{"id":4634,"date":"2012-03-01T17:09:41","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T23:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=4634"},"modified":"2012-03-01T17:09:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T23:09:41","slug":"mitt-romney-is-not-moderate-he-is-an-extremist-for-the-privileged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/election\/mitt-romney-is-not-moderate-he-is-an-extremist-for-the-privileged\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitt Romney is NOT moderate, he is “an extremist for the privileged”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitt Romney\u2019s Two Cadillacs Fallacy – The Washington Post<\/a> by EJ Dionne, Jr.<\/p>\n

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So here\u2019s a counterintuitive argument: These primaries have damaged the Republican candidates\u2019 images in the short run. But in the long run, they may yet help Romney \u2014 if he prevails \u2014 because by comparison with Santorum and Newt Gingrich, he seems \u201cmoderate,\u201d and his supporters are more \u201cmoderate\u201d than the voters backing the other guys. And Romney has been on so many sides of so many issues that pundits can arbitrarily imagine their own Romney. <\/p>\n

My friend and colleague Matt Miller wrote recently that \u201ceveryone knows Romney is basically a pragmatic centrist<\/a>.\u201d No, \u201ceveryone\u201d does not<\/em> know this. The evidence from his tax plan, in fact, is that he\u2019s an extremist for the privileged. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re witnessing what should be called the Two Cadillacs Fallacy: Romney\u2019s rather authentic moments suggesting he doesn\u2019t understand the lives of average people (such as his comment on his wife\u2019s two Cadillacs<\/a>) are dismissed as \u201cgaffes,\u201d while Santorum\u2019s views on social issues are denounced as \u201cextreme.\u201d But Romney\u2019s gaffes are more than gaffes: They reflect deeply held and radical views about how wealth and power ought to be distributed in the United States. These should worry us a lot more than Santorum\u2019s dopey \u201csnob\u201d comment or his tasteless denunciation of JFK. \u2026<\/p>\n

Romney\u2019s most faithful constituency in primaries [is] Republicans earning more than $200,000 a year. In Michigan, they backed him over Santorum<\/a> by 2 to 1. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re Romney\u2019s base for good reason. That \u201cacross-the-board\u201d tax cut sounds fair and balanced. But a Tax Policy Center study<\/a> in November of the impact of a 20 percent across-the-board rate cut showed that the wealthiest 0.1 percent would get an average tax reduction of $264,000. The poorest 20 percent would get $78, and those smack in the middle would get $791.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mitt Romney\u2019s Two Cadillacs Fallacy – The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mitt Romney\u2019s Two Cadillacs Fallacy – The Washington Post by EJ Dionne, Jr. So here\u2019s a counterintuitive argument: These primaries have damaged the Republican candidates\u2019 images in the short run. But in the long run, they may yet help Romney \u2014 if he prevails \u2014 because by comparison with Santorum and Newt Gingrich, he seems … Continue reading Mitt Romney is NOT moderate, he is “an extremist for the privileged”<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4635,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634\/revisions\/4635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}