ford had a
habit of speaking her mind when asked, even when
it contradicted her husband's positions. Hillary
Clinton, in policy terms the highest profile first
lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, became a polarizing
figure. She was so hated by Republicans that
Democrats thought twice about nominating her in
2008, when she was their obvious choice, giving an
opening to a freshman senator named Barack Obama
to take the prize away from her.
Candidate
Clinton got a double whammy: she had to tote the
political baggage of her husband and former
president Bill Clinton and bear the stigma of the
(unsympathetic to many) wronged spouse.
Ann Romney presents a different kind of
threat to her partner's candidacy. It's not her
straying from message (or from her marriage vows)
that poses dangers. It's that what she's being
asked to say, do and represent that - even when
presented with far greater aplomb than her Tuesday
night speech - could backfire.
Just
your average millionaire next door In her
speech, Mrs Romney talked about staying at home
and raising five boys while her husband pursued
two graduate degrees. Even without mentioning that
his studies were at Harvard, the tale reminded
voters of the privileged lives the Romneys have
led.
She mentioned George Romney, her
father-in-law, but didn't mention that he headed
American Motors, the number four automaker in the
US, back when that meant something, and became
governor of Michigan while her mother-in-law ran
for the senate.
For the average family
today that doesn't have a Fortune 500 chief in its
ranks, the idea of one parent staying home by
choice to take care of kids is a fantasy. To do so
with the other parent attending an Ivy League
school, rather than working a couple of jobs, is
the stuff of fairy tales.
Moreover,
Republican public policy prescriptions for that
couple include more power and money to their boss
and landlord along with cuts in public education
and other government services.
Putting Ann
Romney out front in the campaign also intended to
defuse the GOP's Neolithic position on gender
issues. Her convention speech was a chance to
close the gender gap, and the "I Am Woman" section
included by far its best political line: "We're
smart enough to know there aren't easy answers.
But we're not dumb enough to accept that there
aren't better answers."
But the speech
didn't address positions the party platform and
many Republicans espouse that many women find
particularly troubling. Those issues are best
summed up with a single question: "Why do
Republicans think that the government should
decrease regulation in all areas, except when it
comes to women's health and reproductive
decisions?"
Neutered The
speech's complete lack of substance on women's
issues may have been deliberate. But even when she
retreats to platitudes and anodyne wife's tales,
just having Ann Romney out there turns the
conversation toward the Republicans' gender
positions, the way that Imams for Michelle Bachman
would remind voters of the Tea Party
congresswoman's distrust of Islam and Muslims.
The 2008 Obama campaign fretted over the
power of such optics to the extent it removed a
Muslim supporter wearing a headscarf from a highly
visible position behind the candidate during a
speech.
Ann Romney only alluded to her
battles with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis
in her speech. But the pre-convention rollout of
the Romneys as America's next first couple was
loaded with details of her illnesses, including
Mitt admitting he got teary-eyed during a doctor's
visit as he realized just how sick his wife was.
But playing the sick wife card isn't just
distasteful, it's potentially dangerous for the
candidacy.
The past couple of political
cycles haven't been kind to those wielding any
family illness card. Rick Santorum's campaign
injected his daughter Bella, a four-year-old
suffering from the incurable Trisomy 18 genetic
disorder. Baby Bella was a two-fer as both a sick
kid and a symbol of Santorum's steadfast
opposition to abortion. Yet even that combo
couldn't buy Santorum more than 15 minutes of fame
in the GOP primary race. The mother of all
sick wife plays turned out to be the most
disastrous. Former senator John Edwards' wife
Elizabeth revealed that she had breast cancer
before he made his second run for the Democratic
presidential nomination in the 2008 race. At the
same time, the 2004 vice presidential candidate
was denying supermarket tabloid allegations of an
extramarital affair that produced a love child.
End of the beginning In the
midst of the campaign, the couple upped the ante,
declaring that Elizabeth's cancer had reached the
incurable stage. John Edwards, to some extent
overshadowed by his more compelling spouse,
foundered in the shadow of the Clinton-Obama duel
and dropped out in January. But the story had just
started.
By August 2008, Edwards confirmed
his affair while denying a tidal wave of reports
that he'd fathered a child with his paramour, a
campaign worker. Rather than standing by her man,
Elizabeth Edwards ripped her husband in her second
memoir and when Oprah Winfrey asked if she still
loved him, Mrs Edwards replied, "You know, that's
a complicated question."
In January 2010,
the disgraced former candidate finally admitted
his paternity and a clumsy plot with a top aide to
cover it up. Elizabeth Edwards separated from him
and died that December. The Federal Election
Commission ordered John Edwards to repay US$2.1
million in federal matching grants. He was also
indicted on charges of using campaign funds as
hush money to hide the affair. Although the
two-month trial ended in June with an acquittal on
a single charge and a mistrial on other counts,
the court of public opinion found Edwards
incredibly guilty on all charges.
The
Romneys seem unlikely to suffer that kind of
meltdown. But talking about Ann Romney's medical
conditions may make voters think about the state
of healthcare if her husband becomes president.
Candidate Romney has pledged to repeal
President Obama's healthcare reform legislation,
even though it bears an uncanny resemblance to the
program Romney championed successfully as governor
of Massachusetts. Aside from being a sure-fire
applause line at GOP rallies, repeal of Obamacare
would have a big impact on average Americans.
Under the Republican prescription for
healthcare reform, the vast majority of voters
would face more limited benefits, with insurance
company bean counters, whose sole goal is
maximizing profits, standing between them and
treatment, plus cancellation of their policies at
the first sign of serious illness. The old-age
safety net of Medicare would be replaced with a
featherbed for private insurance company profits.
If you're Mitt and Ann Romney and can
afford a therapeutic showhorse, those differences
are an academic and ideological matter with little
practical impact on your lives. But if you're a
middle-class family, these questions are crucial.
Under Romney, you'd face a far greater prospect of
bankruptcy from illness. The healthcare system
threatening your financial health would be more
likely to continue to cost the most and deliver
the worst outcomes in the industrial world.
You'd think that linking Romney's
candidacy with healthcare or gender issues would
be something Republicans would try to avoid. But,
as with much else in the GOP playbook, the Ann
Romney gambit depends on voters not thinking.
Given the results in two of the past three US
presidential elections and the largely charitable
response to her speech, that may be a smart bet.
Asia Times Online 2008 Campaign
Outsider Muhammad Cohen told America's
story to the world as a US diplomat and is author
of Hong
Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997
handover about television news, love, betrayal,
financial crisis, and cheap lingerie. Find his
blog, online archive and more at www.MuhammadCohen.com,
and follow him on Facebook
and Twitter @MuhammadCohen..
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, a novel set during the 1997
handover about television news, love, betrayal,
financial crisis, and cheap lingerie. Find his
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