When George H.W. Bush ran for re-election, one of the problems he faced was a perceived inability to place his policy objectives into a larger, compelling framework that would capture voters’ imaginations. “The vision thing,” as he called it, would dog his campaign. While it was Ross Perot’s candidacy that cost Bush the election (take note, Donald Trump), since that time politicians have been careful to show voters that they have the vision thing down.
Unfortunately, Mitt Romney seems to have a chosen a vision that seems guaranteed to underwhelm. If you turn to his campaign’s website you’ll find the stirring lines in a banner at the top: “WE HAVE A MORAL RESPONSIBILITY NOT TO SPEND MORE THAN WE TAKE IN.” So we have to live within our means. Got it. And then what? Imagine a company whose ads read: “We have a legal obligation to balance our books.” Does that make you want to patronize that company? Buy its products? Tell you anything at all about its products? To be fair, the Romney site also carries the inspirational-sounding “Believe inAmerica,” but that rather generic slogan hardly captures the imagination. And that’s the problem with the Romney campaign.
The thing is, I support Mitt Romney. I support him because of the incontrovertible fact that Romney is the only one of the remaining candidates with a realistic chance to defeat Obama. But I’m not excited about his candidacy. And in tonight’s debate he gave me yet another reason not to be excited about his campaign. When asked about the enticing prospect of constructing a base on the Moon, Romney frowned and said anyone who came to him with that idea would be fired. He was rather like the stern Mr. Bumble denying little Oliver Twist a second helping of gruel. No moon base for you, young man!
American space exploration, particularly the moon landing, was a visible expression of the greatness of our system and the breadth of our vision as a nation. Our space program promised an unlimited future for humanity, and the world held its breath as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on another world. No other nation has ever repeated what we—not just our astronauts and ground controllers—but we Americans did on July 20, 1969.
Since that time, our manned space efforts have dwindled, not in number, but in significance. The space shuttle allowed more frequent visits to space, but the emphasis was on launching orbital payloads, not human exploration. Sure, in the years since the final Apollo mission we’ve had some glimpses of a larger vision–the Viking landing on Mars, the images from Hubble, the Pathfinder mission—but none of these involved humans traveling to space. Now Obama has gutted our space capability. We have lost the ability to launch humans into even near-Earth orbit, relying instead on the Russians. And the Chinese had announced that they, notAmerica, will establish a base on the moon.
As a child, I had a book called ‘You Will Go to the Moon.” I read it over and over again, believing that eventually I would one day go to the Moon, not as an astronaut, but as a tourist or on business. I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and found its depiction of a functional moon base by the end of the century to be realistic. But by 1999, as a few friends discussed the approaching millennium, we knew that the grand visions of our youth would not be realized anytime soon. One of us looked around and complained, “Where’s the future?”
That’s a question Mitt Romney needs to answer. But when Newt Gingrich raised the tantalizing vision of a return to the Moon, Romney’s only answer was “We can’t afford that.” The inanity of that response is astounding. Space exploration has always been a tiny fraction of the federal budget, and it has always paid great dividends, not only in knowledge, but in a multitude of real-world applications, from computers to cell phones to advances in medicine. And it has paid in widening the scope of our imagination. Newt has this one right: we need a romantic vision of who we are and what we can do. Great nations have this vision. Little ones don’t. Think about John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon within a decade. And think of how we answered it.
Perhaps the green eyeshade crowd feels differently. But from where I sit, Mitt Romney missed a chance to answer Newt Gingrich’s challenge. To win, he needs to seize our imagination, not shut it down. If he is the nominee, he must face the man selling “hope and change” by giving us something better to hope for.
Moe Lane
PG DeFreese
Victoria Coates
Daniel Horowitz
Dan Spencer
It is NOT an "INCONTRAVERTABLE FACT" That Romney is the only one who can defeat Obama...in fact...I know he'll lose!
AceInTX (Diary) Saturday, January 28th at 12:46PM EST (link)Why is it that anyone who has decided to give up the fight always fall back on this argument?
It’s not an “Incontrovertible” fact….if anything that assumption is bunk.
I believe Romney guarantees an Obama victory. You can’t defeat Obama with nothing….and your posts makes that point very well…yet you throw that so called “Incontrovertible” truth out there with nothing to back it up as all Romneybots do.
Here’s why I think Romney loses to Obama…
1) Flip Flops….Romney believes in nothing and it’s impossible for the ground troops to defend him because as soon as they begin to make an argument in favor of a Romney position…they’ll have the limb cut out from under them when he takes the opposite position tomorrow.
2) Romneycare…The man can’t stop tooting the horn about how brilliant Masscare is despite the evidence to the contrary…but then he takes the opposite position when he claims he wants to repeal Obamacare…The federalism is a true enough argument and I agree that Mass has a right to craft her laws as she ses fit…but there is an endless string of traps for Romney in a debate with Obama over this issue.
example:
Moderator Mr Romney, why do you thing Romneycare was a good thing for the people of Massachusetts?
Romney
You may be right ...
littlehouse18 (Diary) Sunday, January 29th at 10:01AM EST (link)he may just lose by a smaller margin than Newt. We’re in big trouble.
I don’t think we can embark on Newt’s vision with the economy we have currently, and it just demonstrates his ‘grandiosity’. But at the debate, Romney should have embraced the vision and then said he’s the man who will fix the economy so that we can once again have a great space program.
Additionally, as Michele Bachmann has pointed out, our lack of an effective human capability in Earth orbit is a huge national security issue – we cannot service our own defense and communications satellites or retrieve them to keep sensitive technology safe. Are we to rely on the Russians for this? Space is militarized and this president has left us vulnerable.
Numbers tell the story
philliesfan (Diary) Saturday, January 28th at 3:08PM EST (link)Why do you assume I’m a “Romneybot”? If I were, I wouldn’t have written the post. I didn’t back up my assertion because the numbers do that already. Every national poll over the past several months shows Obama beating the other candidates by a substantial margin. On the other hand, Romney generally beats Obama or comes within the margin of error of beating him.
There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that he is not hated by most liberals (Newt and Santorum are) and is acceptable to independents. Also, Romney’s organization is by far the best of any of the candidates–I look at that as an investor might look at a company’s fundamentals. You need organization to beat organization. Yes, I agree with your assessment of his weaknesses (except the claim that Romney believes in nothing), but all candidates have weaknesses—his are less than the others’. In fact, you yourself refer to them as “clowns,” which tells me you’re not happy with them, either. But we have to work with the choices we have.
If the numbers were different, my assessment would be different. So while my heart wants to go with someone else, my mind tells me I need to face reality.
i'm also a Phillies-fan...
rsklaroff (Diary) Saturday, January 28th at 3:11PM EST (link)…and perhaps we could chat/meet?
Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D.
r.sklaroff@verizon.net
[the guy with the "RS-diary" dedicated to differentiating trustworthy conservative-pundits from inside-the-beltway-RINO's]
“…fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way!”
phillies fans are lonely
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Saturday, January 28th at 3:20PM EST (link)Braves
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
Me too!
littlehouse18 (Diary) Sunday, January 29th at 10:06AM EST (link)Miss the area, but it’s not too bad in Dixie right now.