(Crossing Fingers and Toes) The Beginning of Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney’s Long Good-Bye (UPDATE: On Rick Perry, Michelle Malkin, and Garadasil)
At Rasmussen (HT Hot Air) — GOP Primary: Perry 29%, Romney 18%, Bachmann 13%.
Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney’s comeback challenge seems insurmountable. He has been on the national stage for almost five years, yet less than one in five likely GOP voters wants him. What could he possibly do to persuade the other four? Meanwhile I daresay that Perry is not even known to a significant plurality of even likely GOP voters. That will of course change.
With this fade, it seems clear that any additional entrants (rumors include Christie, Palin, and Ryan) will hurt Romney far more than Perry.
Romney still supposedly holds the trump card in New Hampshire, but I don’t see that saving him, even if he wins that primary.
Encouraging sign from Perry — He’s not afraid to in effect say what for some reason are a politician’s six hardest words, namely: “I was wrong; I am sorry.” Good for him.
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UPDATE: Commenter Greg points to Michelle Malkin’s column this morning which totally rejects Perry’s apology.
I’m not sure exactly what would satisfy Michelle on this one, because these direct quotes from Perry in Life News look like “I was wrong; I am sorry” to me:
“I signed an executive order that allowed for an opt-out, but the fact of the matter is I didn’t do my research well enough to understand that we needed to have a substantial conversation with our citizenry,” he said. “I hate cancer. Let me tell you, as a son who has a mother and father who are both cancer survivors.”
“I hate cancer. And this HPV, we were seeing young ladies die at the early age. What we should have done was a program that frankly should have allowed them to opt in, or some type of program like that, but here’s what I learned — when you get too far out in front of the parade they will let you know. And that’s exactly what our legislature did.”
UPDATE: “I made a mistake on that,” Perry told Iowa Radio later in the day Monday, calling it “an error in not having a conversation with the people of the state of Texas.”
“I agreed with their decision. I don’t always get it right, but I darn sure listen,” he said of the legislature responding to his decision.
“One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’” Perry told Houston’s ABC affiliate on Monday. “We backed up, took a look at what we did. I understand I work for the people, not the other way around. There was a better way to do that, I realize that now.”
Michelle claims that Perry is mischaracterizing his reactions at the time by giving himself credit for “listening.”
Looking at the May 8, 2007 Perry speech after the EO was repealed, which is the item Michelle cites as evidence of his “human shield demagoguery,” I’m not seeing the same thing. I’m seeing anger over what Perry saw as the Texas legislature’s overreaching reaction (bolds are mine):
… while I respect the voice of the legislature, this issue has never been about the separation of powers, but the saving of lives.
Those legislators who claim this is about their right to determine public policy have succeeded in overturning my order. But if they care about succeeding in stopping the spread of the second most deadly cancer among women, and not just asserting their power, then they will turn around and pass legislation to make access to the HPV vaccine as widely available as possible. Instead, they have sent me a bill that will ensure three-quarters of our young women will be susceptible to a virus that not only kills hundreds each year, but causes great discomfort and harm to thousands more. Instead of vaccinating close to 95 percent of our young women, and virtually eliminating the spread of the most common STD in America, they have relegated the lives of our young women to social Darwinism, where only those who can afford it or those who know about the virtues of it will get access to the HPV vaccine.
In fact, this legislature has not only overturned an order that could save women’s lives, but they put rider language in the budget that prevents the state from funding vaccines for low-income women if it is mandated by the commission.
Note that “funding vaccines for low-income women” (and, presumably, providing information on the availability of the vaccine) is NOT the same as “forcing vaccines on low-income women.” If you’re already providing free medical care to low-income women (the degree to which we should be doing that is a separate debate), why would you arbitrarily exclude Gardasil, again as long as its provision is voluntary?
I also think Michelle’s not being fair in criticizing Perry for having affected women on hand for his speech. If this is an “Alinskyite” tactic, Ronald Reagan, in his 1985 State of the Union speech, was also an Alinskyite:
Ten years ago a young girl left Vietnam with her family, part of the exodus that followed the fall of Saigon. They came to the United States with no possessions and not knowing a word of English. Ten years ago – the young girl studied hard, learned English, and finished high school in the top of her class. And this May, May 22 to be exact, is a big date on her calendar. Just 10 years from the time she left Vietnam, she will graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point. I thought you might like to meet an American hero named Jean Nguyen.
Now, there’s someone else here tonight, born 79 years ago. She lives in the inner city, where she cares for infants born of mothers who are heroin addicts. The children, born in withdrawal, are sometimes even dropped on her doorstep. She helps them with love. Go to her house some night, and maybe you’ll see her silhouette against the window as she walks the floor talking softly, soothing a child in her arms – Mother Hale of Harlem, and she, too, is an American hero.
Yes, I get the difference between using audience members as examples of heroism vs. using them to promote a legislative agenda. But props are props — and, I should note, Perry had already lost. The default assumption has to be that he pointed out the affected women because he felt strongly about the importance of being vaccinated.
The original Gardasil order is here; the parental opt-out provision looks legitimate to me. Steve at Life News notes that waivers are “automatically granted as long as parents provide all required information.” I agree that opt-in would have been better.
I don’t agree that allowing Perry a bit of righteous anger in response to a perceived legislative overreaction DQs him from claiming that he appropriately responded to his own original overreach. Qualified by the fact that Michelle clearly has deeper contacts and fuller context, at this point I’m going to have to disagree with her call on this one.
UPDATE 2: There is also the fundamental question of whether Perry’s decision to issue an EO instead of working through the legislature from the beginning betrays pervasively statist impulses. I don’t think one EO inspired by public health concerns proves that, but there may be other examples out there, and it all bears watching.
As Michelle says, it all fundamentally comes down to “instincts, judgment, core values, and trust.” If we all bought into the veneer instead of looking listening, digging, and evaluating, Mitt Romney would be the anointed one by now, instead of the obviously and Objectively Unfit Mitt. That’s why they have presidential campaigns (not that they need to be this flippin’ long, but that’s also a discussion for another time), and that’s why it behooves us all to pay attention to what the candidates are saying, and doing. The candidates, and the process, both become better when we do that.
