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01/27/12--08:05: Why the Republicans Won't Benefit From Being the War Party (chan 1732488)

If there was a single moment in this campaign in which a candidate declared, "Here's a position that almost every American will find completely insane, but I'm taking it because Barack Obama sucks," it would have to be the time in one of the debates when Rick Perry declared that not only was he bummed that the Iraq war was over, but "I would send troops back to Iraq." Even his Republican opponents obviously thought that was crazy. I thought of that listening to the radio this morning, when John McCain gave an interview to NPR about how Obama has screwed up Iran policy, and reminded us all not just of why he was such an unappealing presidential candidate four years ago, but how far the Republican party has drifted on foreign policy.

Among the absurd things he said were that the "green revolution" protests in 2009 were "literally crying out...'Obama, Obama, are you with us?'" and if Obama had spoken out against Iran more forcefully, things would have turned out differently. You might remember that this is just completely false—in fact, the Iranian opposition didn't want any kind of direct American support, since that would make it easier for the regime to declare them to be stooges of the Great Satan. And in the interview as a whole, you could feel McCain's deep yearning for another war, as though once we get out of Afghanistan there'll be no purpose to our national endeavors if we're not at war somewhere.

Iran's nuclear program presents a complex policy challenge, but I think the last decade has actually made Americans a little more comfortable with complex challenges, in that they don't assume that the most simple-minded solution is necessarily the best one. For a long time there was a simple formula that worked quite well for Republicans: say "We're strong, they're weak," advocate force in foreign affairs as often as possible, repeat, win elections. But ten years since the Afghanistan war started and just under nine years since the Iraq war started, there's no obvious political benefit to taking the position that what we need is another war. When you combine that with the series of badass special operations missions (most notably the killing of Osama Bin Laden) that have occurred under Obama, it's not obvious that advocating a war with Iran makes you look tough. It may just make you look like a nut, or an idiot.

Foreign policy will be a secondary issue in the fall, unless we do actually start another war. But it's pretty remarkable how what was for so long an obvious Republican strength has turned into a liability for them.




01/27/12--09:05: Newt's Final Frontier (chan 1732488)

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA—I'm an avowed space nerd who would love nothing more than to see a human land on Mars during my lifetime. So last night's debate was the most entertaining for me of the unending series in this year's election. Thanks to vapid moderation from CNN's Wolf Blitzer, the majority of the debate was devoted to personal life questions better suited for Oprah's couch than a debate stage. He ended the night by asking the candidates why they were the most electable candidate, essentially requesting each of them to offer a shorter version of their usual stump speeches.

One of the few moments where the candidates actually engaged on policy was when the discussion turned to space; specifically the bold vision Newt Gingrich had announced the day before during an event along the Space Coast. Gingrich defended his plan for a lunar colony and a Northwest Ordinance for Space while his opponents harrumphed, claiming it was impractical during a time when Republicans are eager to see every component of the federal budget slashed.

I ran into former Florida Attorney General and state chair for the Gingrich campaign Bill McCollum in the spin room following the debate. I overheard him explain to another reporter that topics like the economy and health care will define the election in the fall. Since space policy was notably absent on that list, I asked him why Gingrich has devoted so much time looking toward the moon rather than more terrestrial matters.

"He has a great vision for space," McCollum said. "He's written about it for years, he believes in it deeply. It's very important to Florida, a large part of our state." But McCollum also thought it was an argument that should hold national appeal, even during times of economic distress. "The other candidates don't get it," he said. "They think this election is all about frugality and saving money. They miss the vision. They miss the hope and opportunity of the society of Ronald Reagan that Newt Gingrich feels and understands. It's not good enough to simply say, 'we're going to cut spending, cut spending,' you need to have a vision for the next generation."

