Read My Lips, Don’t Look At My Record

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

George Bush’s former budget director, Rob Portman, who’s doing well in his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, says voters really don’t care that he was part of the administration that helped wreck the economy over the past decade:

“What the people in this plant want to know is what you are going to do for me going forward,” Mr. Portman said. “That is all they care about, and frankly that’s what voters care about.”

“The world has moved on,” he added. “Maybe the Democrats haven’t.”

Steve Benen is gobsmacked that Ohio’s voters seem eager to support Portman “despite his background of failure” — though in fairness to Ohio’s electorate, Portman has a long record as an Ohio congressman prior to his two years as an obscure official in the Bush administration, and that’s probably what most voters are responding to.

More broadly, though, there’s no reason to be surprised anyway. As near as I can tell, Portman is right: policywise, voters really don’t care much about what you’ve done in the past. They only care about what you say you’re going to do in the future. They care about scandals in the past, and they generally seem to give politicians credit for the past policies of their parties — so Republicans get automatic credit for being budget hawks even if they’ve spent freely in the past and Democrats get credit for protecting Social Security even if they’ve voted to cut it in the past. Beyond that, though, voters don’t care much. They just vote for whoever talks the best talk.

This is a pretty handy thing for politicians.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate