I left this out of my C4P musings because it seemed so obvious, but it looks like it isn’t obvious to the Romney campaign. The Palin team’s focus today is on November 2010, rather than the 2012 presidential campaign.

Besides getting a call from Palin, we also had a remote discussion with Palin advisor Rebecca Mansour. Mansour deflected all talk about 2012 with talk of 2010. According to her, Palin sees the 2010 elections as far too important to even discuss what might come after.

She didn’t say (as I recall), but it’s one of those “obvious” things: internecine warfare in the Republican party hurts our chances of reform in 2010. For better or worse, the Republicans are the reform choice in November. There will be time enough to compete for President after November. The goal for today is to compete with Democrats—especially those who want government takeovers of major industries—rather than for Republicans to try to bring down other Republicans.

Any advisor who doesn’t know this is not a good advisor.

From South Carolina to California, Palin is doing one hell of job focussing on the real job: November 2010. 2010 first. Then 2012. The way to move forward is one step at a time.

Romney seems to be fulfilling the prophecy of Tammy Bruce. There are two attacks against women from the establishment: mental state and sexuality. As Hot Air commenter the_nile wrote, “When will the first Mitt consultant say he had an ‘inappropriate physical relationship’ with Palin”? This is the attack when a machine wants to take down a reformer.¹

Now, Romney has posted on twitter that his advisor was a numbskull. But that’s not an apology; nor does it atone for the proxy attack². Using proxies has long been the strategy when the establishment needs to take down a reformer. They’re free shots: the attacks are made anonymously or through third parties so that the “distinguished” candidate can keep clean, can remain “presidential”. That was the establishment’s strategy against Nikki Haley, for example. It was so over the top in Haley’s case that it didn’t work, and probably backfired. I hope that Tammy Bruce was right when she wrote that it won’t work in the future, either:

Newsflash: the game has changed. We know the old rules and Romney and every other Republican who fancies himself ‘presidential’ will be held responsible for what his proxies say and do. If you’re not sure, Mittens, how to handle an influential political woman, first you can stop with the pandering and proceed with genuine respect. You and your proxies attack her on the issues, not personally. It’s that simple.

By appearances, the Republican establishment is looking at voter discontent following Democratic over-reach as just a way to get back in power so that they can resume Republican over-reach. Palin’s words and actions have been different. She’s going out of her way to support what look like real reformers and real reform. People who will work to reduce the power and perks of government office rather than just take it for themselves. This is why the establishment attacks on Palin come from both sides: both sides want to retain their power and perks.

What the Romney campaign has shown by these proxy attacks is that it doesn’t care about reform, or about bringing reformers to office. It cares about power, and it’s willing to do anything to get that power. That’s an indication of how a Romney administration would govern.