I might find the inspirational line convincing, but most Republican voters won't. And Gingrich's opponents eviscerated him on the topic last night. "Let's just be honest," Santorum said, "we run a $1.2 trillion deficit right now. We're borrowing 40-cents of every dollar. And to go out there and promise new programs and big ideas, that's a great thing to maybe get votes, but it's not a responsible thing when you have to go out and say that we have to start cutting programs."

Mitt Romney even returned to a variation on his infamous "I like to fire people" line. "I spent 25 years in business," Romney said. "If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, 'You're fired.'" Frugality clearly rules the day among GOP politics.

The media consensus today has settled on Gingrich as the runaway loser from the debate, weak and ineffectual in responding to his opponents. "Anything less than the type of bring-down-the-house blowout that's kept Gingrich's candidacy afloat would have been a disappointment, and Gingrich fell far short of the mark he'd set for himself," The Atlantic's Molly Ball wrote.

It's obvious that Gingrich is personally inspired by these flights of fancy. He readily rattled off the number of residents required before a lunar colony could become a state and turned nostalgic for his days reading Missiles and Rockets. Yet he was caught unaware last night when Romney informed Gingrich that his personal funds also include investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Perhaps Gingrich would be better situated for the upcoming primary if he had devoted more of his pre-debate preparation to the mundane matters the government handles than directing his thoughts toward the heavens.




01/27/12--10:22: Gay Marriage Moving Forward Around the Country (chan 1732488)

It's been a good week for gay-rights advocates. Washington state gained the crucial 25th vote needed to pass same-sex marriage. The news prompted headlines around the country, but it was hardly the only place where such legislation moved forward. 

In Maryland, Governor Martin O'Malley is once again pushing a gay marriage bill. Last year's bill stalled, but this time around, lawmakers are making broader exemptions for religious institutions. O'Malley and other advocates are also trying to drum up public support for the bill, which if passed will likely be put to a public vote this fall. Current polling shows Maryland closely divided on the issue, but no one is tiptoeing around it. Today, O'Malley's wife went so far as to call the bill's opponents "cowards."

Maine advocates announced Thursday that they had more than double the signatures necessary to put get gay marriage on the ballot. While there was little surprise that the coalition had gathered the signatures, some speculated that they would not go forward with the referendum; back in 2009, voters rejected a similar measure after the state legislature approved it. But according to the Bangor Daily News, a spokesperson for EqualityMaine explained that polling now shows 54 percent of Mainers want same-sex couple to have the right to marry. 

In fact, many thought the increasing support for gay marriage would put New Jersey governor Chris Christie in a sticky situation. Until this week, the governor had refused to comment on a gay marriage bill in the state Legislature. As the New York Times reports, Democrats hoped he might come out in favor of the bill after he nominated an openly gay lawyer to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Instead Christie pushed to bring the question to voters, voicing support for a referendum—the shrewd and safe political choice for the rising GOP star. 

Still, Christie's political skills soon fell short when he offended black leaders around the state by arguing that the civil rights laws could have just as easily been passed by voter referenda "rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South." Just about every one had the same critique—the general population would have taken far longer (if ever) to extend civil rights to black Americans. Instead, granting legal equality required bravery from a minority of activists and lawmakers. It's a lesson many legislators might consider as the fight for gay rights goes on.

In the meantime, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad is busy not commenting on his alleged request that the Iowa Governor's Conference on LGBTQ Youth, a conference on preventing bullying, take his title off of its name. 




01/27/12--12:23: State of Disunion (chan 1732488)

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01/27/12--12:29: Missing the Arab Awakening (chan 1732488)

On January 25, Egyptians marked the one-year anniversary of their revolution with another massive demonstration in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of what has become known variously as the Arab Spring, the Arab Awakening, or the Arab Uprising. Whatever term one chooses for the events that began with the self-immolation of a Tunisian fruit vendor in December 2010 and soon swept through Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria—the last year has marked a decisive shift in the modern history of the Arab world. Though the situations in different countries have and will continue to take different paths, the people of the region have voiced their unmistakable rejection of the political and economic arrangements that have dominated their countries for decades.

But what of the U.S.’s role in the current era of transition? As I wrote in The American Prospect one year ago, the Egyptian uprisings offered President Obama an opportunity to make good on the unfulfilled promise of his historic June 2009 speech at Cairo. While the Obama administration had initially downplayed democracy promotion—an understandable but unfortunate over-correction in the wake of the Bush administration’s troubled “freedom agenda”—the uprising offered a chance to move away from a Middle East policy in which political freedom was subordinated to the perceived imperatives of counter-radicalism, and toward a more measured opening of political systems to greater participation and accountability.

The administration’s response has not been as robust as one would have hoped. This is understandable, given the myriad challenges the Obama administration has faced. But it also raises the question: Is the U.S. going to squander the opportunity to help shape the ongoing transitions in the Arab world? Are we going to miss this boat? Can the U.S. play a similar role to what it played in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union?  Supporting the political transitions in post-Soviet countries and facilitating the economic reintegration of Europe stands as one of the great historic accomplishments of U.S. foreign policy, but one that required considerable economic commitment and diplomatic energy. Similarly facilitating the democratic transition in the Arab world would be an accomplishment every bit as important and consequential. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely to happen, for two main reasons.  

The first is the economic crisis. In a time of austerity and shrinking budgets, there is a real question of whether the United States can, even if it chose to, marshal the economic resources needed to effectively assist these transitions. There’s also a question of whether doing so would be politically feasible in an era where every budget disagreement seems to blow up into a crisis.

The irony is that there’s actually little evidence that Americans dislike the idea of foreign aid as a rule, indeed, recent polling found that Americans actually believe we should spend more. While a 2010 poll found that six out of ten Americans believe that the U.S. spends “too much” on foreign aid, respondents tended to vastly over-estimate the amount of foreign aid as a portion of the federal budget, with the median estimate being 25 percent. Respondents put the appropriate amount of aid at about 10 percent of the budget—ten times as much as the current 1 percent.

***

“The economic environment undoubtedly has a huge impact on our reaction” to the Arab Spring, says Steve McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy. “Many in Egypt and other countries in the region feel that the US and international community are not stepping up and providing them with support that is commensurate with the moment.”  These countries are facing their own economic crises, McInerney says, but many question whether the U.S. is in a position to help and that several years ago the response would have been on a larger scale.. “Compare this to the reaction to ’89-’90, when the U.S. provided billions in support to European transitions to democracy.” McInerney gives the Obama administration marks for effort, but fears it may not be enough. “They did create a 160 million dollar fund for region, but that’s really small potatoes.”  They’ve also tried to mobilize funds from the Gulf states, but the deliverables have been much less than hoped for. “The administration has tried to do what it can with very limited resources, but it’s not sufficient to meet the challenges of the moment,” he said.

But even in a better economic environment, what is the likelihood that a portion of this much-fought over fraction of the federal budget would be committed to the Arab transition? Unlike with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, where the perception was that our enemy lost and its former subjects all of a sudden wanted to wear blue jeans and Yankees caps—and thus committing resources a fairly easy sell—the perception now among many Americans, including many politicians, is that our allies have fallen, and our radical Islamist enemies are on the rise. The past ten years of often-hysterical debate over the threat of Islamic extremism has not predisposed Americans toward supporting aid to what many see as those same extremists now entering the political process. Looking forward, McInerney said, “There’s lots of uncertainty in how Congress might respond” to the administration’s efforts to engage with Islamist parties after years of refusing to interact with Islamists. “And of course there’s presidential election,” he said.

There’s also a question of how much help Egyptians actually want from the U.S. “The demonization ran both ways,” acknowledges Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East analyst at the Century Foundation. “But the Muslim Brotherhood has been pretty flexible in relation to the U.S. I don’t think they’re going to make hostility to the US a calling card. They realize how much they need the rest of the world, particularly on the economic front.”

