Politix Magazine by Heidi Larsen

CAIN AND

ABEL OF AMERICAN POLITICS BY JOHN HEILEMANN

HOW THE TEA PARTY HIJACKED AMERICA

BY MICHAEL CROMLEY

A COMPROMISED COMPROMISE

JOE KLEIN

THE WEATH GAP WIDENS RANA FOROOHAR

April features

Tea Party Nation

A fervant minority has driven the gop, and the country, hard to the right. by Michael Crowley

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Cain & Abel

Two Republicans, religious cousins, both aiming for the same job. by John heilemann

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The American Patriot

This country needs a president and the only man fit for the job is Stephen Colbert. by Mark Seliger

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April

departments

activist

The most important Latino leader in U.S. history. by Charley Keyes

Why a tawdry Washington sex scandal may spell the end of the Republican revolution. by Jonny Rihno

A fervant minority has driven the gop, and the country, hard to the right. by Michael Crowley

Harvesting a Future

What a Mess

Tea Party Nation

The candidates do battle in Iowa by Lev Grossman

Remembering the construction of the Cold Wars most chilling icon and its history. by Richard Lacayo

Close and Personal

The Berlin Wall at 50

economix

The Curious Capitalist

A Thousand Words

Danger in The Budget

The widening gulf between the rich and the rest of us. by Rana Foroohar

Opportunity and equality just arent available to all anymore. by Stephen Marche

Obama’s plan for a leaner, cheaper military. by Glenn Kessler

Home Sweet Home

Wall Street Sell Out

Why we’re going gaga over real estate. Will your house make you rich? by Nancy Gibbs

They had a party. Now you’re going to pay. by Stephen Fry

entertain

Maid in Hollywood

A Visual History

The Guitar Collection

The Helps Viloa Davis, actress in search of a leading role. What will she do next? by Gloria Steinem

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America’s longest-running sitcom guest-stars countless books and authors. by James Corum

A new super-sized book that brings together 150 celebrated instruments. by Adam Perlmutter

activist

Harvesting a Future The most important Latino leader in U.S. history. by Charley Keyes

he Chavez family had a small farm, and ran a country store. As the Depression intensified and years of drought forced thousands off the land, the Chavez family lost both their farm and store in 1937. Cesar was 10 years old when the family packed up and headed for California. These were difficult years, sleeping by the side of the road, moving from farm to farm, from harvest to harvest. Cesar would attend 38 different schools until he finally gave up after finishing the 8th grade. As Cesar learned the hard lessons of life, he absorbed important values from his parents. His father Librado taught him the value of hard work and opened his eyes to the inequities of the farm labor system. His mother Juana, a deeply religious and compassionate woman, emphasized the importance of caring for the less fortunate, and the power of love. In the early 1940s the Chavez family settled in Delano, a small farm town in the California’s San Joaquin valley, where Cesar would spend his teenage years. In 1946, 17 year-old Cesar Chavez enlisted in the members for the Community Service Organization. CSO helped its Navy, spending what he would later describe as “the members with immigration and tax problems, and taught them how two worst years of my life.” When he got out of the serto organize to deal with problems like police violence and discriminavice, he returned to Delano and married his high school tion. To Chavez, Ross’ simple rules for organizing were nothing short sweetheart, Helen Favela. Their relationship, and the of revolutionary. It was the beginning of a life-long friendship between support that Helen would give him throughout his life, Chavez and Ross. provided Chavez with the solid base that allowed him to Chavez rapidly developed as an organizer, rising to become the devote his life to helping others. president of CSO. When the organization turned down his request to Cesar and Helen moved to San Jose, where their organize farmworkers in 1962, he resigned and returned to Delano. first child Fernando was From 1962 to 1965 born. Over the years he crisscrossed the the family would grow state, talking to farm“Cesar, we have come to plant your to include 7 children workers. His new – Fernando, Linda, organization, the heart like a seed . . . the farm workers shall Paul, Eloise, Sylvia and National Farmworkers Anthony. Association (NFWA), harvest in the seed of your memory.” In San Jose Chavez use the model ~Luis Valdez would met a local priest, Father of community service Donald McDonnell, who that Cesar had learned introduced him to the in CSO. Chavez didn’t writings of St. Francis and Mahatma Gandhi, and the want to call it a union, because of the long history of failed attempts to idea that non-violence could be an active force for posicreate agricultural unions, and the bitter memories of those who had tive change. But he still needed to learn how to put these been promised justice and then abandoned. principles into action. In 1965, the union issue finally exploded. The Agricultural Workers The man who would teach Cesar Chavez how to Organizing Committee (AWOC), a mostly Filipino union, struck when put theory into practice arrived in San Jose in 1953. Fred the Delano grape growers cut the pay rates during the harvest. Ross was an organizer. He was in San Jose to recruit Chavez asked his organization to join the strike, and became its leader.

