The Front-Runner’s Missing Magic
By FRANK BRUNI
NYT
WASHINGTON
DURING the 2000 presidential race, when you talked with Republicans about George W. Bush, their eyes danced. Their voices trilled. It’s hard to remember that now, given all the messes he made, but back then Republicans saw him as a godsend. A gift. He had a pedigree that reassured the establishment but a folksiness and religious diction that warmed social conservatives. He spoke some Spanish and talked of immigration and education in inclusive ways that gave independents a reason to perk up. Beloved by many on the right, he could nonetheless nurse crossover dreams.
During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama sowed even headier expectations among Democrats. He too was backed by believers who regarded him not as the most acceptable of many flawed alternatives but as a special, transformative leader with a rare eloquence and idealism. On top of that conviction was the thrilling prospect of a black president, his election proof that our country had made real progress toward racial reconciliation and that its stated values weren’t hollow platitudes. He was hope and he was history.
In 2012, Mitt Romney’s chief problem isn’t his riches, though they’re not always helpful in an era of sharpened concern about the unequal distribution of wealth. His chief problem isn’t the wariness that many conservative purists feel toward him, though that suspicion was both the fuel for Rick Santorum’s victories last week and the fraught context of Romney’s visit to the Conservative Political Action Conference here on Friday, during which he performed the oratorical equivalent of cartwheels to the right.
What impedes his candidacy more than anything else is an excitement deficit. An excitement void, really. It’s hard to find a single Republican, including those most solidly behind him, who demonstrates true passion for him or can do even a persuasive pantomime of it. They call him effective, not inspirational. They praise his competence, not his charisma. He doesn’t exert any sort of gravitational pull on his party. There’s no full swoon.
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON
DURING the 2000 presidential race, when you talked with Republicans about George W. Bush, their eyes danced. Their voices trilled. It’s hard to remember that now, given all the messes he made, but back then Republicans saw him as a godsend. A gift. He had a pedigree that reassured the establishment but a folksiness and religious diction that warmed social conservatives. He spoke some Spanish and talked of immigration and education in inclusive ways that gave independents a reason to perk up. Beloved by many on the right, he could nonetheless nurse crossover dreams.
During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama sowed even headier expectations among Democrats. He too was backed by believers who regarded him not as the most acceptable of many flawed alternatives but as a special, transformative leader with a rare eloquence and idealism. On top of that conviction was the thrilling prospect of a black president, his election proof that our country had made real progress toward racial reconciliation and that its stated values weren’t hollow platitudes. He was hope and he was history.
In 2012, Mitt Romney’s chief problem isn’t his riches, though they’re not always helpful in an era of sharpened concern about the unequal distribution of wealth. His chief problem isn’t the wariness that many conservative purists feel toward him, though that suspicion was both the fuel for Rick Santorum’s victories last week and the fraught context of Romney’s visit to the Conservative Political Action Conference here on Friday, during which he performed the oratorical equivalent of cartwheels to the right.
What impedes his candidacy more than anything else is an excitement deficit. An excitement void, really. It’s hard to find a single Republican, including those most solidly behind him, who demonstrates true passion for him or can do even a persuasive pantomime of it. They call him effective, not inspirational. They praise his competence, not his charisma. He doesn’t exert any sort of gravitational pull on his party. There’s no full swoon.
(More here.)
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