McInerney agrees. “There’s definitely some skittishness” about working with the U.S., he said, something that existed to a far lesser degree in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.  “We have a legacy that hurts us in Egypt, on all sides… Many Egyptian activists who helped foster this revolution, they saw the U.S. first as the primary backer of the Mubarak government, and also as the architect of negative policies in the region, whether the war in Iraq, or its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Interestingly, he says, “The actors that are most interested in serious dialogue with the U.S. right now are the Islamists.”

Given the legacy of U.S. foreign policy in the region, developing a coherent approach for engaging productively with newly powerful regional actors is difficult enough. Considering both the tenor of the debate over the budget and the problem of Islamic radicalism, the problem appears almost insurmountable. But it must be overcome. A Middle East populated by legitimate, responsible, and accountable governments is clearly in the U.S. interest. It would be an enormous tragedy if the U.S. watched the opportunity to help support that outcome sail by.




01/27/12--13:48: Couture's Chinese Culture Shock (chan 1732488)

We’re witnessing a remarkable shift in China’s relationship to global fashion: once “the world’s factory,” in Asian American fashion scholar Thuy Linh N. Tu’s words, China is now poised to be the world’s mall. While China remains a poor country with an average annual per capita consumption of $2,500 (in contrast, the U.S. per capita average is $30,000), China’s rising number of millionaires and the Internet-enabled diffusion of Western fashion consumer culture are quickly transforming the communist nation into what The New York Times has called “The Shoppers’ Republic of China.” Today, young Chinese—like Lu Jing, a 22-year-old Beijing resident who told the China Daily that she earns $943 a month and saved up for a $3,200 Louis Vuitton handbag by surviving on instant noodles and taking public transportation—make up an new consumer class. Fashionistas between 20 and 30 years old are buying luxury fashion and micro-blogging about it on Sina Weibo (China’s version of Twitter) where fashion tips are one of the most popular trending topics.

China may be saving the Western fashion industry but not everyone is especially gracious. Unfavorable portrayals of the Chinese luxury consumer as having more money than taste are increasingly commonplace in fashion media. In a Style Council discussion in the December issue of Bon Magazine, fashion consultant and stylist Valentine Fillol-Cordier is especially prickly about Chinese luxury consumers: “you can’t pretend to have lots of taste if you’re simply buying all that shit and spending tons of money.”  A fashion journalist from the Forbes website is just as critical. “Conspicuous consumption [is] left to the cash-rich Chinese and their penchant for Chanel.” Robert Bergman, president of Bergman Associates luxury branding and advertising company adds, “it’s no longer fashionable to make sure everyone knows what brand you carry or wear from meters away.”  Chinese consumers’ reason for shopping, according to recent studies, is an all-American one—retail therapy. So why are Chinese luxury consumers being singled out in the fashion media—a backlash that’s especially odd in light of the significance of China’s new role in the global fashion economy?

Fear of China’s growing influence in the world financial system explains at least part of the criticism. China is the new Asian economic threat to the West, with Ernst & Young reporting that China was the world’s biggest IPO market. This was due in large part to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which raised more than $50 billion in 2010. Compare that to the far weaker U.S. and U.K. IPO markets at $40 billion and $12 billion respectively. It’s no wonder, then, that luxury fashion companies Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo, Jimmy Choo, and Coach have all opted to launch their IPOs in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, or that a broad range of companies across the fashion spectrum from Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Hermes, and Hugo Boss to the Gap and Levi’s have been opening hundreds of stores across China since 2009. The Gap’s plan to close over 150 stores in the U.S. by 2013 while tripling the number of their stores in China is a telling account of these times.  And, if we needed any more evidence of the significance of the Chinese fashion consumer, consider that some European and American brands have begun creating exclusive lines “infused,” as the Los Angeles Times recently put it, “with Asian sensibilities in look, feel, and size.”  For Prada’s first-ever runway show in China, for example, Muccia Prada recreated her cotton dresses with radzmire silk and a liberal amount of sequins—WWD describes them as being “coated” in sequins.  Further strengthening China’s position in the luxury market is the steady, albeit slow, expansion of e-commerce, which is expected to exceed $3.1 billion over the next two years. 

