NEW HAMPSHIRE — Yesterday, Etch-a-Sketch became the media’s favorite metaphor for Mitt Romney’s ideological flexibility. But the iconic children’s toy is an equally good representation of the media’s tendency to draw the picture it wants of our political candidates.
The kerfuffle began when Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom invoked the popular toy during an interview with John Fugelsang on CNN:
FUGELSANG: Good morning, sir. It’s fair to say that John McCain was considerably a more moderate candidate than the ones that Governor Romney faces now. Is there a concern that the pressure from Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?
FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.
The clip, which at first glance seemed to confirm the worst stereotypes (and conservatives’ worst fears) about Romney and included a compelling visual metaphor, was immediately seized on by the press, the Obama campaign, and Romney’s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, launching what The Washington Post‘s Election 2012 blog called a “day-long media firestorm.” Here in New Hampshire, The Boston Globe ran print and online stories and its website carried several other wire stories mentioning the controversy. (The New Hampshire Union Leader also ran a Reuters wire story in today’s print edition, though commendably the Nashua Telegraph and Concord Monitor did not.)
Amid the avalanche of coverage, the more careful reporters and pundits acknowledged the ambiguity of Fehrnstrom’s statement, which did not specify, as The Washington Post‘s Felicia Sonmez put it, “whether he was referring to the dynamics of the campaign or rather to Romney’s positions on the issues.” (Fehrnstrom later tried to clarify that he was referring to the dynamics of the campaign changing in the general election.) Politico’s Alexander Burns, for instance, pointed out that “Fehrnstrom’s language wasn’t quite so precise and it was unclear whether the Etch A Sketch was supposed to represent the 2012 political landscape or the candidate for which he works.”
Similarly, TPM’s Benjy Sarlin and Evan McMorris-Santoro wrote that “[t]he ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ line is at least somewhat ambiguous. Fehrnstrom has said in previous interviews that the general election is a ‘reset button,’ referring more to the notion that Romney will be able to confront the president without having to fend off a bunch of damaging attacks from his rivals at all times.” The American Prospect‘s Paul Waldman was more direct: “Does anyone really believe that a top Romney aide was saying that Romney was going to change his positions for the general election? Of course not. From a strategic point of view, a wiping of the slate between the primary and general election campaigns is not only what most presidential campaigns want, it’s what most of them actually do.”
To erase this ambiguity, though, other reporters and pundits constructed paraphrases of Fehrnstrom that directly echoed the dominant narrative about Romney. For instance, the AP’s David Espo described Fehrnstrom’s statement as “an astonishing admission Wednesday by one of Romney’s top aides” that his “primary-season policy positions may be no more lasting than squiggles on a child’s Etch A Sketch drawing toy.” Similarly, TPM’s Josh Marshall claimed that Romney’s “top aide said voters’ minds were like an Etch-a-Sketch: Mitt could reposition back to the center in time for the general election with little damage from the primaries. In other words, you just repaint the picture. No one remembers.” The process by which the Fehrnstrom clip was quickly massaged into a more damaging paraphrase echoes the similar process that took place with Romney’s quote “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me,” as well as previous statements by Al Gore about his role in supporting the development of the Internet and John Kerry’s positions on a bill appropriating funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Is Brendan Nyhan writing satire here? This column is a remarkable exercise in denying the obvious. Romney "sometimes inadvertently reinforces stereotypes of himself as rich, awkward, a flip-flopper, etc. -- or comes close enough that the media can frame the episodes as consistent with the narrative..."???? Please tell me this is a parody of fairness and balance. The Romney aide's ill-considered etch-a-sketch image caught on with nearly everyone because it so accurately captures what so many people from the right to the left see as Romney's shameless pandering and "flexibility" on issues. This isn't "sometimes" or "inadvertent." It's a consistent, deliberate strategy by Romney and his advisers. You pick the issue -- health care, climate change, cap-and-trade, minimum wage, abortion -- and Romney has flip-flopped on it. He makes John Kerry look like the rock of Gibraltar. If Nyhan thinks that voters don't notice or don't care about a politician's grotesque flip-flopping on major issues, I think he's egregiously wrong.
#1 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Thu 22 Mar 2012 at 02:27 PM
The question:
"Is there a concern that the pressure from Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?"
And you're pretending that meant the dynamics of campaign organization in the general election?
Pathetic.
#2 Posted by bbbfst, CJR on Thu 22 Mar 2012 at 06:54 PM
Candidates present themselves to different voters in different ways. Campaigning is about trying to convince and win over the most voters in any particular group. Clearly Romney is going to present himself one way when campaigning just for Republican votes and in a somewhat different way when campaigning in a general election.
