It’s a pleasure to return to COMMENTARY after having served as a senior advisor in the Romney campaign. At a later date I’ll dilate on the outcome of the election. For now I simply want to say that I ended the campaign with an even higher regard for Governor Romney than I began it. He is a man of great personal decency and integrity. He single-handedly revived his campaign on the largest stage in American politics (the October 3 debate); and he became stronger over the course of the election.
Tuesday’s loss was a body blow for those associated with the campaign. Few of us saw this defeat coming, which makes the defeat all the more jarring.
Most Americans are simply relieved the campaign is over. They believe it went on for far too long, that it was much too expensive, and that it was characterized by personal attacks and petty discussions. Everyone, it seems, is sick of politics.
Post-election lamentations aren’t unusual, and they aren’t without merit. But let me offer several other observations, the first of which is that we tend to be hyper-critical about the present while idealizing the past. That’s a mistake. Consider the first real political campaign in American history, between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1800. It’s regarded by scholars as among the nastiest campaigns ever. One pro-Adams newspaper predicted that if Jefferson were elected, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.”
According to the New York Sun, the 1872 election between Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley deteriorated into “a shower of mud.” So have many others. During the 1980 campaign, for example, the liberal New Republic declared, “President Carter has made a grave moral error in trying to portray Ronald Reagan as a racist.” The editorial page of the Washington Post chimed in, saying, “Mr. Carter has abandoned all dignity in his round-the-clock attack on Mr. Reagan’s character.”
My point isn’t to hold up these incidents as a model for political discourse; it’s that slashing attacks are often a part of politics. Even the Lincoln-Douglas election consisted of more than the Lincoln-Douglas debates. So some perspective is in order.
Point number two: It doesn’t help matters that many who comprise the political media tend to ignore intellectually serious discussions. Rather than discussing, say, the pros and cons of a premium support system or grappling with how to increase social mobility, they prefer to obsess on the horserace aspect of the campaign, gaffes, Twitter feeds and political intrigue. Many in the press are drawn to the sensational and trivial. Increasingly they themselves are contributing to it. Yet with the campaign now over, prepare for countless journalists to travel to the Shorenstein Center and appear on Charlie Rose to complain about the superficiality of campaigns.
A final point: Campaigns are never pristine and politics is an imperfect profession. But as flawed as they are, they have helped create an extraordinary nation and produced great leaders. Politics is a means through which we deal with matters of enormous importance, from policies on taxes and health care to the nature of justice and the relationship between the citizen and the state. Which is why it has always attracted, and still attracts, good people.
Shortly after Mitt Romney conceded on Tuesday night, a writer for whom I have great respect sent me a note. “Nights like this I realize how much easier it is to be in the peanut gallery rather than in the arena,” he wrote. “Easier but less satisfying.”
As for me, I rather like the peanut gallery. But I deeply admire the individuals I have worked with and for who have entered the arena. It isn’t an easy life. But it is a satisfying one.
Peter, I'll give you some time to decompress. I'm sure Romney's blow is a loss to you and I don't want to jump on someone who probably worked untold hours, many of which were probably not pleasant. I am a Commentary poster who throughout the campaign believed Romney would lose, but I'm still disappointed. I wanted to be wrong. I believed he would have been a very good and competent leader. But you, as a member of his staff, have some questions to answer. I'll begin with a general(and harsh)one: was the Romney camp liars or stupid? We were told how great the ground game was. We were told that we had enthusiasm on our side. You folks boasted about voter contacts. You parsed all the early and absentee voting to argue how much better Romney was doing. And you ridiculed pollsters who were reputable, honest and, ultimately, accurate. In other words, you gave your supporters a great deal of hope. That's why I'm left with the aforementioned formulation: stupid or liars? Again, I never thought you could pull it off(and received a great deal of criticism from Commentary posters). But my point is not to boast, but for you to explain how such experts could have been so wrong and have caused so many to be gravely disappointed.
Thank you. As a former (due to my ignorance) "Anybody but Romney" Republican voter, I must say that he won me over big time, and I attribute that not only to his incredibly generous spirit and demeanor but also his preparedness and evident grasp of what this country sorely needed. n nI consider the rejection of his leadership a devastating loss to the American electorate and citizenry. Thank you again for everything you did to try to get him elected.
around- I wrote to you in a different post and thanked you for being right-and I, wrong- and I appreciate your questions to Peter. They were neither stupid nor liars , they just looked at the wrong images. No one, including many pundits, believed that this year would duplicate 2008. It did. Add that to the fact that- inexplicably-three million fewer Republicans voted for Romney than for McCain-and you have the recipe for a defeat and catastrophe. nLet's see how the political scene looks like after Obama leaves the scene.
Peter, you have many interesting things to say, and I welcome you back to Contentions, but you have some fessing up to do: you were very wrong about your predictions and analysis of this race and you need to acknowledge it and explain it.. Please don't claim they weren't predictions: true, you did not use the word "predict" to my recollection, but in post after post, you painted a picture of a massively weak Obama presidency that just needed to be given a little push to tip over. How wrong you were. Romney followed your approach to a T, but it was clearly the wrong approach on many levels. Reading your posts helped create much false optimism, and I fear, your advice to the Romney campaign helped create much bad strategy. I think you may be better suited to a more "political science" approach than to bare knuckled political strategy and how to win a campaign. I also like your cultural analysis. But you were wrong and you need to admit it to have credibility here.
I am still wondering why so many Senate contests had higher votes than Obama. n nMr. Wehner can work on kicking the sound of "Oops" out of his head.
Welcome back Peter. We will enjoy getting to read your posts again. Disappointing as the election result is for us, must be so much more for Romney and those of you closely involved. Thanks for your efforts on behalf of all of us.
You're getting a lot of welcome backs. Let me be one to deny you a welcome. The Republican Party was abandoned at the polls by middle and lower-middle class whites and Evangelicals. The Republican candidate in 2012 got less white people to vote for him than for McCain in 2008. n nYou want back? You want a welcome? Not going to happen, pal. You people screwed us. We knew Obama would screw us. The Romney campaign? Who knew? Well, now we know.
No wonder
How could you not seeing a defeat coming when you were behind in most of the battleground states?