Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: US Politics

Does America Need an Angry President? →

Critics of President Obama undoubtedly see him as divisive, but his rhetoric, at least, seeks to bring people together and speak to Americans as if we are one people with unified goals and aspirations. There has been very little of that kind of rhetoric from any of the Republican candidates, other than protestations regarding alleged class warfare by Democrats who have the radical notion that the very rich should be taxed at at least the same rate as other Americans. At a time when our country desperately needs to come together to solve our problems and move forward, no Republican candidate has bothered to put that simple and obvious idea at the center of their campaign. Americans may be worried about their jobs, unsure of the future or not satisfied with President Obama. All these things could help the Republicans, but not if they expect voters to be as angry as Rick Santorum.

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Closing the Deal for Romney and Obama →

The view that Mitt Romney cannot close the deal with Republican voters has become broadly accepted by most people observing and commenting on this year's Republican presidential primary. There is some truth to this view, as suggested by Romney's inability to finish off a weak field of competitors despite an enormous edge in money, organization, stature and endorsements, or to get more than 50 percent of the vote in most states. Nonetheless, Romney is still very likely to be his party's nominee in the general election, notwithstanding occasionally-discussed scenarios about brokered conventions.

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Republican Ignorance and Contraception →

There are many bizarre angles of the latest Rush Limbaugh outrage. One is Limbaugh's apparent unawareness about how prescription birth control works. His frequent suggestion that Ms. Fluke needed so much birth control because she was having too much sex is, in addition to being offensive, just plain ignorant. Another perplexing aspect of this attack on contraception and the women who use it is that if one listens to the Limbaughs, Rick Santorums and other social reactionaries too much, one could be mistaken for thinking using contraception is a nasty habit that some women have developed on their own, like using excessive profanity or picking their nose in public, and that men are not part of the process or equation. Perhaps Limbaugh's ignorance of how contraception works also extends to not understanding the role which men play in heterosexual sex and in pregnancy.

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Another Missed Opportunity for Mitt Romney →

One of the reasons Mitt Romney has had such a difficult time nailing down the Republican nomination, in addition to his ample weaknesses as a candidate, is that rather than running against one or two other candidates seeking to represent their party on the November ballot and become president in 2013, Romney has been forced to campaign against a seemingly endless stream of candidates who are not serious about trying to become president. Newt Gingrich is running for a job on Fox News; Rick Santorum is running to make a point about theocracy being a better system of government than democracy; Ron Paul is running to draw attention to his Libertarian views; and Herman Cain seemed to be running for the fun of it, which is why he quit when it stopped being fun.

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Weak Candidates Are the Least of the Republicans' Problems →

Now that the Rick Santorum boomlet seems to be ending, Republicans can return to the real work of bemoaning the state of the presidential primary. Republican dissatisfaction with the primary, which is coming from party stalwarts such as Haley Barbour and John McCain, is presented as concern that the drawn out primary will weaken the Republican chances against Obama, but it is also, implicitly, a recognition both that Mitt Romney, despite his potential appeal to those outside of the Republican base, is a weak candidate, and that no strong conservative candidate emerged during the primary season.

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Obama's Win on Health Insurance and Contraception →

While the negative impact of this Obama policy is probably not very substantial, the possibility of this decision having a positive political effect has been overlooked entirely, but there are at least two reasons why this could be a good thing for President Obama. First, the decision to compel Catholic institutions to offer insurance that covers contraception is a specific accomplishment which Obama can show to the Democratic Party's socially progressive base. There have been few accomplishments of this kind during Obama's presidency. While this is, in reality, a relatively minor policy, it demonstrates a willingness for Obama to stand up to social conservatives and highlights the difference between an Obama presidency and a Republican presidency to progressives who may be disappointed in Obama.

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The Republican Tale of Two Commercials →

Together these two commercials, and the reactions to them, demonstrate how the Republicans have backed themselves into an angry, insensitive and cynical corner. The optimism which came naturally to Reagan, through which whose presidency I lived and for whom I am no apologist, has no place in the angry Republican Party of the 21st Century. Instead, the Republicans find themselves disagreeing and yelling foul at a commercial urging Americans to keep fighting and never give up while being reduced to making fun of names and accents in their campaigns.

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The Russian and U.S. Presidential Elections

The U.S. response to events in Russia in March will be complicated by another presidential election, the one in the U.S. While President Obama will have to respond to events in Russia in a thoughtful way taking into consideration a range of issues, Republicans will use these events as an opportunity to portray Obama as soft on Russia. Talking tough on Russia will be a good way for likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney to strengthen his support in at least one part of the Republican base.

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The Republicans' 19th Nervous Breakdown →

There is a not very fine line between issues that should concern a president and issues on which a Fox News commentator should spend his or her time. This was made very evident last week. On Tuesday night President Obama gave his State of the Union address. State of the Union addresses are a rarely compelling form of political theater, but they are significant because they allow the president to present his agenda and goals to the American people. On Thursday night, by contrast, the remaining four Republican presidential candidates engaged in what seemed like their 400th debate. Actually it was only their 19th.

