The McCain v. Romney, Kirk v. Spock, Nicky Santoro v. Ace Rothstein divide

I think people who support McCain over Romney see McCain as Kirk and Romney as Spock. (I'll bet Lileks does.) The fighter jock v. the data guy. McCain supporters like the swagger, as Patrick Ruffini has described, and they like someone who is intuitive, brash, and also quite enamored with aliens (though Kirk usually preferred the green-skinned kind). Romney to these guys comes off as cold and analytic. Not helping that problem is this: can you quote one memorable line from a Romney speech? Has anyone ever said, woooh, Romney got in a real zinger at that debate?

I get that. And I liked Bush's swagger and his shoot-from-the-hip quips and nicknames and his trust in his instincts. Most of the time; those instincts were often off (aliens again), but I had confidence in the overall package that his moral compass pointed true. He has a decent, if flawed, grasp of the first principles that dear Saint Ferd! was fond of talking about. (And speaking of which, where's that Fred Thompson endorsement everyone just knew was coming down the pike for his ol' buddy McCain? Moment's come and gone, and as you see in the entry before this one, it doesn't look like it's coming.)

I have no confidence that McCain's compass points anywhere we want to go. He can't help constantly bashing conservatives and lecturing GOP voters about the glories of preventing global warming. Like conservatives in the primary election want to hear that? But that's who he is. That's where his instincts lie.

The swagger that looks confident on Bush looks egomaniacal on McCain, and it did to me back when they were matched up in 2000. I didn't vote for him then and I'm not going to tomorrow. He's also abusive and sneaky and I get the impression that he's surrounded himself with people who share those traits. That's not Kirk-like, but it does remind me of somebody else.

Peggy Noonan and I both like to throw in references to gangster films when writing about politics, and down here I said that I thought she got the movie wrong for her analogy. I thought the Republican base is faced with the dilemma of the mob bosses in Casino: Nicky Santoro vs. "Ace" Rothstein. I still think I'm right, and I want to belabor my point.*

Politics isn't crime, but it's a dangerous environment. Especially foreign policy. Like Remo Gaggi and the Kansas City bosses, we're picking some guys to represent our interests--economic, security, and social-- in the lawless wilderness of Vegas. There are two guys out there now trying to run things, and they're very different.

Ace is well-polished, even a little slick. Great hair, great suits. He's great with numbers and data. He gathers it relentlessly, looking for data on (for example) how one high school quarterback knocked his girlfriend up, so his mind won't be on the game--and betting accordingly. He's also a proven manager (a trait of Romney's that impressed my guest blogger Geoff immensely--he said: "I prefer candidates to have had experience as a governor - the management experience in that position is much more relevant to the Presidency than the deal-cutting experience of Congressmen".) Ace also has a little problem--he's not Italian, which opens him up to all sorts of suspicion from some the bosses back home and whispers from his enemies.

Now the bosses also sent out Nicky Santoro to protect Ace. Nicky doesn't give a f----in' f----ity f---k for the fat ol' f---in' bosses with their quaint f---in' customs and beliefs, and lets you hear about it constantly. He's bigger than them, he's smarter than them, and he knows how to run Vegas better than they do, so they should quit bugging him and just be happy with whatever money he sees fit to send home to them. And if he wants to get into these little sidelines that they don't care about, so what?

(Of course Nicky Santoro was a psychopath and a torturer, whereas McCain wants to end waterboarding (again) and close Gitmo. Romney wants to double the size of Gitmo---and let me ask you this: you know that story about how he left the dog in a carrier on top of the car for a family trip, and the dog got scared and pooped all over the car? That's how Mitt Romney treats his beloved family pet. You can only imagine what he'll do to a terrorist.)

Ultimately Nicky's hot head got the better of him and the Bosses Back Home made a choice to whack Nicky--but it was too late, and they pretty well got run out of Vegas.

So some advice for Romney, because this isn't going to be over tomorrow: Get tough. Get mean. Be less like Spock, more like Ace. Rothstein was tough in his own way, with cheaters and with Harry Reid--oh, sorry, I'm using movie character names here, not their real-life counterparts: The Senator Played by Tommy Smothers. McCain: Not tough with Harry Reid. You didn't mess with Ace and everybody knew it. And also, get some memorable lines in your speeches. Get some stuff that will resonate in people's hearts as well as in their minds, stuff that Rush can cue up as a clip and say "see, that guy gets it!"

And us? This is a democracy. We're the Bosses Back Home. Choose wisely.

*DISCLAIMER for dummies: bear in mind that I'm not saying that the candidates or the party is corrupt, or that they're criminals. Just an analogy, and one that doesn't capture the important moral/social conservative aspects of the election at all. And I don't know where Sharon Stone fits into this. Maybe Huckabee. Yeah, that's it. Canoodling with Nicky Santoro, stabbing Ace whenever she can.

Why not keep going? Will Fred be the Frank Vincent character, Frankie, who gets sick of his excesses and takes a bat to Nicky's backside when it needs to be done? I doubt it, but let's hope so.

UPDATE: There's the stuff. Faster, please!