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economix

The Danger of The Budget Obama’s plan for a leaner, cheaper military. by Glenn Kessler

arack Obama has laid out his priorities clearly in his 2013 federal budget – and defence is now at the bottom of America’s list. Of all federal agencies the Defence Department takes the biggest hit, even while the President creates new government social programmes and spends more on special interest

turned out to be an enormous bust for the nation, but extremely lucrative for many of Obama’s biggest political contributors. It is clear that the presidential budget was crafted without the input from centrist Democrats like Secretary payouts. of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary Panetta, who In November Obama’s Defence Secretary Leon Panetta laid out to have both openly and eloquently warned of the danCongress dire predictions of the dangers of cutting America’s defences gers of a weak US military. This budget is a product of too deep. He warned Obama and his hard that cutting the armed Leftist inner circle. forces would force the Indeed, not since the United States to accept era of the hapless Jimmy “We can keep our military strong ‘substantial risk,” and Carter has an American and our nation secure” that the United States president been so ready could end up with a ~President Obama to ignore national “hollow force” and an security concerns – even army “without enough when expressed by trained soldiers able to leaders of his own party. accomplish the mission.” The Republicans In fact, that is exactly what his boss’s budget does. have avoided making national defence a clear issue Clearly, Obama ignored his own Defence Secretary, as the new in this year’s election, believing that it’s all about the budget included as 14 per cent cut in US Army manpower, as well as economy. They are so far very wrong on this. Gutting deep cuts in the Marine Corps and Air Force personnel. national security goes over well in the Ivy League The only justification for defence cuts is the need to bring down faculty lounges, but it does not play well in the Midwest the current massive US budget debt, now optimistically projected to and in the western states that will be the battleground be more than $1.3 trillion in 2013. Yet Obama’s claim to be concerned for this year’s election. Republicans would do well about debt reduction rings hollow considering that he also proposes to strongly oppose the defence cuts and force the spending $20 billion for new government social programmes in his Democratic candidates to either support an anti-defence State of the Union message. Indeed, the budget contains additional agenda that will be unpopular with centrist voters billions in new subsidies for the “green energy programmes” that have and reduce their election chances, or to rebel against Obama and support a Republican budget.

The Army end strength will decline by 72,000. The Army will lose at least eight brigades, two of which will come from Europe.

The Air Force will cut 10 percent of its 60 fighter squadrons. Overall, $60 billion of the proposed reductions are projected to come from unspecified ‘efficiencies,’ on top of $178 billion in efficiency.

The Navy has been shifting its forces, including attack submarines, with 60 percent postured in the Pacific region.

The Corps has been tapped to reduce its active-duty end strength by 20,000 Marines over the next five years. Leaving about 182,100 Marines by 2017.

The initial plan called for $3.45 billion to consolidate DHS operations by fiscal 2016. Now the same project will cost at least $3.96 billion and take until the end of fiscal 2021 to complete.