The association of Chinese with fakeness is not new in fashion. Images of Chinese manufacturers and street merchants selling fake merchandise are well established in the fashion psyche despite the fact that American manufacturers like ABS Allen Schwartz and Faviana (the company promises to dress its customers “like a star”) and UK retailers like ASOS (an acronym for “As Seen On Screen”) are some of the biggest purveyors of designer copies. That fakeness is linked to Chinese retailers, manufacturers, and consumers (even those buying actual luxury goods!) and not their American and British counterparts suggests that “fake” attacks are not only tinged with classism but also racism. Painting Chinese consumers as unsophisticated gives a pass to designers, allowing retailers to continue featuring predominantly white women as the ideal customer all the while cashing in on the new Chinese market. The fashion media is thus able to maintain fashion’s traditional racial order even as the global economic foundations for the industry shift.

Conspicuous consumption criticisms serve as a socially acceptable way to describe the anxieties over China’s growing economic power. African-Americans, Latinos, and now Asians with bling underscore the racial dimensions of taste judgments. In the fashion world, especially, criticizing taste serves as a surrogate for definitions of race and class. The tacky Chinese luxury consumer stereotype is a form of coded racial discourse that links fakeness to race. At the same time, this stereotype reaffirms the whiteness of the ideal fashion subject. Robert Bergman, president of a luxury fashion design studio, defined that ideal in his prediction for next year’s trends, “In 2012, luxury will no longer be defined by excess and conspicuous consumption. The face of luxury is […] much more subtle, understated and less ostentatious.”




01/27/12--14:53: Why Gingrich Lost His Groove (chan 1732488)

Has Newt Gingrich floundered in Florida because he doesn’t understand his own appeal to GOP voters? In South Carolina, the former house speaker hit upon an anti-elite message that goes straight to the heart of the Tea Party—and the political moment. It was nothing new: the kind of silent-majority red meat that white conservatives have eagerly consumed since the days of Wallace and Nixon (not to mention Bush and Palin). But it was a message tuned to a time when Americans are increasingly cognizant of wealth disparities, and aware that elites have cornered the market on economic opportunity. Tea Partiers might not like to hear about “punishing success,” or about share-the-wealth policies—for them, the oppressive class is viewed mostly in cultural terms. Gingrich found in South Carolina, perhaps by happy accident, a message (or an attitude) that spoke to them—one that no other GOP candidate was offering. But instead of continuing to hammer home that pitchfork populism and energize the Tea Party behind him, Gingrich went back this week to being the “idea candidate,” the visionary philosopher-king who wants to build a moon colony and make it the 51st state. He stopped hitting Romney on his 1-percentism even as more damning evidence piled up. He failed to rouse the rabble in this week’s debates. And he may end up blowing it on Tuesday—and eventually losing the Republican nomination—because he didn’t grasp what gave him a chance to win it in the first place. 

 

So They Say

“I don’t think we should go to moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there.” 

—Ron Paul, asked about Gingrich’s moon-colony idea at the Jacksonville debate 

 

Daily Meme: Mitt's Fibs

• “I doubt that’s my ad,” Romney said about a Florida spot claiming Gingrich called Spanish “the language of the ghetto.” As Wolf Blitzer pointed out, it is. 
• He falsely accused Obama of saying "nothing" about the Palestinians launching rockets into Israel during a 2009 speech to the United Nations. 
• He claimed he’d never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot. He did. 
• His Fannie and Freddie investments are not all in a blind trust.
• He did inherit some money from his parents.

