The candidates and those gotcha gaffes
I was going to write a long long piece on the Romney “etch-a-sketch” thing and the Santorum “vote for Obama instead” thing.
I did all the research. Looked at the original quotes in context (see this and this). Read the disclaimers, where Romney said his views would be consistent and conservative, and Santorum said he wouldn’t ever be voting for Obama over any Republican.
And I finally decided I didn’t want to write that big long piece about it. So I’m writing this smaller shorter piece to say that I really hate all the “gotcha” moments, and consider them nowhere near as important as the candidates themselves, their stated positions, their records, their histories, their personalities, and how they perform in the debates.
I’ve hated those moments from way way back. I hated it when Romney’s father got excoriated for his “brainwashed” remark. I hated it when Muskie’s tears (or perceived tears) did him in. I hated George Allen’s macaca fracas (although I do like to say “macaca fracas.” Does the make me a racist?) You may even notice that, compared to other bloggers, I don’t tend to write much about Obama’s many gaffes.
But despite all that, I do think that with gaffes there’s a hierarchy of importance that goes like this, from least important to most:
(1) errors of pronunciation or word usage or number (“57 states”) that could easily be the result of exhaustion or a momentary brain stutter.
(2) remarks made by surrogates (“advisors,” “supporters”) rather than by the candidate him/herself.
(3) off-the-cuff remarks rather than written ones (although both are important)
Using these rules, I’d say Santorum’s remarks were worse. He made them himself, and they were in a scripted speech. His retraction also didn’t sit well with me (worse than his original remarks, actually), because as he tried to correct what he considered the misperceptions about what he’d meant, he blamed his own error and the furor that followed on Romney, and to a certain extent doubled down in indicating once again that Romney and Obama are pretty much the same:
“I would never vote for Barack Obama over any Republican and to suggest otherwise is preposterous,” Santorum said. “This is just another attempt by the Romney Campaign to distort and distract the media and voters from the unshakeable fact that many of Romney’s policies mirror Barack Obama’s.”
Apologies and retractions are better done without the “yes, buts.” It’s hardly “preposterous” to have understood Santorum’s original remarks as suggesting that people (including Santorum himself) might just as well vote for Obama if Romney ends up the Republican nominee:
You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.
I’ve never been impressed by Santorum as a candidate, and that hasn’t changed. But I’ve also noticed in the last few days a sort of weariness in comments around the blogosphere about him, as though some of the air has gone out of the Santorum balloon. He’ll almost certainly win Louisiana, and maybe even by double digits. But has his campaign passed its peak?
“But has his campaign passed its peak?”
Yes, it certainly has.
As a longtime fan of Rick’s, I have to say you’re right, Neo. He sure went farther than I thought he would, though. I’ll probably vote for him in April, out of loyalty and gratitude for his saying a lot of things that needed to be said (and, admittedly, some that didn’t).
I’d like Santorum as a neighbor or friend. He seems like a good family man and an all-around decent person. But President? No, sorry. And yes, his campaign has passed its peak.
A slight quibble on the “57 states” gaffe. No real American, no matter how tired, fried, drunk, or stunned, would ever make that gaffe, and not immediately correct himself. It’d be like saying the first President was Thomas Jefferson, or it’s four strikes and you’re out.
Someone who learned the number of states, as a classroom exercise, rather than just marinating in the fact all his life, is another story. I can almost picture Obama mentally reciting a mnemonic of the “Thirty hath September” variety to remember stuff like this.
And that’s my problem (or one of them) with the man: culturally, he’s not a American. De jure, yes he is. De facto, um … no.
“And that’s my problem (or one of them) with the man: culturally, he’s not a American. De jure, yes he is. De facto, um … no.”
I agree, and I also think he’s not very bright. I continue to pine for the opportunity to read his Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard transcripts.
If gaffes were not important my favored candidate, Rick Perry, might still be in the race. To be President though, a Republican cannot, at all costs, have a brain freeze or gaffe. Because, for Republicans, it is a “we gotcha” game 24/7. Obviously the same is not ture for dems. Obama can even say conflicting things in different parts of the same speech and the crescendo of MSM crtitiques is the sound of silence. It’s not a level playing field. It is to weep.
Santorum is the anti-establishment vote. Santorum is the “should have been Palin” vote. Santorum is still young. He’ll be back. Maybe, as Coulter reasonably suggested, he’s better for a governor spot, at least for now.
I too take errors of pronunciation and other candidate gaffes with a grain of salt. That said, how did you react to Obama’s reference to a Navy “corpseman” not once, but twice in the same speech? Our commander-in-chief’s apparent ignorance of the proud history of Navy corpsmen really stuck in my craw.
Obama’s “son” statement is not a gaffe, but a bizarre and unwarranted lack of presidential discretion which reveals much about him personally and much about his values and biases. He is a race baiter. Since the race baiters create a bias against them, a hate does indeed begin to build because of their demands for unequal justice. Then, there will be incidents and their claims sel-fulfilling. What they ask is greater forbearance for their wrongs and immediate redress for wrongs committed against them. Obama says respect it. This attitude, this tactic, mirrors the Muslim when he is in minority. Perhaps that is another reason why people believe Obama is a Muslim.
First, I agree with Neo on the relativity of gaffes. Too often the focus on them is a ruse to divert attention from issues.
Regarding Santorum, I have said that he was a nice guy, but my objection was that he had never led anything. I retract that statement. Now, I am not at all certain that he is a nice guy. Is he revealing his true self under pressure; or has the pressure caused him to deviate from his nature? I don’t know; at this point I don’t really care. He is a sideshow.
Completely agree with Curtis and Ocam’s Beard. Remarks made in prepared statements or speeches are not gaffes, they are statements. Obama has made enough revealing statements to disqualify himself from election to the office of trash collector.
Our commander-in-chief’s apparent ignorance of the proud history of Navy corpsmen really stuck in my craw.
JimBob, you ask way too much. I don’t expect him to know the history of Navy corpsmen, although he should; I expect to have a working knowledge of English above the middle school level.
And in that expectation I was disappointed.
I seriously wonder if Obama know what party Lincoln belonged to.