5% 10% 10% 25% 15%

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entertain

Literary References on The Simpsons America’s longest-running sitcom guest-stars countless books and authors. by James Corum

ith the 23rd season of The Simpsons premiering on Sunday, America’s longest running sitcom is still going strong. Despite the perennial complaints about declining quality, the Simpson family maintains a huge audience and the ability to attract new viewers, averaging 7.2 million viewers per episode during the 21st season. An all-Simpsons television channel is rumored to be in the works. But beyond the series’ longevity, The Simpsons has had a notable impact on American society, both as the forerunner for an entire generation of irreverent, animated satire (see Family Guy, or even South Park) and as representing a distinctive form of cultural criticism. The world that extends around 742 Evergreen Terrace looks very much like our own: Politicians, movie stars, artists, and other cultural figures (or at least their caricatures) inevitably find themselves in Springfield U.S.A. The Simpsons’ lives continually mirror objects of real-world social anxieity, from violent video games (Itchy and Scratchy) to fast food conglomerates (Krustyburger). Numerous academic works 1 (Emily Dickinson) have been devoted not just to the character of the Simpsons as people, but to the elements of American culture that they reflect, from the language and symbolism of consumer culture to the subject of “intertextuality, hyperreality, and critique of metanarratives.” We see our world reflected in the dynamics of family life in the Simpson household and beyond. We are all Springfieldians now. The focal point for the show’s cultural awareness is, of course, Lisa, precocious bookworm and perennial conscience of the family, who laments that she’s destined for a life without friends or, even worse, a life confined to “grown up nerds like 2 Gore Vidal, and even he’s kissed more boys than I have.” My appreciation for Lisa’s bookishness led me and 3 Amy Tan of Lapham’s Quarterly to create the Lisa Simpson Book Club, a single-serving Tumblr devoted to Lisa’s ever-expanding catalogue and the best literary references in the show’s history. 4 J. K Rowlings and Sam Simon, writers, producers, and veterans of sitcoms including Taxi and Cheers, took note of Groening’s work and assembled a writing staff. By December 17, 1989, when The Simpsons premiered as a half-hour series, the Berlin Wall had fallen. The event was covered in 5 politix magazine.

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Emily Dickinson

“Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known... then went crazy as a loon.” ~Lisa Simpson

Gore Vidal

“These are my only friends: Grown-up nerds like Gore Vidal. And even he’s kissed more boys than I ever will.” ~Lisa Simpson

Amy Tan

“Ms. Tan, I loved the Joy Luck Club. It really showed me how the mother-daughter bond can triumph over adversity.” ~Lisa Simpson

J. K. Rowling

“Ms. Rowling, I love your books. You’ve turned an entire generation on to reading.” “Thank you, young Muggle.” ~Lisa Simpson/J.K. Rowling

Politix

“Dad, according to “Politix Magazine,” the chances are 175 million to one of another form of life actually coming in contact with ours.” ~Lisa Simpson

The

Cain Abel and

of American Politics

The two Republicans with the best chance of beating Obama in 2012 happen to be rich, business-friendly, perfectly coiffed cousins from rival Mormon clans. No wonder there’s no love lost between Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. by John Heilemann

untsman Jr. sits on the edge of a couch in his new home in Washington, a four-story redbrick manse north of Dupont Circle that is ambassadorial in every detail. The living room is filled with furniture upholstered in yellow chintz and cretonne; the floor is covered with a well-worn Oriental rug; the walls are adorned with massive oil paintings of Asian street scenes. All of this is fitting, and not simply because Huntsman served until three months ago as the chief U.S. plenipotentiary to China, but because he still acts and speaks less like the presidential candidate he is today than the diplomat he recently was—his tone even, his sentences oblique, his diction narcotized by the passive voice and an acute aversion to the first-person singular. (So relentlessly does Huntsman refer to himself as “we” that a casual listener, as he himself wryly notes, might wonder, “Does this guy have a mouse in his pocket?”) None of which is ideal. But then, if you believe what you read in the political press, an inability to cough up an “I” is the least of the maladies currently afflicting the Huntsman candidacy.

