March 8, 2011 1:03 PM

Will Romney, Gingrich and Huckabee embrace, explain or evade issues that could sink their campaigns?

By
John Dickerson
Topics
Campaign 2012

Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich

(Credit: CBS/Getty Images)


This post originally appeared on Slate.

When former Washington Mayor Marion Barry mounted his political comeback after being caught smoking crack cocaine, he tried to turn his difficulties with drugs into an asset. "I'm in recovery," he said, "and so is my city." The pitch worked. Barry was re-elected, offering hope to all politicians who face a less acute but similar problem: how to handle that one liability that could sink your campaign.

There are three options: embrace, explain, or evade. In the last several weeks, we've seen examples of each approach from Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee as they all have tried to put the best gloss on what might appear to be the weaker parts of their resumes.

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Though the campaign has yet to get underway, Romney has already tried two of these approaches. His problem is the health care bill he signed into law in Massachusetts. Conservatives don't like it because it's similar to President Obama's national plan, which 80 percent of Republicans oppose. Given that level of antipathy, it is a compulsory exercise in the Republican presidential competition to denounce Obamacare. Romney didn't at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. The omission seemed like an extreme version of the evade technique: Romney was evading his own plan so thoroughly he wouldn't even talk about the Obama plan to which it had been compared. This naturally brought more unfavorable attention to Romney's plan.

Next he tried explaining. Saturday in the crucial primary state of New Hampshire, he acknowledged he would have done some things differently in passing the law, though he didn't explain exactly what. Romney went on to say that what distinguished his effort from the president's is that he was acting as the governor of a single state. Obama had overreached by imposing a solution on the whole country.

This federalist argument isn't going to win over those who say Romney's plan is "socialism," as Mike Huckabee called it. But Romney is never going to win over those doubters. He and his aides hope that it will be sufficient to satisfy those who merely have doubts but for whom the health care issue won't determine their vote. Romney's uncertain support for his own legislation does, however, raise questions about his "authenticity," a problem that Slate named as his biggest liability in 2008.

One Romney adviser pointed to John McCain's difficulty with immigration reform in 2008 as a possible analogy. Republicans were angry with McCain, but the issue didn't kill him because he had other attributes he could offer voters. (Romney should know: He's the one who tried to damage McCain on the immigration issue.) Romney's hope is that by offering himself as a successful businessman who knows what's necessary to get the economy producing jobs again, he can minimize the damage from his support for universal health care.

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Newt Gingrich on the campaign trail

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been bolder with his liabilities. His successor, John Boehner, is trying desperately not to repeat the government shutdowns of the mid-'90s. Gingrich took ownership of those shutdowns in a Washington Post column and proclaimed them a success. By standing on principle, he said, he was able to get a balanced budget and reform welfare.

He took a similar route with his personal liabilities. Twice divorced, he is an admitted adulterer with the woman who is now his third wife. Rudy Giuliani, who faced the identical problem, kept his wife largely out of the campaign. Gingrich has taken the opposite approach: His wife Callista is a full partner in the enterprise. Her photograph is almost larger than Gingrich's on his exploratory Web site, and as Ben Smith points out, her name was the first word Gingrich uttered when he announced he was going to think about preparing for a presidential run.

The benefit of taking control of your liabilities is that you define them on your own terms before your opponents and the media do.

Mike Huckabee will have to once again face questions about Maurice Clemmons, who was serving time in an Arkansas state prison for burglary when Huckabee granted him clemency. Clemmons went on to murder four police officers in Washington state. At a session with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor recently, Huckabee grabbed his decision with both hands:

There was a kid who was 16 years old, he committed a burglary, it was aggravated, but not armed. And for that he got 108 years. ... It was clearly a disproportionate sentence. ... I'd love to tell you this isn't true, but that kid was black. And if he'd been white, and upper-middle class and had a good attorney, he wouldn't have served a day. He'd have had probation, he'd have gone to see a counselor, and he'd probably gone to college, and he'd probably be on Wall Street making a couple billion bucks a year. If I had the same file in front of me today that I had then, I would make the same decision.

Some liabilities are clearly insurmountable. That's why Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, decided on Monday not to seek re-election. His campaign was likely to be all about his extramarital affair with the wife of a top legislative staffer whom his parents then tried to pay off. Ensign allegedly tried to help his former staffer get a lobbying job. Had Marion Barry been in the same spot, he would have pitched the whole business as proof of his talents at community outreach and job creation.

More from Slate:

Should the U.S. military intervene in Libya? The Arab world hasn't asked us
The Mauritius miracle: What can the United States learn from this tiny island nation?
Why conservatives are having mixed luck getting video of angry, violent liberals

John Dickerson is a CBS News political analyst. He is also Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. You can also follow him on Twitter here.


