Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Here is Rudy Giuliani.  Yes, he was a registered Republican, which meant that he had to display a dashing look for silk stocking traditional New York Upper East Side liberals to be electable in running for mayor.

Rudy sought to prove to the most ardent Democrat that he was Manhattan chic through and through.  Remember, here was a guy who once paraded in drag.  

Then there were those three marriages and all the hot and heavy sessions in the Hamptons when he would visit future wife number three.  He shared an apartment at one point with a gay couple and let everyone know that he was pro choice, saw nothing wrong with gay marriage, and favored gun control.

So now where do we find super hip Rudy the fun loving party guy from Manhattan?  Well, he's spending time now letting the NRA know that he shares plenty of common ground with them.  Look, forget about any other criticisms because I am Rudy the Enforcer from post-9/11!  

Just punch my ticket to the White House and I will give you good old post-9/11 law and order.  Forget any of those criticisms you heard since they come from the disgruntled and disruptive left, the same kind of folks who attack Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.  They oppose Bush and want to get us out of Iraq when we know that we are there to fight terrorism in the spirit of post-9/11.  

Try as valiantly as he does, Rudy just does not have the style when it comes to political makeovers as the experienced former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.  I was privileged as were other Massachusetts residents to watch Mitt on television in his historic first debate in 1994 when he challenged the state's most prominent officeholder from its most prominent political family, Senator Ted Kennedy.

In his first competitive office bid Romney sought to placate liberals, a prominent voting bloc within the state, as well as reach out to conservatives and moderate independents.  

When the subject of a woman's right to choose came up early in the debate, an exchange was initiated that highlighted a comment that would stick to Romney from that point forward.

"On this issue, Mr. Romney, you are multiple choice," Kennedy crisply exclaimed, drawing loud cheers and applause from his assembled faithful.

A flustered Romney indignantly declared that this was a mischaracterization of his position.  Later in the debate Romney encountered his second uncomfortable moment when the subject of universal health care arose.  

Since health care is an area where Kennedy has much experience and expertise, Romney's position attracted additional concern since Bay State voters wondered what kind of a contrast he would draw from the experienced incumbent he sought to unseat.

The health care discussion began with a logical question from Kennedy after Romney declared that he had a plan that he was offering to voters.

"All right, Mr. Romney, now what is the cost of your health care plan?" Kennedy asked.

Romney declared that he did not know, sending up an audible gasp from the audience.  Kennedy played the moment for all that it was worth, informing his younger, lesser experienced rival that if he indeed had a plan of his own that he expected the state's voters to seriously consider then it was important for him to inform them what it would cost.

Initially Romney offered enough of a challenge to provide a scare to Kennedy, actually edging him by two points in one early poll, but after spending $10 million from his campaign fund while Romney spent $7 million of his own money, the veteran senator triumphed by a comfortable margin.

Romney came back to fight another day in Massachusetts in 2002, deciding to run for governor.  His father George had been governor of Michigan in the sixties.  Romney did plenty of straddling once more, going back and forth on a gay marriage amendment and judiciously keeping a foot in the pro choice camp in a notably liberal northeastern state.

After serving one term Romney began testing the waters for a presidential run and now seeks to convince Republicans that he should be their choice.  There was some rocky sledding on the issue of military service and the Iraq War.

The occasion was a 60 Minutes interview that Romney and his campaign staff hoped would be a glowing centerpiece in the race to achieve the Republican Party presidential nomination.  

A scene set in the Romney home revealed the image of the affluence that the multimillionaire candidate possesses.  Romney's sons were well dressed and looked like the picture of health as it was mentioned that all of them had performed their Mormon Church missionary service.

A question was then asked about military service.  Had any of the Romney sons served in Iraq?  

The answer was that none had, once more begging the point about sons of prosperous CEO types like Romney avoiding military service while less affluent types served one or more tours of duty, harkening memories of Vietnam when those of affluent families dodged service while those from poorer families filled the ranks of combat participants.

More recently Romney staked out ground as a potential John F. Kennedy of 2008.  Kennedy had received plaudits for his appearance early in the 1960 election campaign when he appeared before the Houston Ministerial Association, presenting a brilliant analysis of the constitutional issue of separation of church and state.  