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It’s the morning of July 22, and just 24 hours earlier, Huntsman’s campaign manager, Susie Wiles, resigned and was replaced by his sharper-edged communications director, Matt David. The news has the horserace handicappers aflutter, as it apparently confirms the congealing conventional wisdom that the Huntsman bid is in trouble: gaining scant traction with voters (nationally and in the early-primary states, he is polling in the low single digits), lacking any discernible message, certainly stalled, and maybe stillborn à la Fred Thompson in 2008. Politico describes the Wiles departure as “part of a major campaign shake-up.” A strategist for another campaign dubs the episode the “Huntsman meltdown.” The candidate is having none of it, however. “Totally overblown,” Huntsman tells me. “This is about taking a good organization and making it better. It’s about beginning Phase Two.” Phase Two will be the topic of a meeting Huntsman will be convening about an hour from now with the phalanx of high-end hired guns who are running his campaign. Led by chief strategist John Weaver, the guru who guided John McCain’s outside-the-box effort in 2000, the operatives have trekked here from all over: Austin, Orlando, Los Angeles. All agree that it’s time to pick up the pace. Time to get more aggressive. Time, as Huntsman’s press secretary is quoted saying this

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morning in the Times, to do more to “differentiate ourselves from the president and our Republican rivals”—and one in particular: Romney. Why wait for the meeting? I ask Huntsman. Why not kick off Phase Two right now? Huntsman leans back, smiles, and readily obliges. “The Republican nominee is going to need a track record that speaks to job creation and economic expansion,” says Huntsman, who before heading to Beijing was the governor of Utah, where he was credited with just such achievements. “Romney, good man that he is, didn’t have that record in Massachusetts.” Is Huntsman among those who consider Romney a phony and a flip-flopper? “Look at the record. You know, you show up once, you’re a liberal; you show up the next time, you’re a conservative; you show up the next time, you’re a moderate. It shows a fair amount of recasting and reinventing at a time when people are looking for authenticity.” And Huntsman is more authentically conservative than Romney? “Right. Worked for Reagan when somebody was criticizing him. Pro-life when somebody wasn’t. Pro–Second Amendment when somebody wasn’t. You can draw your own conclusions.” Neither Romney nor his aides have yet to utter a harsh word about Huntsman—on the record, that is. But privately, their scorn for him is withering and total. Huntsman’s bid, they say, is a vanity candidacy, with zero logic or rationale behind it. He has no base in the GOP and absolutely no hope of building one; as an Obama appointee seeking to lead a virulently anti-Obama party, he is terminally toxic. What’s going on here is clear in political terms. As the race for the GOP nomination begins in earnest with the Fox News–Washington