 

What We're Writing

• Patrick Caldwell thinks that Romney’s shaky defense of Massachusetts’ health-care mandate will continue to haunt his campaign. 
• The Republicans’ hawkishness on Iran won’t help them in the fall, says Paul Waldman. 

 

What We're Reading

• It ain’t over after Florida—not with only 3.8 percent of GOP delegates chosen.
• Associates say Ron Paul signed off on—and proofread—bigoted newsletter articles.
• Herman Cain and Sarah Palin vouch for Gingrich’s Reagan-conservative credentials. 
• Campaign spending by Wall Street elites has risen 700 percent in the last two decades. 
• Why are old guard Republicans at war with Gingrich? 
• Romney and Gingrich’s big feud over Reagan’s journals.
• Peggy Noonan sees Gingrich-Romney as a new iteration of an old GOP split. 

 

Poll of the Day

Gingrich leads nationally, but Romney has retaken his lead in Florida. 

 




01/28/12--09:42: The Many Uses of "America the Beautiful" (chan 1732488)

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA—Presidential campaigns are often rote affairs. This fact is shielded from the majority of the voters, who tune into the debates and perhaps attend one town hall. The candidates strive to present their stump speeches as organic conversations delivered extemporaneously, not the finely tuned scripts they truly are. But it's obvious to journalists who tag along with the traveling press corps—you hear the same boring anecdote delivered hour after hour, day after day.

The candidates continually make minor shifts in their message, but one tale typically defines the course of the overall campaign. They're usually folksy tales rather than lengthy explications of policy. In 2008, John Edwards had James Lowe, the man who didn't have the money to fix his cleft palate. Or Barack Obama, who would rally the troops with a stirring rendition of "fired up, ready to go."

In 2012, it's been Mitt Romney's singular commitment to rediscovering the lyrics to "America the Beautiful." At each and every single campaign stop he recites several verses from the song—including the ones he terms obscure—pausing to redirect the words' meaning to some form of his campaign message. He turns "Oh beautiful for heroes" into a chance to honor any veterans in his audience for example.

It's also been an awkward attempt to jokingly pander to every state he visits. When he campaigned in Iowa, Romney suggested that the "amber waves of grain" section was a reference to corn, the state's main cash crop. In New Hampshire he pulled out "Purple mountains majesty," and said "certainly the White Mountains qualify!"

He added a brand new interpretation when I saw him speak at a private space firm on Friday. "Spacious skies," he said. "I think that refers to the Space Coast, don't you?"




01/28/12--14:24: Mom-and-Pop Bain Capital (chan 1732488)

ORLANDO, FLORIDA—Mitt Romney just can't drop his phony everyman act, and he added a new spin on it Friday night: the struggling young businessman.

By this point anyone with even the slightest interest in politics is well aware of Romney's extreme wealth. Criticism from his rivals finally forced Romney to enter his most recent tax returns into the public record, and the figures were astounding. He earned $21.7 million in 2010; he earns the average median household income in less than a single day.

Yet he continues to uncomfortably wear his regular-guy jeans over his Brooks Brothers suits, trying his hardest to convince voters that he can relate to their economic woes. When he was here in Florida last year he told a group of voters that he was also unemployed and, in New Hampshire, the Harvard MBA/JD said he had also had moments where he was concerned about getting a pink slip

Romney included a new narrative of hardship at a rally hosted inside a pant factory plant in Orlando on Friday night. He began by railing against the government before discussing the early parts of his career as a vulture venture capitalist:

"Let me tell you the difference between what happens in the real economy—the private sector—and when government is practicing crony capitalism, playing by their own set of rules. You see, when we first helped Staples (the office superstore) get started, we raised about $5 or $10 million, to get that first store going. The government put in $500 million into Solyndra. And our offices, by the way, were in the back of a shopping center, an abandoned shopping center. We had all old furniture. I remember these chairs we had for the board meetings; they were these mahogany hide chairs. We sunk so deeply you had to have an athletic body to get out of them."

