Tom Keane

Mitt Romney’s general election chances are better than people think

The race for the GOP nomination is over — really, Newt — and Democrats should be feeling pretty good. Barack Obama’s polling numbers have bounced back from their lows of last summer. The wealthy Mitt Romney, meanwhile, seems out of touch with ordinary voters. His “likability gap” is rivaled only by his gender gap. With employers finally hiring, the US economy is perking up. People are angry about rich folks getting tax breaks. And over the last six months, the Republicans have managed to alienate some of the largest voting blocs out there, notably women and Hispanics.

Then too, there were the bruising, nasty Republican primaries, which seemingly left Romney in tatters. Rather than concede the obvious — that he eventually would be the nominee — a series of Not-Mitts launched attack after attack aimed at taking him down. The Republican race was a Democratic dream; the conspiracy-minded might credibly wonder whether the Democratic National Committee had been secretly funneling money to Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

Given all that, one would think Romney would be well behind Obama. Yet three new polls — one a CBS News/New York Times survey, one by Pew Research, and one by Gallup — show a virtual tie. That’s a startling result for a candidate who’s been put through the wringer, a result that suggests that Romney’s prospects are actually good. Here’s why:

The base is secure. During the primaries, pundits marveled at the anybody-but-Romney dynamic that motivated the rise of a host of conservative challengers. But will conservatives’ unhappiness with the middle-of-the-road Romney mean they’ll reject him in November? Not a chance. According to the Gallup Poll, 90 percent of Republicans say they’ll vote for him over Obama. After all, they have nowhere else to go.

It’s all up from here. Freed from attacks from within, Romney will now begin to re-introduce himself to the electorate. It’s true his reputation took a beating in the primaries. So too did Obama’s during his epic 2008 battle with Hillary Clinton. But the nominating process is mostly inside baseball, and a series of biographical ads can do much to repair Romney’s image with the general public, particularly since his family takes wholesomeness to a level that rivals the Cleavers. Voters may not necessarily want to have a near-beer with the former governor, but they should start to feel better about him.

The general election is independents’ day. Much of what hurt Romney during the primaries was having to kowtow to his party’s right wing. That’s over. The Etch A Sketch is now ready for a vigorous shaking, which is to say, Romney is now free to begin wooing the critical independent voters who will decide the election, a group he mostly had to ignore during the race for the nomination. He’ll soften his positions on divisive issues like immigration, play down social issues, and focus on the economic arguments that were the original heart of his candidacy.

Whatever doesn’t kill me . . . On several occasions during the primaries, Romney brushed off the attacks from his opponents, saying (likely through gritted teeth) that they had made him “tougher.” That’s probably true. It’s certainly hard to imagine a line of attack that wasn’t exploited during the primaries. When similar attacks emerge from the Obama camp, Romney should be better prepared to handle them.

Ya never know. The unpredictable can wreak havoc in a campaign, of course. An attack on the United States, for instance, generally helps the incumbent. Meanwhile, Romney’s remarkable ability to commit gaffes will doubtless provide both comedy and consternation in the coming months. Still, the greater risk is to Obama. In recent days, we’ve seen the head of the General Services Administration resign over a party in Las Vegas, US soldiers making light of the dead, and Secret Service members carousing with prostitutes. This is the kind of stuff that, closer to Election Day, can change votes.

In conclusion . . . If I were betting, I’d still put money on Obama to pull out a win. The economy is the biggest issue in this election, and it’s working in his favor. Intrade, the on-line forecasting site, is currently predicting a 60 percent chance of an Obama victory, with only a 38 percent chance for Romney. Meanwhile, the website Real Clear Politics figures that 227 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win are leaning Obama’s way.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t bet a lot.

Originally published in the Boston Globe on April 21, 2012.

Indictments, then politics as usual

TWO HIGH-PROFILE prosecutions — one against senior officials in the state’s Probation Department, another aimed at former treasurer Tim Cahill — are after more than mere convictions. They seek instead to change entirely the culture of politics in Massachusetts. More likely, all they’ll do is just drive deeper underground the behaviors they target.

Two weeks ago, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz unveiled indictments against the Probation Department’s former head, John O’Brien, as well as two senior staffers. Ortiz charged that the department routinely ignored civil service rules, “institut[ing] a hiring system that catered to requests of Massachusetts legislators.’’ Ten days later, state Attorney General Martha Coakley dropped her own bombshell, indicting Cahill and two of his aides for using Lottery advertisements to promote Cahill’s image while he was embroiled in a campaign for governor.

In one case, the target is the age-old use of patronage. In the second, it is politicians routinely using their incumbency to burnish their credentials with voters.

The back-to-back indictments have caused much consternation among the political class. Patronage has been a common practice - and often seen as critical to effective governance - since the nation’s inception. Certainly, it’s an easy way to pay back folks for helping politicians in their campaigns. But it also helps make sure winners of an election get control of their offices, giving them the power they need to deliver on what they promised. Then too, particularly in immigrant cities such as Boston, patronage has been a way for those on the outside to make their way inside. When Irish-American politicians won, for example, they often gave jobs to their compatriots, thereby giving a helping hand to a marginalized group.

Good government groups, seemingly populated by folks who don’t need jobs and think politics should be a more elevated endeavor, despise patronage. That’s how we got civil service as well as the Supreme Court’s narrow 5-4 decision in a 1990 case (Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois) that barred “promotion, transfer, recall, and hiring decisions based on party affiliation and support.’’

But, the Supreme Court notwithstanding, patronage still happens, largely because it’s human nature. Politicians want to reward their supporters (and, of course, they also trust them more than the supporters of those they just beat) and so they use any variety of ways - a strong recommendation being the simplest - to signal to those making hiring decisions who they favor and who they do not.

Meanwhile, Coakley’s target — self-promotion — also is commonly practiced. As many have pointed out in the days following Cahill’s indictment, what is now being called criminal is no different from the stuff politicians do every day, from putting their names on signs adorning public works projects to traveling around the state trumpeting community grants. All boost the name of the incumbent using resources paid for by the state.

So are patronage and self-promotion now at an end? Not with these cases.

Ortiz alleges that O’Brien’s circumvention of civil service was extraordinarily heavy-handed, with a system in place that involved a charade of interviews even though the winning applicant was known in advance. Yet so far, Ortiz has not indicted any legislators. If that remains the case, then we have a remarkable curiosity. Those in power who ask for the favors are apparently immune while those who execute those requests are not. One almost feels sorry for the indicted. What were they supposed to do - say no, thereby angering the legislators who are, in effect, their bosses?

And in the case of Cahill there was also a kind of heavy-handedness. According to the attorney general, Cahill’s real mistake was a trail of damning e-mails ostensibly connecting the ads to his campaign strategy. (When, oh when will folks figure out that e-mails, tweets, and postings are not private conversations?) If Cahill had simply kept his intentions to himself, he wouldn’t be facing prosecution today.

The over-the-top nature of the abuses Ortiz and Coakley target suggest that, once things calm down, not much will have changed. The lesson will be: Don’t be obvious. Politicians will still want to build their team and they’ll still want to promote themselves. But in doing so, they’ll need to learn the art of being subtle.

Originally published in the Boston Globe on April 7, 2012.