Examiner debate on August 11 in Ames, Iowa, and the straw poll two Romney and Huntsman have much in common. With days later, Romney is the undisputed front-runner, but one whose their lean frames, chiseled features, ramrod postures, hold on that status is tenuous if not feeble. His lead is soft, his support and salon-model hair, they look so much alike that you squishy, his weaknesses glaring. Meanwhile, the potential entry of the might think they were related, and you would be right. hard-right, Evangelical Texas governor Rick Perry threatens to blow the (They are distant cousins.) They are scions of what game wide open. One way or the other, says Steve Schmidt, McCain’s Richard Ostling, a co-author of Mormon America: The chief strategist in 2008, “Romney is gonna be the focus of attacks by Power and the Promise, calls “two royal families in everyone in the race, and he’ll certainly be in an ideological debate; Mormonism”—two clans entwined for generations, once and as he gets into that debate, the numbers will start to become warmly but no longer. dynamic, and there will be an opportunity for Huntsman.” The bonds stretch back to the founding of the It’s conceivable, to be sure, that the tea party and the populist paschurch and the settling of the Salt Lake Valley. As the sions it represents, so evident and evidently deleterious in the debate Washington Post recently reported, Parley Pratt, a over the federal debt contemporary of the ceiling, will reduce to Mormon prophet Joseph rubble the candidacies Smith and a pioneer “He’s a ferocious campaigner, who’s of both Romney and of the valley, was Huntsman. But history Huntsman’s great-greathad some very tough races, and he’ll tells us not to bet on great-grandfather and throw a roundhouse without blinking.” it. Despite the sway of Romney’s great-greatvarious grassroots con~ McKinnon grandfather. Romney’s servative movements, father, George, was the GOP has reliably a childhood friend of chosen its nominees Huntsman’s maternal from its Establishment wing, valuing electability over doctrinal purity. grandfather, David Haight, who later went on to be the For Romney and Huntsman, this time-tested tendency should be a mayor of Palo Alto and a high church official, and an cause for comfort and for hope, respectively. The two men are, after all, adult friend of Jon Huntsman Sr. when both served in the the most Establishmentarian candidates in the field, and also the most Nixon administration. likely to forge candidacies capable of winning in a general election. The fathers were nearly as similar as the sons: both And though Huntsman is now routinely written off as a cipher, let’s not wealthy industrialists, devout servants of the church, forget the last unconventional, slow-starting, non-table-pounding canand avatars of the frontier patrician style. George didate of whom something similar was said: Barack Obama. Romney was the more famous as the head of American Huntsman and Romney may have another reason for optimism, Motors who became governor of Michigan. Huntsman too—though the idea may strike you, dear reader, as fanciful, deluSr. kept a lower public profile but amassed a greater sional, or the product of a head full of psilocybin. Maybe after the fortune, starting a packaging company that invented the abject and dangerous dysfunctionalism on display in Washington this clamshell container for the Big Mac and then building summer, Republican voters will conclude that the moment has arrived a chemical conglomerate; his expansive philanthropic to put away childish (and lunatic) things. That, hey, ya know, with efforts have made him one of the most influential figures Congress now a nuthouse, having a nominee in full possession of his in Utah. A near billionaire and bone-deep conservafaculties—an actual, sane adult—might not be the worst idea. tive, his pals include Dick Cheney and Glenn Beck, who The clowns in orange wigs, the guy in the gopher costume, and calls Huntsman Sr. “the only man I have ever met that I the dude on stilts dressed as Uncle Sam have already ambled down believe has the character of George Washington.” Boston Post Road when the main sideshow at the Amherst, New For all this shared history, however, Mitt and Jon Hampshire, Fourth of July parade takes place: Romney and Huntsman Jr.—a generation apart, reared in different states—never meeting face-to-face for the first time since the latter entered the even met until 2005. presidential race. The candidates are here because they know that, In 1999, in the wake of the international bribfor them, New Hampshire is the whole ball of wax. If Romney—who, as ery scandal that roiled the upcoming 2002 Winter a part-time resident of the state and former governor of the state next Olympics in Salt Lake City, the organizing committee door, is a quasi-favorite son—fails to win the primary, his candidacy is began a search for someone to fix the mess. Romney likely over. And if Huntsman is the one who knocks him off, he becomes was then running Bain Capital after failing to unseat the party’s likely nominee. Ted Kennedy in the 1994 Massachusetts Senate race; As they prepare to start marching, Romney, 64, spies Hunstman, Huntsman was vice-chairman of his father’s company jogs over, clasps his hand, pats his shoulder—and then sticks in the after serving as ambassador to Singapore under Bush shiv. “Welcome to New Hampshire!” he chirps, as if greeting a foreign 41. With both seeing the chance to rescue the Games as tourist. “It’s not Beijing, but it’s lovely!” Huntsman, 51, mutters in reply, a potential political gold mine, intense lobbying cam“The air is breathable.” Afterward, a reporter asks him about the paigns were waged by their allies. Romney prevailed. colloquy. “It was a nice exchange,” Huntsman says. “A nice greeting, Huntsman Sr. lashed out, slamming Romney wishing each other luck, and being friends.” as “politically driven” and “slick and fast-talking.” The definition of friendship in politics is famously elastic, but it Huntsman Jr. contends that Romney’s selection was would take a heroic amount of stretching for the concept to encompass “precooked,” that his own name was only ever thrown the Romney-Huntsman relationship, which is far more complex and into the mix to provide the appearance of a competicombustible than being pals. Both former governors, both multimiltive process. “It kind of dawned on me that I was being lionaires, both Mormons who served the church as missionaries, used,” he tells me.

