Now this is what I call good, thorough – and above all, comprehensive – sucking up by The Daily Beast:
President Romney? He’d Have to Thank Obama for Improving Picture
It’s way too early to say who the next president will be. But even now, in June, we can already predict at least one outcome of November’s election: if Mitt Romney ends up winning the White House, he will have a better shot at success than many of his presidential predecessors—and he will have Barack Obama to thank for the leg up.
This is how you do it, folks. This is how you kiss a politician’s rear end when you don’t even know which Presidential posterior you’ll end up be puckering up for. It’s almost Platonic in its purity. If you’re in Team Obama, you get so many warm fuzzies about being told how awesome your President was in turning an admittedly frightening yet decidedly temporary economic meltdown into the Great Recession that you hopefully won’t notice that The Daily Beast is figuring that your guy has an excellent chance at being a one-termer; and if you’re on Team Romney you’re going to be so pleased at having a Lefty site treat Romney as being worth sucking up to that you maybe won’t realize that they’re effectively announcing that they’re sucking up to what they think is an empty suit.
I note this not because I really blame The Daily Beast for wanting to hedge its bets like this, but because it illustrates the basic conundrum that the Romney campaign should at some point squarely face. Essentially, it’s this: the people who are part of the Beltway culture – which includes Left-media organizations like The Daily Beast – will accomodate themselves well enough to a Romney Presidency like they would any other Republican Presidency… if they can do so on terms acceptable the Beltway culture. Meanwhile, if/when Romney gets elected it’ll be because of the votes of people – Republicans, Independents, and maybe even some Democrats – who absolutely loathe the Beltway culture as being the primary reason why we’re in this mess in the first place*. Mitt Romney will have to decide which group is more important.
I suggest that the ever, ah, ‘evolving’ loyalty that the Beltway culture shows towards wounded and inconvenient members of it should make such a decision easy – but then, I’m biased.
Moe Lane
*They happen to be correct.
“Meanwhile, if/when Romney gets elected it’ll be because of the votes of people – Republicans, Independents, and maybe even some Democrats – who absolutely loathe the Beltway culture as being the primary reason why we’re in this mess in the first place.”
.
Moe Lane gets it.
Romney would have Obama to thank for one thing: having an incompetent boob for a predecessor will make Romney look really awesome by comparison, much like it did with Reagan. Also much like Reagan, things can’t help but improve, because it is harder to get much worse. (Though I know it could.)
None of this is to say that Reagan wasn’t an excellent President, but just about anyone would have been an improvement over Carter. Romney may step into a similar position.
The Daily Beast really ought to stick to covering the British Royals. That’s Tina Brown’s wheelhouse.