Certain Protestant clergymen, particularly in the South, questioned whether Kennedy as a Roman Catholic would be under influence from the Vatican.

Kennedy's speech achieved its purpose in letting anyone willing to view the subject with an objective mind that he was a candidate for president who, if elected, would follow a pattern of separation of church and state.  In short, he was not a Catholic candidate for president but the Democratic nominee for president who happened to be Catholic.

Romney's speech in the same city of Houston at the George Herbert Walker Bush Library was markedly different from that of the statesmanlike Kennedy's almost a half century earlier.  Mormon Romney asserted that an individual's particular religious affiliation should not matter; what did matter was that individuals seeking office had a core belief in God.

Multiple Choice Mitt was seeking to be accepted as a statesman who would not discriminate against individuals based on religious affiliation while, in reality, pandering to the Religious Right and the likes of James Dobson and Pat Robertson.  

His fervent posture in stating the importance of religion and a belief in God in his view of American history's evolution was a call to the Religious Right for support and a manifestation that he identified with their cause.

Multiple Choice Mitt took another important campaign position that is reminiscent of that taken by the patron saint of the American right, Ronald Reagan.  Romney declared that after much soul searching he decided that he was opposed to abortion, revealing that he had been wrong earlier to embrace another position.

When Ronald Reagan made his first foray into competitive politics by running for governor of California in 1966 his first move was to engage the highly savvy political public relations firm Spencer and Roberts to alter his image from an earlier one of support for John Birch Society far right California politics, including making a record and delivering frequent speeches opposing Social Security.

Stuart Spencer worked diligently in 1966 to convert Reagan into a born again moderate.  Once that he achieved office Reagan sought to remain within the spirit of Californians' thinking on social issues, prompting him to sign into law the most liberal abortion law of any state in America.  

When it was time to get serious about the presidency, Reagan underwent one of those born again epiphanies.  He declared that he had been wrong on the abortion issue and cashed in on his new position with the party's religious conservatives.

As a matter of fact, after securing the Republican presidential nomination Reagan pandered to the basest element of the nation's electorate, southern racism.  He did so by opening his campaign just outside the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.  Some scratched their heads by wondering why he had chosen such a venue as opposed to a large city in a state with a large bloc of electoral votes.

To the initiated, especially those with backgrounds in the civil rights struggle, the selection of Philadelphia made perfect sense.  Sixteen years earlier Philadelphia had been the scene of the brutal murders of three civil rights workers.  Could such a choice for a campaign's initial effort have been mere coincidence?

Reagan opposed Social Security and appeared at functions such as the far right Christian Anti-Communist Crusade of Dr. Fred Schwarz in those heady pro-Goldwater but pre-gubernatorial candidate days.

He also attracted friends on the California Republican Party's influential right wing by criticizing the Rumford Fair Housing Act making it illegal to practice discrimination in the buying and selling of a home in California.  Reagan supported an initiative calling for its repeal that succeeded, only to later be struck down as unconstitutional.

So Reagan, who earned his nickname of Doctor Feelgood for anesthetizing America by assuring the citizenry that all was well, the economic conservative whose eight years in office saw a tripling of the national debt, was a master of the art practiced so assiduously by fellow Californian Richard Nixon.

Reagan, like Nixon, would alternately flying right for money and Republican support and later relocate to a more centrist position for general elections.

The process has been more chaotic for Romney and Guiliani during the current season, and recently they have taken to attacking each other for opportunism that each possesses.

They must convince themselves that practice makes perfect and that they need to refine their methods to be as convincing as the genial Doctor Feelgood of the Republican Party.

Meanwhile the mainstream media fails to confront Romney and Guiliani in the manner that they constantly nitpicked Howard Dean in 2004.  

Yes, and there was also that race in 2000 when every statement of Al Gore's was closely scrutinized while George W. Bush led a charmed life, despite being nominated after one of the most scurrilous campaigns in U.S. political history with his victory in the South Carolina primary.

Not only was Senator John McCain ruthlessly smeared, but let us not forget that racism and anti-Catholicism also reared their ugly heads during that infamous campaign.

Then again, remember the fuss over whether Al Gore did or not claim to have invented the Internet?

The mainstream media had no problem playing up that bogus non-issue in the most spirited and highly repetitious manner.