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1 “Because of the dynamics this time—44 percent of their electorate are independent voters, and they’re going to have no Democratic primary to vote in. It’s also gonna be a fight for the soul of our party and at least the short-term future of the country—and those are not small stakes.” 2 “First of all, I don’t believe that a moderate Republican can win the New Hampshire primary,” says Mike Dennehy, McCain’s top local strategist in 2008. “McCain, in my view, was not a moderate Republican; he had a very conservative voting record on social and fiscal issues ... [And] Republicans despise Obama more than they despised Bill Clinton, so any association with Obama is a killer.” 3 Huntsman’s uneasiness with affixing a conservative label to himself has been evident from the start. On his first trip to New Hampshire, in late May, he insisted instead on the achingly anodyne “pragmatic problem-solver.” A month later, when he visited New York on a fund-raising swing, I asked who his political heroes were. “Reagan was certainly part of that.” 4 Expect the campaign to take to the airwaves sooner rather than later, with a slew of comparative ads aimed at the softest targets: on Romney’s record on job creation as governor (Massachusetts ranked 47th in the nation, according to MarketWatch.com; Utah under Huntsman was No. 1, according to National Review); on Romneycare versus Huntsman’s mandate-free state-health-care-reform law; on Romney’s lack of constancy on issues such as abortion where Huntsman has been solid.

When the Olympics were over, Romney went home to the Bay State and was elected governor that fall; two years later, the same happened for Huntsman in Utah. Once in office, they were mirror images of each other. “They came to prominence as governors in a way that is interesting because they’ve switched personas,” says Quin Monson. “Huntsman was a very conservative governor and then moderated as he got ready to leave office and was looking toward the national stage. Romney did the exact opposite: To shake the mold from Massachusetts, he had to portray himself as more conservative.” As Romney was preparing for his presidential run in 2008, he started consulting Huntsman Jr. about foreign policy and trade. Huntsman Sr. signed on as a finance chair for Romney’s PAC, donating nearly $130,000 to him; the natural expectation was that his son would soon endorse Romney. Instead, in July 2006, Huntsman announced that he was backing McCain—becoming one of his national co-chairs. Now it was Romneyworld’s turn to seethe. According to sources involved in Romney’s 2008 campaign, Huntsman promised Romney that he would endorse him. But Huntsman insists this is false. “We had political conversations, but never a straight-up endorsement,” he tells me. John Weaver, who was working for McCain at the time, seconds that version of events, putting a sarcastic sting in the tail. “At no point did I hear that [Huntsman] was considering supporting Romney—I only hear about it now,” Weaver says. “I guess Governor Romney’s feelings are hurt or something.” The split between Huntsman Jr. and Huntsman Sr. inspires all manner of theories, each more Machiavellian than the last. But a person who speaks regularly to the father says he came to regret supporting Romney, souring on him over a controversy involving the candidate’s convoluted claims about his “lifelong membership” in the NRA, which, in fact, he’d purchased the previous year. “It made him consider Mitt a liar,” this person says. The generations-long ties between the Huntsman and Romney tribes were informally severed. By early 2009, after Huntsman won reelection with 78 percent of the vote, he and Weaver had started talking about a presidential bid in 2012. And even after Obama’s dispatchment of Huntsman to Beijing. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel saw as a trifecta, in which a Mandarin-speaking (qualified!) Republican (bi-partisan!) would be sidelined as a reelection rival (convenient!)—the idea of tilting at the White House was never far from Huntsman’s mind, though it was clear that any path to the nomination would involve rolling over Romney. “They’re Cain and Abel,” says a GOP strategist. “Two brothers, so similar, but also hugely competitive and willing to do anything to get at each other. And in the end, one of them winds up dead.” The morning after the Romney-Huntsman parade-ground tête-àtête in Amherst, I drive up to Wolfeboro to catch Romney’s act at the Bayside Grill and Tavern. Romney stands in the middle of the restaurant, surrounded by a hundred or so people—his neighbors, actually. (The Romney summer home on Lake Winnipesaukee is a few minutes away.) In classic New Hampshire town-hall style, the questions come fast and hard and smothered in skepticism: on the deficit, immigration, the U.N., immigration again, Iran, health care, organized labor, Libya, education, the economy, and energy. Romney handles the queries with ease and confidence. In every instance, he offers his views, then to a critique of Obama. “As president of the United States, on my first day I will direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to grant a waiver to Obamacare for all 50 states. Too often, the president speaks loudly and carries a small stick.” After Romney finishes, I run into Stuart Stevens, his chief strategist. “People say we’re getting ahead of ourselves, that we’re running a general-election campaign before we’ve won the primary,” Stevens remarks. “But it’s not true. It’s just that the same thing that will drive the general is driving the primary, and that’s Obama.”