Add a Comment See all 27 Comments
by dinkydog1 March 9, 2011 10:18 AM EST
Looks like hillbilly huck is their man. Poor huck is so silly it's hard to tell if his show is a commedy spoof or for real.
Reply to this comment
by gep1955 March 9, 2011 9:48 AM EST
They just found $105 billion (your taxes)in additional cost in the Obamacare bill that we had to pass to find it. More lies and corruption from liberal democrats. And no report here on CBS. If you want truth, go over to Fox.
Reply to this comment
by dinkydog1 March 9, 2011 10:19 AM EST
So why are you here?
by RobAla March 8, 2011 11:22 PM EST
You can always read the mind of the media by the pictures they present. They picked about the goofiest pictures possible of 3 Republican potential candidates to show in this article. I am waiting for a goofball picture of President Obama - but we always see pictures of him looking upward with is head held high. All media is bias, because they are run by people who have bias. I don't mind the bias in media, as long as they are honest about it.
Reply to this comment
by Riverjump March 8, 2011 6:55 PM EST
The three stooges. (of many)
Reply to this comment
by myopinionpal March 8, 2011 6:14 PM EST
If I could describe those three photographs it would be something like this. Mitt Romney looks like he's singing Oh Happy Day, Mike Huckabee looks like he's lost for words and Newt Gingrich looks like Chucky with gray hair. And this is the best the GOP can come up with!!!
Reply to this comment
by phydeux2 March 8, 2011 7:19 PM EST
You don't expect the mass media to put up flattering pictures of politicians looking noble and heroic, do you? Look at how many oddball photos they put up of Obama with his gob open in some weird mid-word position. Or Bush looking dazed and confused......... okay, bad example.
by levelheadedtoo March 8, 2011 5:48 PM EST
by KabulsHere0011 March 8, 2011 4:26 PM EST
I hope they don't raise tax to the riches, because riches create jobs to the middle and working class.We don't want riches going out of business.

Kabul
How has that been working for the middle and the poor over the past 10 years? How about cutting that $306 billion to corporate faming subsidies for corn, soy and wheat. If the market wants it they will buy it. Maybe we can subsidize farmers that grow the food we need to eat and not corn fructose for soft drinks, soy oil for KFC and to farmers not to grow wheat.

We don't need to be landscapers, housekeeper and nannies for the rich. Congress gave the rich tax breaks so they can vacation in St. Thomas.

The wealthy have health care, they can afford to pay more for fuel, they all get big deductions for their mansions. Look closely at the middle east and then look at your rich neighborhood. If the poor are pushed too far they will push back.
Reply to this comment
by noloyalisti March 8, 2011 5:23 PM EST
All these three are typical evil Republican criminals. The same old scum being recycled. The Republicans already ruined America, why are they still around? I guess their corporate masters have not stolen ALL the wealth yet from the workers and Middle Class.
Reply to this comment
by phydeux2 March 8, 2011 6:36 PM EST
Criminals? May I see a rap sheet with the indictments on it? No? I didn't think so.

I find its the liberals with all their "social justice" talk who are the real thieves. They take our tax money, and distribute it to their chosen demographic voter base to buy votes. Whether its supporting illegal aliens with family in the US who can vote Democrat in the next election, or scaring the bejeezus out of the elderly for the umpteenth time that the scary old conservatives are going to take their meds out of their hands and kick them down the stairs.

A true conservative believes in making their way in this world by the sweat of one's brow, and being allowed to keep as much of what one earns as possible to do with as we please. And as it turns out, Conservatives tend to be very charitable people, either giving to charities or setting them up where they see a need. But they do so at THEIR choice, because THEY earned the money, not because some liberal guilted them into it because "making money for yourself is evil".
by phydeux2 March 8, 2011 7:46 PM EST
Actually it was the Clinton-era repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that led to the crash of 2008 and the TARP. Glass-Steagall was put in place in 1933 to curb EXACTLY the same securities betting on the housing market that contributed in large part to the Great Depression.

So don't go blaming this on Republicans or Conservatives when it was Liberal Democrat who took the safeties off the market and let them play Russian Roulette with the country's future.
by bradkt1 March 8, 2011 5:12 PM EST
This is NEVER a problem for any conservative...

...A brazen lie will do just fine.
Reply to this comment
by noloyalisti March 8, 2011 5:26 PM EST
Honestly what is wrong with conservatives, they are truly insane. What are they thinking? The country and the world they are wishing for will mess them up just the same as everyone else.
by crazyname March 8, 2011 4:38 PM EST
Tricky issues hell. Do what is right for the country and the taxpayers, not the unions and special interests. Pas the line item veto, pass the term limits bill, cut the hell out of entitlement programs and waste in medicare and medicade. Dump thousands of redundent government overseers, and useless programs. Cut funding for NPR and all the other art crap. If people want it they will buy it. the government doesn't need to give discounts or fund paintings, cars washing machines houses, and all the rest.
Reply to this comment
by steeepe March 8, 2011 4:21 PM EST
"Tricky issues" like ignorance, hypocrisy, mendacity, immorality, and weird religion? Never mind, so long as they don't raise taxes on the wealthy, Americans will embrace them.
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