That must have only seemed like roughing it compared to the throne Romney sat on at Bain Capital. When consulting firm Bain & Company tasked Romney with spinning off a new private equity venture in 1983, he raised $37 million in funds to launch the new group the next year, hardly the type of budget to describe a group meeting in back alleys and sitting on leftover furniture purchased from Goodwill.

It's mystifying why Romney continues to push this persona. America loves the idea of a self-made millionaire, and while that's a bit of a hard sell given his father's prominence in business and politics, it's surely closer to reality than his current guise of a typical suburban small business owner.




01/29/12--12:12: Competing for Space (chan 1732488)

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA—Mitt Romney took a note from the Gingrich playbook Friday afternoon when he visited Florida's Space Coast. Beyond the photo-op in front of a space module that once went up on one of the now retired space shuttles though, Romney made no attempt to match Gingrich's grandiose vision. He laid out reasons why he will continue a basic investment in space exploration—namely commercial, national defense and Armageddon type catastrophes—but didn't lay out any precise ideas for what he would do if he becomes president other than a vague suggestion that more of the burden should rest on private enterprises.

Instead he proffered an inspirational story of a time when he spoke at a Boston Boys Scouts meeting. They had invited a scoutmaster from Colorado, who relayed a story of how NASA had once taken a flag from the troop and would fly it to outer space. Only it never left the atmosphere; the flag launched on the shuttle Challenger, which exploded upon launch in 1986.  As it turned out, the flag survived unharmed thanks to the protective capsule it had been housed in for the launch. Romney said that the scoutmaster brought the exact flag to the meeting. "I looked at that flag right there next to me, and I put my hand on it and pulled it out," Romney said, "and it was like electricity ran through my hand. Because I thought of the sacrifices of the brave men and women in our space program, who carry the spirit of America."

Space policy might be of minor importance, but it's a microcosm of Romney's larger problem; he lacks a thorough justification for his campaign. Beyond the sense that he is the inevitable Republican nominee who generally likes business, he lacks a prime motive for becoming president. He touts the knowledge he gained from working in the private sector, but does not translate that into any unique policies or proposals during his speeches or in the debates. Romney looked like a deer in the headlights once those qualifications were thrown into doubt by Gingrich's surprise South Carolina victory. To his benefit though, he's running in one of the weakest Republican fields from recent years so all he had to do was ride out the storm before Gingrich self-imploded.

The pro-America pro-capitalism shtick might be enough to carry Romney through the primary, but he'll need a more robust explanation once he reaches the general election. I spoke with Fred Beteille following the event; though he does not work in the space industry himself, he was dissatisfied with the lack of detail. "I wanted to hear what he said about the space program. I think you need a little more specifics from him on what exactly he's going to do," he said. "It's nice that he's saying he's going to support the space system when he's standing here in Brevard County, but we need a few more specifics. Not a pipe dream like Newt Gingrich."

He was no fan of Gingrich's proposal—"I would like Gingrich to tell us how he's going to launch 5-7 rockets a day"—but appreciated that the speaker was at least willing to layout a plan. "I don't want to hear that from Mitt Romney," Beteille said, "but just a little bit more specifics." Beteille is historically a Democratic voter, but he is less than satisfied with the current president. "I would say that I got from leaning towards Obama to neutral," he said "I like the things he's saying; Obama says a lot, Obama doesn't do a lot."

Romney is Beteille 's clear favorite among the remaining Republican candidates—"I would like to see him get the Republican nomination, I don't think there's anybody that could help the country as much as he can from the four remaining Republican candidates." But Beteille is one of those elusive undecided voters "waiting to see more." He seemed to be leaning toward Romney in a hypothetical Obama-Romney general election, but only if Romney can shift gears and ignore the empty clichés and broad overviews on space and other topics to actually begin discussing the exactly policies which set him apart from the incumbent.