[update below] [2nd update below] [3rd update below]
Five days to go and things are looking up for the President. It’s striking how the election narrative has suddenly shifted over the past 48 hours, to one of greater optimism for Obama and his chances. The polls, both national and swing state, are going his way—the pro-GOP RCP has Obama at +0.1% nationally at this instant—his first RCP lead in weeks—and with 290 EVs in its no toss ups map—and I wouldn’t be surprised if RCP is desperately trying to keep its VA numbers in Romney’s column, as BHO jumping to 303 EVs in its count could seriously disorient the base—; Nate Silver’s and the Princeton Election Consortium’s numbers are being revised upward for Obama almost every few hours—not to mention Intrade’s quote, which leaped five points overnight—; Sandy has stopped the Mittster’s momentum dead its tracks and enabled BHO to look presidential and bipartisan—and Chris Christie’s love-bombing certainly hasn’t hurt here—; Obama’s job approval rating is at 50%; a majority of Americans think he will be reelected; et j’en passe.
But things could still change in the coming days, with Mitt just possibly pulling it out in the end. I don’t think it likely but don’t exclude the possibility. It’s all about turnout now—early voting and election day—and while the Obama campaign’s ground game is tops, the GOP’s isn’t bad either. We won’t know till late Tuesday night (early Wednesday morning where I am) whose will ultimately have been proven better. To put it in US football terms, we’re now inside three minutes, Obama is up six points, but with enough time left for Romney to score a TD plus extra point and win the game. Or for Obama to control the ball and run out the clock. As they say, it ain’t over till it’s over.
If one does one want to prepare for a hypothetical Romney victory, I recommend, entre autres, this lengthy portrait of the man by Nicholas Lemann—”Transaction man: Mormonism, private equity, and the making of a candidate”—, that appeared in The New Yorker a month ago. Lemann is one of America’s premier journalists, anything he writes is worth reading, and this is no exception. What one learns from this piece—and that can be gleaned from the article’s title—is that Romney has lived his entire life in two cloistered worlds: that of high finance—and, specifically, private equity—and, above all, in the Mormon church. As has been explicated in numerous sources, Romney at Bain Capital was hardly the heroic entrepreneur creating jobs, fabricating a product for the mass market, and generally contributing to the betterment of society. He was a predatory financier whose entire raison d’être was to make mega-profits for himself and his associates at Bain. In the pursuit of his gains, he destroyed more jobs—and ruined more livelihoods—than he created. And as he grew up in great wealth, he can hardly tell a rags-to-riches story to justify anything he did in his professional life.
The Mormon church has, of course, been primordial for Romney. Lemann informs the reader that Romney’s family was among the original Mormons in the 1840s—with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young—, that his family is among the Mormon elite, and that Romney himself has been a bishop in the church. This is no doubt already out there but many otherwise well-informed citizens likely aren’t aware of the extent of it. I don’t have a particular problem with this. I’ve read enough about the Mormons, did the tour of the visitor’s center at the cathedral in Salt Lake City, and have even met a few. As far as I’m concerned the Mormon church is a religion like many others, albeit with its peculiar theology and problematic issues in its past (notably polygamy and the status of blacks). But I really don’t care. If one is a devout Mormon, though, it is a total commitment. In reading about the Mormons one thinks of orthodox Jews or devout Muslims, who can thoroughly integrate into the economic life of the larger society and work with others, but in their private lives it’s all family and the community. And the Mormon community is tight knit, as one knows. Now, people have a right to live their personal lives in any way they please—so long as they obey the law and don’t bother others—but for a man who wishes to be President of the United States, this does raise some questions. In short, one comes away from Lemann’s article with the sense that Romney really has no idea how the vast majority of Americans live. He has lived his entire life in these two cloistered worlds—one very small (the Mormons), the other minuscule in the extreme (high finance)—and has manifestly encountered those outside of it in only the most superficial of circumstances. One could not say this about John McCain, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, or other Republican presidents. And one certainly can’t say it about Obama or Democratic presidents. This is an issue, IMO. I hope it will be a moot one come next Wednesday.
UPDATE: Carl Bernstein has an essay in The Daily Beast on Romney’s radicalism. The lede: “Pundits and voters persist in believing that Mitt Romney is a covert moderate. But…it’s far more likely he’ll enact the Tea Party’s far-right agenda.”
2nd UPDATE: FWIW, David Frum, who has become a brebis galeuse in the conservative moment, explains why he’s nonetheless voting for Romney.
3rd UPDATE: Kevin Drum takes apart David Frum’s reasoning. Andrew Sullivan too.
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