That Romney has improved markedly as a candidate, is a claim often voiced within the political class. But in unscripted situations, especially those involving contact with human beings, Romney remains prone to planting one of his loafers in his piehole (as when, in June, he joked to a group of jobless Floridians that he was “also unemployed”). What’s different this time is the discipline, focus, and strategic clarity that have characterized his bid, of which the sustained indictment of the president is a prime example. “The fact that he’s been engaging Obama elevates him above the field and subliminally shows Republican voters what it’s gonna look like next summer,” says Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole’s campaign in 1996. Equally intelligent and effective has been Romney’s unrelenting focus on jobs and the economy—which might sound like an obvious tack but is more difficult to execute with consistency than you might think. “Of all the candidates,” Steve Schmidt observes, “it’s most clear why Mitt Romney is running for president, which is to fix the economy.” Less tangible but arguably just as significant is Romney’s comfort level. “He has the best and only asset you can’t buy in national politics, and that is experience,” says Reed. “Having gone around the track, he knows what matters and what doesn’t. He’s learned to rise above the daily chatter and not constantly be reacting and twisting like he did four years ago. And it appears that he is in control of his own campaign, which is another big difference.” Romney’s level of control owes much to his having pared down and weeded out his retinue of advisers, which was sprawling and venomously fractious the last time around. But it’s also a result of the charmed circumstances in which the campaign has operated for much of this year—a period when the media serially fixated on candidates who never got in the race (Haley Barbour, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Donald Trump) and the gaudier ones who did (Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann). This dynamic enabled Romney to lie low, tend to his fund-raising, and achieve one of any front-runner’s paramount objectives: the avoidance of verbal seppuku. But Romney’s cruise-control period is inevitably about to come to a crashing end, as he mounts the debate stage at least six times before the end of the year—and as his rivals begin to pound him ceaselessly on a range of issues, the most obvious being health care. That is: the similarities between Romneycare and Obamacare, and especially the individual mandate. When Romney is asked about this topic in Wolfeboro, he doesn’t miss a beat. “What we did for Massachusetts was right for Massachusetts,” he replies. “The nice thing about a state solution to a state problem, as opposed to a federal takeover, is that the states, if they don’t like something, can change it … What we did in Massachusetts isn’t perfect. It’s got things in it that I vetoed at the begin1 And I’m sure that years in ning that got put back in by the Legislature. the past, there are things I would’ve done quite differently as well. But

I’m pretty proud of the fact that we took on a tough situation. Ninety-eight percent of the people in my state now are insured. I think that’s a good thing. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’ll put the health of the people in my state ahead of my political prospects.” Few political professionals outside Romney’s orbit believe that such answers, finely calibrated and practiced as they are, have neutralized his problem. “Given the flip-flopper label, they decided he couldn’t repudiate Romneycare; they said, ‘We can’t flip the quarter one more time,’ ” says a Republican consultant aligned with no presidential campaign. “But his position now is, ‘This thing’s such a great idea that no other state should do it, and my plan is totally different from Obama’s. Obama shot somebody and killed him; I shot somebody and the bullet killed him.’ It’s just nonsensical.” The broader problem is that a critique of Romneycare can be expanded to undermine Romney’s credentials on the economy: “The thing about Obama isn’t just Obamacare—he’s getting between you and your doctor. It’s that he’s expanding government, making it more expensive, making it a bigger part of your life. Obamacare is a symbol, and the same thing is true of Romneycare: It’s incompatible with economic growth; it’s bankrupting his state.” But Romney’s real challenge may be deeper than his stance on any issue. “He’s going to be tested not just on health care and on the economy but on character— he’s going to be tested as Mitt Romney,” says GOP strategist Alex Castellanos, who advised Romney in 2008. “Has he matured? Has he grown? Where does he draw the line in the sand that for this we will now stand?”

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