Thoughts On Last Night’s Speeches

Though I don’t think they will matter much in the long run and I regret staying up to watch them,

1. When it comes to Ann Romney, it is like that saying credited to Lincoln, “That’s the kind of thing you will like, if you like that sort of thing.” She did a good job of describing her husband as a hard working, responsible guy who has a reticent, to-the-bone decency, but who doesn’t want public credit because he doesn’t do good for public credit. I imagine that this speech helps with those who have heard Obama’s allies suggest that Romney goes around making the wives of laid off steel workers sick. Those who saw it might be a little more skeptical when the Obama campaign tries to suggest (without outright saying) that Romney is just a greedhead monster who doesn’t care about anyone who is hurt. She also made a good thematic case in favor of Romney on the grounds of managerial competence and realism. If Ann Romney’s speech had been paired with a better keynote speech, it would have been a very good night for the Republicans.

2. I wanted to like Christie’s speech. It had an overarching theme of honesty and responsibility and suggested an agenda that combined effective governance with spending restraint-oriented reform. That is a good message and probably a good idea. The problem was that Christie’s speech was clumsily self-promoting and even mischievous. In some ways it was a truncated version of the nomination acceptance speech Christie might have given if he had run for president. The speech told us a lot more about Christie’s mother than it did about Romney. On the other hand, Obama’s 2004 keynote speech told us more about Obama’s parents than it did about John Kerry. On the third hand, Obama’s speech did a lot more to promote Obama than anything for John Kerry.

The stuff about “hard choices” might have been more appropriate for a Ryan-Romney ticket than a Romney-Ryan ticket and, even then, Ryan would have offered more than fiscal consolidation, toil, tears, and sweat. The talk about “real leaders” changing polls rather than following them sounds a lot more like Chris Christie than Mitt Romney.  Actually, it sounds more like Obama pushing Congress to pass his health care plan even after the election of Scott Brown than anything I can remember from Romney.

The stuff about old people not being selfish (an implied argument for entitlement reform) was also poorly thought out in the context of the Romney-Ryan policy agenda. Romney-Ryan’s proposed reforms to Social Security and Medicare don’t hit current or soon-to-be seniors. Implying spending cuts that aren’t proposed was bad politics and bad policy. Even worse, Christie’s argument cut more if favor of Obama than Romney-Ryan. You know what sounds like asking old people to sacrifice for their grandchildren? Cutting Medicare by $716 billion and using the savings to expand Medicaid and provide subsidies for the uninsured. That’s what. The good news is that Obama is never going to bring that argument up unless he loses his mind. The even better news is that this was lost on the audience since the budget plan Obama came out with this year really is designed to send us into bankruptcy if we actually follow it. Obama really did choose to avoid spelling out the kinds of tax increases and spending cuts it would take to get to a sustainable budget. Obama really is hoping that a bunch of happy talk and promises of raising taxes only on the wealthy will get him reelected on the basis of deception. Christie was right to call Obama out on this.

I’ve read some stories this week that indicated tension between the Romney and Christie camps.  I wonder to what extent this tension (if it exists) explains the problems of Christie’s speech.