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The 2012 Election and U.S. Democracy

Fidel Castro, who has not had much experience with political competition of any kind has referred to the Republican primary campaign as a “competition of idiocy and ignorance.” Sadly, the longtime Cuban leader has a point. The race to the intellectual bottom and the loutish demonstrations of intolerance which havecharacterized the Republican race for the presidential nomination has been entertaining but also disturbing. Four years ago, the world saw the American political process at its best as the American people peacefully turned the page on the disastrous Bush administration and elected a new and very different president. The race this year, at least on the surface, is very different, but there are still elements of the campaign which demonstrate the strength and resilience of democratic systems of governance.

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Mitt Romney's Very Bad Week →

As an inexperienced first-time candidate who had served only four years in elected office, Romney managed to barely beat out Mike Huckabee to secure a number two finish in the 2008 primaries, and was able to leverage that into frontrunner status in 2012. Last week, however, this all changed; at least it appeared to have changed. Romney lost two primaries last week, which is particularly noteworthy given that voters only voted in one state last week. However, in addition to finishing second to Gingrich in South Carolina, Romney also was stripped of his Iowa caucus victory as final vote tallies showed the winner in Iowa to be Rick Santorum.

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Does Mitt Romney Need a Sistah Souljah Moment? →

The Republican primary has demonstrated that the far right is not as powerful as once thought. Predictions that Romney could not survive the deep south because of his views on social issues or the particular brand of Christianity he practices are going to be proven wrong in the coming weeks. Four years ago, John McCain was cowed by the activists in his party into selecting a running mate who while keeping the right wing happy was unable to appeal to independents and those in the political center.

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Does Mitt Romney Really Think Europe is the Enemy

While Romney is not the first Republican to use anti-European rhetoric in this manner, he is also no longer just a Republican politician. He is one of the two people most likely to be president of the U.S. in 53 weeks. Coming from a potential president, these kinds of jibes against Europe should be seen differently. Romney may legitimately believe that European style social democracy is bad for the U.S., or as is more likely, believe that caricaturing European policies is much easier than explaining his party’s policies of anti-poor class warfare of the last generation. Nonetheless, it is very dangerous for an American president to not have a full understanding of the value of the U.S. relationship with many European countries, or to jeopardize that relationship through over-heated campaign slogans.

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Who Cares Who Finished Second in New Hampshire? →

Despite efforts by candidates and the media to create a story that Mitt Romney -- despite having won Iowa and New Hampshire, and having more money, endorsements and organization than any other candidate in the race -- has still not wrapped up the nomination, Romney has, in fact, all but clinched the Republican nomination for president.

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How Obama Can Win in 2012 →

The Obama White House probably watched the Republican primary season with some dismay as a series of candidates including Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, each more bizarre and unelectable than the others, briefly donned the mantle of front-runner before giving way to Mitt Romney. Romney, the likely Republican nominee, feels like a generic representative of his party from a generation ago. He was born to privilege, made a lot of money, is committed to making his rich friends richer, uncomfortable with the more radical social conservatives who constitute the Republican Party base, awkward when confronted with ordinary working Americans, but extremely comfortable with the financial and foreign policy power elite.

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The Republicans in 2012 →

2012, like most years, promises to be an interesting political year. Some of the stories which were so significant in 2011 will continue, while others will fade away. The tragicomic reality show which was the Republican nominating process will quickly give way to a presidential election with two candidates who, unlike Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry -- who horrified us, made us laugh and otherwise entertained us in 2011 -- have a real chance of being president in 2013. The campaign between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will likely be very close with a great deal of drama as the US engages in the quadrennial event known as "The most important election of our lifetimes."

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A Republican Primary With No Real Competition →

Rather, the main story of the Republican primary season has been that the race has been extraordinarily uncompetitive. Despite the absence of a Republican incumbent or even sitting vice president, the sense among many in the Party that President Obama is very vulnerable and a base energized by the Republican victories in the 2010 midterm election, Mitt Romney has been the front runner for the nomination almost since the day John McCain lost in 2008. With two weeks to go before the first votes are cast, he still occupies that position.

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Can Newt Stop Himself? →

The Gingrich ascendancy is at least as much about good timing, even luck, as about anything Gingrich has done, but timing and luck always play an important role in presidential politics. Gingrich is benefitting both from the predictable collapse of Herman Cain's campaign and of being the non-Romney flavor of the month at the right time. Gingrich's challenge is to hold on to that mantle until the voting starts. Significantly, others such as Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have been unable to maintain that position as scrutiny has increased.

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Romney and the Business Narrative →

The absence of any personal narrative around Romney does not mean there is no narrative to his campaign and the image of "All-Business Man, the world's most boring superhero" which, according to the New York Times, he has cultivated. Romney is not the first GOP candidate to present himself as a leader from the private sector uniquely positioned to rebuild the country and the economy. The businessman as savior is a popular Republican theme, which is consistent with the Republican's ideological preference for business interests over those of working people, youth, senior citizens, the environment or anything else.

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The Failure of the Super Committee and the Dismal Future of Congress →

The failure of the super committee to agree to a compromise that would lead to reigning in the national debt and spearhead a more balanced budget could only have come as a surprise to somebody who has spent the last decade or so living under a rock. The notion that a smaller bipartisan microcosm of congress could resolve these problems and reach an effective compromise was always something of a fantasy. The super committee quickly devolved into a mixture of partisan grandstanding and posturing, predictable and tiresome ultimatums about taxes, muscle flexing by powerful lobbies and a complete absence of political courage. In short, it looked quite a bit like congress has over the past few years.

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