Mitt Romney Quotes

Describing political advertising of the era:

At that time, most of the leading Republicans practiced negative campaigning with vicious personal attacks that were often untrue. He was the only one of the 9 candidates who did not engage in the technique. He came in close to last.

This is a fascinating quotation because it illustrates how political attitudes have changed since then. Stevenson meant this to be an insult to and even a charge against the men who ran the Eisenhower administration and campaign but not the President personally. And that was the way that it was taken. Republicans were insulted and thought this was a scurrilous charge by a candidate who was down in the polls but wanted to throw “red meat” to his base. However, when we read the statement today, it doesn’t seem at all like an insult. As a matter of fact, there are few politicians today, of either party, who would not agree with the views that Stevenson accuses the Republican strategists of having. Arguably, the Democrats were historically very slow to arrive at he place the Republicans had achieved. But in 1956 it was almost unethical to use shows and advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion. Politicians had been doing it since the beginning of our Republic but it used to be something a little dirty—something to which no one wanted to public admit believing. Today, politicians of both parties are often criticized by their base and the pundits for not believing sufficiently in the importance of image manipulation and advertising. Today, virtually no politicians have any moral scruples about using the techniques, doing so overtly and being proud of their staffs for being good at it.

The ad, created by Tony Schwartz, only ran once, on September 7, 1964. It was so dramatic that News and other media replayed it and discussed it up until the election. LBJ’s opponent Barry Goldwater was a military hawk in the midst of the Cold war where nuclear war was everyone’s greatest fear. The Daisy ad was crystal clear and made overt what many Americans concern was about Goldwater. Johnson won in a landslide. See {586351} for the kinds of views that made Goldwater so vulnerable.

She was writing regarding the first use of television in a presidential campaign and the first time the public had ever been exposed to spot political ads. The practice, innovated in the Eisenhower campaign of 1952, was thought of as playing to the lowest element of the electorate’s psyche—selling politicians as if they were breakfast cereal or soap flakes. However, the technique worked incredibly well electing Eisenhower over Stephenson. Mannes wrote this after the election commenting on what politics had become.

He was the only candidate who was not visciously attacked and slandered by the others, and he did no attacking himself. However, he simply did not attract the voters as did the other candidates who were so negative about their opponents. The Republican party primary voters were so insistent on political party purity that most of the candidates were reduced to the lowest forms of debate and standards of veracity. All the candidates were weakened and diminished by that form of negative primary process. Mitt Romney finally won the nomination but had been bruised badly by the Republican primary election. He last the general election badly.

In the 2000 Presidential Election, Gore won the popular vote, but the electoral votes were so close that the winner depended on a single state, Florida. However, that state’s election process was poor and there were many irregularities and problems in vote counting and recounting. The Republican Secretary of State stated that the Republican candidate won, but the irregularities persuaded the Florida Supreme Court to order a recount. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court which decided to stop the recount, giving the Presidency to Bush. All nine Supreme Court Justices were unhappy that they had to decide a case which determined who the President would be, but if they had refused to hear the case, the raw politics of Florida would determine the President. Stevens wrote this quotation in his dissent, and ironically it was about the only thing that the nine justices all agreed to—that the nation’s confidence in the Supreme Court and the legal system was the loser. There was no way for the court to win, unless they could have mustered an overwhelming majority for one side or the other. That proved impossible, so all the justices tried to make the best of a bad situation in which they had been placed.

In the 2012 election, the candidates campaigned at all in only 10 states after the political conventions.

In this dirty technique some people who knew the candidate at one point in his/her life “organize” and “independent” organization with funding from a partisan individual or organization. They then create attack TV and web ads against the candidate that include serious untruths as well as misleading accuracies. When the candidate is asked about the lies and exaggerations, he/she refuses to comment and only says that he/she cannot be held responsible for anything that anyone says against his/her opponent or anyone else. The candidate adopts a policy of not commenting on any political ads other than the ones he/she is responsible. This produces viscious false attacks on an opponent with the candidate completely shielded from responsibility.

Msny critics agree with him observing that, with his rough and tumble campaign tactics, he made them that way.