But the etch-a-sketch comment made it clear that politicians and their support staff - at least on the Romney team - know that there is some manipulation involved, even if it is not "substantive". And they were naive enough to admit it.
This "gaffe" will probably live on right up to November.
#3 Posted by Alan, CJR on Thu 22 Mar 2012 at 06:59 PM
I checked out the Sides post. I don't think that polling immediately following a purported gaffe, or for an extended period after, proves that none of them matter. Some become campaign themes and may affect people's overall perception of the candidate over an extended period. The phoning I did for Obama in '08 made it pretty clear to me that both the Jeremiah Wright explosion and the "bitter" comment affected people's perceptions of him. You might say that those stumbles simply provided a focal point for attitudes that people were predisposed toward, but I don't see a clear way of proving that they don't matter. Then there's the effect of certain events on the candidates and their followers: perhaps the Jefferson-Jackson speech fired Obama up.
Also, I had exactly the same thought expressed by bbbfst: the content of the question that Ferhnstrom responded to makes it pretty clear that he was addressing the problem of "tacking too far to the right." Put it together with the anonymous aide's comment defense in the fall of reversing the meaning of Obama's "talk about the economy comment" and it's pretty clear that the Romney organization is pretty uninhibited about running a post-truth campaign, as Krugman calls it.
#4 Posted by Andrew Sprung, CJR on Thu 22 Mar 2012 at 09:23 PM
Yes, the "etch-a-sketch" gaffe looks bad, but I seem to recall that President Obama went through something similar back during his primary, bashing NAFTA to a liberal audience only to have an aide assure the Canadians that it was just campaign rhetoric. (Wait, I'll save you the trouble: But that was different! False equivalency!)
Both incidents are an almost inevitable response to an unfortunate situation: It is very difficult for a relatively moderate candidate to survive today's primary system.
#5 Posted by Robert Sullivan, CJR on Fri 23 Mar 2012 at 09:25 AM
OK so you don't like the Etch-a-Sketch metaphor. How about 'perfectly lubricated weathervane'? Is THAT the political press...or is that a rival putting out a metaphor that perfectly describes Romney's positions? You may want to blame this on the 'press' because you don't LIKE it but there are too many instances that these metaphors prove the point. And then YES the press picks up on them.
#6 Posted by SYSPROG, CJR on Fri 23 Mar 2012 at 10:49 AM
The reason advertising works is that it hammers the same points over and over. If "Etch-a-Sketch" was a one-off deal, it probably wouldn't have much effect, but it isn't; it's one of a series of similar "flip-flop" events to go along with things such as Romney's "my wife drives two cadillacs" and "I like to fire people" and "I worry about being out of work" and other remarks that help paint him as cluelessly rich.
I'm guessing we're going to see a fair number of Etch-a-Sketch ads during the general election campaign, if not before--if I were an Obama ad guy, I would make one for every issue that can conceivably be portrayed as a flip-flop--as well as a continuing barrage of Romney flip-flops coverage from the press. And I'd be doing "reset button" ads as well.
This is a pretty dim effort, Brendan.
#7 Posted by Weldon Berger, CJR on Fri 23 Mar 2012 at 11:13 AM
I disagree with both Mr. Nyhan and Mr. Sides' conclusions about the five events that Balz and Johnson claimed had impact on the 2008 campaign. I would not expect to see an immediate impact in polls due to gaffes of this nature, but I don't think that means either a) campaigns are meaningless or b) such gaffes have no overall impact. Regarding b), if the point of a campaign is to forward a narrative or frame an issue, then any time that detracts from that narrative has at least a slightly negative impact. Gaffes of this nature accumulate over time (drip, drip, drip...) and can reinforce a narrative and make it difficult to combat. A repeated narrative little by little will take hold until voters reach a tipping point, and that tipping point might require subsequent gaffes that confirm the narrative. So you won't see an immediate impact in polling, but that doesn't mean no impact exists.
#8 Posted by TKozel, CJR on Fri 23 Mar 2012 at 05:56 PM
If the press is negligent in blowing the etch-a-sketch line out of proportion, it would be far more negligent for the press to allow the Romney campaign -- abetted by journalists like Nyhan -- to create ambiguity where there is none. Fehrnstrom was not asked about campaign organization or campaign dynamics; he was asked a very specific question about Romney's move to the right on substantive issues. It was that question that led to the etch-a-sketch answer. Fehrnstrom can spin his answer all he wants; in context it's clear he was talking substance, not form.
#9 Posted by Kevin Jon Heller, CJR on Fri 23 Mar 2012 at 10:13 PM
Did the media "frame" this narrative about Romney's flip-flopping, or did Romney flip flop? Come on.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/02/149812295/on-energy-policy-another-shift-for-romney
#10 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Mon 2 Apr 2012 at 02:54 PM