Romney vs. The Narrative

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Today, I’m going to do something that may shock you. I’m going to express some sympathy for Mitt Romney. But only a little.

Right now, Willard Mitt Romney is in the fight of his political life. He’s behind Barack Obama by an average of four points in national polls, according to the poll-aggregating website Real Clear Politics.

But, as we all know, elections are won, not in the popular vote, but in the Electoral College, where the same site shows the president leading by enough in enough swing states to snag 265 of the 270 Electoral votes it takes to get him a second term, and he’s got small leads in most if not all of the states listed as toss-ups.

He picks just one of those off, and it’s over. He picks off Florida, it’s over by 9 p.m. Eastern on election night. I’m not going to take a victory lap here, but you’ve got to admit, things look grim for Lord Romney.

But Romney’s fighting a foe more dangerous to his campaign than sliding poll numbers, more powerful than Barack Obama. He’s fighting The Narrative.

I’ve talked in this column before about The Narrative: that shared consensus of opinion that, at some point, begins to grow like a crystal among our lazy press and sensational media. Once it’s fully grown, every story, every quote, every fact reported is viewed through the prism of The Narrative.

While the right may claim that narratives are always a product of the “liberal media bias” of which they’re always whining about being the victims, they’ve benefited from them as often as not. Just ask Al Gore, who never actually said he “invented the Internet,” yet The Narrative — in this case, that Gore was a “serial exaggerator” — decreed that every pundit repeat the misquote as if it was Gospel. Time magazine reporter Margaret Carlson explains why: It was “greatly entertaining to us.”

So what is The Narrative that Romney’s fighting? Surprisingly, at least to me, it’s not that he’s a flip-flopping, pandering, spineless weasel who’ll say anything to get elected. I mean, all that’s true, but that’s not what the media have seized on. No, The Narrative in this case is: Romney’s running an inept, internally fractured campaign and is, therefore, a bumbling loser.

One characteristic of The Narrative is that things that might have gone unnoticed or unremarked become signs and portents of it.

For example, in 2008, The Narrative was that Barack Obama was an “elitist,” a “celebrity,” that he was out of touch with regular folks. This became so entrenched that Chris Matthews (a slave to The Narrative if ever there was one) was aghast that Obama ordered orange juice instead of coffee at a diner, as if orange juice was some kind of exotic, hard-to-find liqueur.

In Romney’s case, there have been some very real missteps and misfires in his campaign. Take, for example, Romney dissing the British at the Olympics. Or his spokesperson responding to the now-infamous “Romney killed my wife” ad by extolling the virtues of Romneycare, which the campaign would really rather pretend never happened (see “flip-flopping, pandering spineless weasel,” above).

But now, thanks to The Narrative, things that might be ignored are being brought to the forefront, such as a video of a recent joint appearance in Ohio with Romney and vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. When Ryan’s introduced, the crowd begins chanting his name. Romney then tries to lead them — awkwardly, of course — in chanting “Rom-ney, Ry-an, Rom-ney, Ry-an.”

This video might have just been another one of thousands lost in the background noise of YouTube, unremarked by anyone but a few left-leaning blogs. But thanks to The Narrative, the video was featured on conservative talk show host Joe Scarborough’s nationally seen “Morning Joe,” followed by Scarborough putting his hands over his face and moaning “Sweet Jesus” in despair.

The Narrative is hard to fight. Once it really gets going, trying to change it is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier plowing ahead at flank speed by standing in a rowboat and hitting it with a broom as it passes.

I don’t think it’s going to be possible for Romney, because in this case, The Narrative, unlike some, has a solid basis in truth. Not all of the things reported as Romney gaffes or missteps as a result of The Narrative are actually going to be either of those, but enough are.

This may not be, as some have claimed, the most inept campaign ever, but it’s certainly inept enough.

'Help' Romney Didn't Need

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I really wasn’t going to do another column about Mitt Romney this week. Really. I promise. But I can’t help it. On Wednesday, they served up a pitch that’s so slow and easy, I just have to take a whack at it.

It all started when Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul responded to an ad that was created by one of those SuperPACs that are so thick on the ground this year. The ad, titled “Understands,” features a former steelworker named Joe Soptic.

The plant where Soptic worked was shut down by Romney’s company, Bain Capital. Soptic lost his health insurance. His wife was diagnosed with cancer and died because, the ad implies, she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor until she got too sick to ignore her symptoms, and by then it was too late. Mrs. Soptic died 22 days after being diagnosed.

“I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone,” Soptic concludes. “And furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.” Basically, Soptic says, Mitt Romney and his company are responsible for his wife’s death, and the MittBot doesn’t care. Wow. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Now, as it turns out, Soptic’s wife didn’t get sick till several years after Soptic lost his job, and she had health insurance from her own job for part of that time. The aforementioned Ms. Saul pointed that out. But then she stepped in it, big time. “If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan,” she told Fox News, “they would have had health care.”

This was most likely true, and to any normal candidate, it would have been a major selling point. But Romney is not a normal candidate. He’s a guy who’s trying very hard to distance himself from his biggest achievement as governor: the health plan that was the model for the national health plan he now vows to repeal, because if he didn’t promise that, he wouldn’t get the nomination.

So saying “Governor Romney’s health care plan might have saved this woman’s life” was actually exactly the wrong thing to say. If you needed any more proof that American politics in 2012 is completely insane, you need look no further than that.

I suppose one can’t blame Ms. Saul too much. After all, when you work for a guy who changes his stances on issues more times that most people change positions in their sleep, it must keep getting harder and harder to keep everything straight.

That didn’t stop the right wing from going completely haywire over the statement. Even more than usual, I mean. Rush Limbaugh said that “Andrea Saul’s appearance on Fox was a potential gold mine for Obama supporters.” Ann Coulter demanded that Saul be fired if Romney ever wanted any more contributions from conservatives.

Erick Erickson of CNN and the flagship right wing blog RedState called it “a mind-numbingly bit of spin [sic] that may mark the day the Romney campaign died.” Erickson noted that the right wing had never really trusted or warmed to Romney, and this wasn’t helping: “Consider the scab picked, the wound opened, and the distrust trickling out again.”

Euuuwww. Nice image there, Erick.

The assertion that this “may mark the day the Romney campaign died” is probably as overwrought as the original ad. But Team Romney does seem to be experiencing the Death of a Thousand Cuts, almost all of them self-inflicted. They’re creating an impression that’s worse for them than the perception that they’re flip-floppers or that they don’t tell the truth — they look inept.

People may be willing to overlook a little flip-flopping or even a little mendacity as something that politicians on both sides do. But when one of the overriding themes of your campaign is that your guy is this cool, experienced, uber-competent CEO who can manage us out of the crisis, ineptitude may be the only unforgivable sin.

When your message is “You’re in a hole and our guy can get you out of it,” it doesn’t help if you act like you don’t know which end of the shovel is which.

This is especially true when you’re going up against the guy that ended the Iraq War, got real health care reform done when no one thought he could, gave the orders that killed Osama bin Laden, saved the auto industry, and presided over 29 months of job growth despite an obstructive House determined to keep things bad for political gain.

AND he can sing on-key.