Shields and Brooks Assess Tight Democratic Race, the Road Ahead for McCain

Mark, your parting comments for or about Mitt Romney, his candidacy, et cetera?

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: Mitt Romney, if you're going to the drawing board, Jim, you could not have drawn a more ideal candidate. I mean, in looks, in poise, presentation, bearing, family, resume, personal fortune, intelligence, management experience, interesting life story.

He just could not convince voters in the two most important states. It is no accident that there are four candidates left in this race, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee and John McCain. And they are, among them, the winners of Iowa and New Hampshire.

And Mitt Romney just couldn't connect at a personal level with those voters.

JIM LEHRER: Is that it, David, he just couldn't connect on a personal level?

DAVID BROOKS, columnist, The New York Times: Well, it didn't have to be that way. You know, when they begin their run, they come around and have lunches with journalists.

And I remember lunch two-and-a-half years ago, and Romney gave a long talk about David Landis, a Harvard historian, what he thought of Landis' teachings on why some societies grow rich, and it was super impressive, super impressive the way he could analyze pretty complicated historical theories.

That Mitt Romney vanished. And then yesterday, in his withdrawal speech, he talks about David Landis, the Harvard historian. And so you're sitting there thinking, "Where was this guy in the intervening two years?"

And what happened was that some cynical consultants persuaded him -- and he allowed them to persuade him -- to become something he was not. And he saw an opening. He had Giuliani and McCain, sort of progressive or moderate conservatives, and he said, "I'll be the ideological conservative."

And he tried to be that, but you can't fake it, because you overdo it. He treated conservatives like they were idiots, and he did the crudest version. And it didn't really appeal to people until the very end, when some conservatives were panicked by McCain.

JIM LEHRER: Mark, the rap on him, of course, in addition to all this, was that he was a flip-flopper, I mean, that he didn't really know what he believed and, as David said, a consultant could convince him to believe anything. Was that fair?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, in a year with authenticity was what voters had most in mind, flip-flopping itself, changing positions, is not political suicide.

Ronald Reagan signed the most liberal abortion law in the country when he was governor of California. That didn't stop him from winning, enlisting, and enjoying the support -- and strong support -- of the pro-life movement when he came to that position.

But with Romney -- and I just want underline a point that David made -- Jim, I have been around this business for a long, long time. I have never seen any candidate do that which he didn't want to do. Consultants don't make you do it. I don't care, Svengalis, Rasputins, whoever they are. In the final analysis...

JIM LEHRER: Particularly if you have all the money.

MARK SHIELDS: But you have to decide who I am. And, boy, if you're depending upon hired consultants to tell you who you are and who you want to be, then you probably shouldn't be winning races.

DAVID BROOKS: I used to go to these "Ask Mitt Anything" rallies, where he would have them, and there would be questions. And he did that throughout the whole campaign.

And I can't recall -- I probably went to 15 or 20 over the course of the couple years -- I can't recall once where he contradicted the questioner.

If the question came to him that seemed the questioner was against No Child Left Behind, his answer suggested he was against it. If the question was pro-No Child Left Behind, his answer suggested he was for it.

And sometimes people like you to come back at them. And I can't recall a time when he did that, and I think you lose some respect.

DAVID BROOKS: I was there.

JIM LEHRER: What was your reading of why they booed? Was that real? Was that a big move...

DAVID BROOKS: In my view, that's oversold.

JIM LEHRER: Is that right?

JIM LEHRER: I noticed some of my colleagues, some of my colleagues who are some of the best in the business, wrote that he was booed. I always stand at the rallies in the front of the room because I want to watch the crowd.

There were about 10 people in the back of the room, I gather, but they were not audible from the front of the room. There was some quavering at the very beginning, but very little, and then some quavering when he mentioned immigration.

But on the whole, it was a speech that was very respectful of the audience and was very conciliatory, asking for their consultation and advice in the future. And I don't know if he won them over, but he mollified some of the criticism.

And it's important to remember CPAC -- I used to work at the Washington Times. We were a pretty conservative group. CPAC was made up of the people who wouldn't read us because we were liberals.

CPAC is the hardcore. Richard Viguerie, who was up on the stage yesterday, he's been leaving the Republican Party every year for the past 25 years because it's too liberal. He gave up on the Reagan presidency, I think, in the middle of the first term because it was too liberal.

These are pretty hardcore conservatives. They are not mainstream Republicans. And I thought McCain went quite a long way with a very eloquent speech and a good general election speech to show some respect while acknowledging some differences.

MARK SHIELDS: No, I don't think the running mate...

JIM LEHRER: You don't think so?

MARK SHIELDS: Again, I think the running mate has made a difference in exactly one election in the past 50 years, and that was Lyndon Johnson with John Kennedy.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, Dr. Land made that point here last night.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, I mean, I really don't think that a running mate is going to change -- the impressions of John McCain are vivid. If you were trying to fill out somebody who perhaps isn't well-known to the American people, I mean, maybe a Barack Obama, who people are just being introduced to, his choice of a running mate.

But unless John McCain, you know, does something absolutely bizarre, which I don't expect him to do, he is a defined personality. Nobody really thinks there's going to be a co-pilot in a McCain administration. He's flying solo.

JIM LEHRER: He's going to fly solo, you agree?

DAVID BROOKS: But he hit some points that I think mollified the group.

JIM LEHRER: In the speech? In the speech?

DAVID BROOKS: He opposed the prescription drug benefit, which George Bush supported. He's very and genuinely tough on spending and then in Iraq. And so he said, "Listen, I'm not always with you on immigration. I'm not always with you on some other things, campaign finance, but on a couple of issues, I'm really with you, and these issues are really, really important." And I think people listened to him when he said that.

JIM LEHRER: Is it your feeling that this will eventually just kind of drift away, fade away, this anti-McCain spirit among some hardcore conservatives?

DAVID BROOKS: In general. Remember, he has an 80 percent favorability rating among Republicans. He's popular with Republicans in general.

But when the debate comes to the fall against Hillary Clinton, especially -- but also with Barack Obama, who's the most liberal member of the Senate -- the debate will be such a traditional left-right debate that the conservatives, believe me, will be on board, and the war will be over the center. Conservatives are not a problem.

MARK SHIELDS: Conservatives have been the foot soldiers and the foundation of the Republican resurgence. So you don't want them being just indifferent or just passively...

JIM LEHRER: You need their enthusiasm?

MARK SHIELDS: I think you do need their enthusiasm. And the reason a choice of running mate doesn't answer that, John McCain has problems with every part of the conservative movement. He voted against the original Bush tax cuts and said they were tilted to the rich. That bothers the tax-cutting crowd.

JIM LEHRER: And now he wants to make them permanent.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, now he wants to make them permanent, which I think goes to the whole independence, maverick John McCain, reaching independents.

But that aside, I think John McCain on social and cultural issues has broken with them. He refused to support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

I mean, you know, you go right through, issue after issue, I mean, on torture, I mean, John McCain is considered soft, by some hard-liners. So you're not going to find a running mate who is going to address all those problems.