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Polar bear with carrot

Monday, July 9, 2012

POTUS Sweepstakes


I don't think Mitt Romney is a bad guy and I don't think it is a sin to be rich. But he has to be running the lamest campaign on record. The largesse of the 50k per head function at Ronald Perelman or David Koch's tony East Hampton Estates this weekend plays into a stereotype, unfair or not, that Mitt is out of touch with the plight and circumstance of ordinary americans. Who can forget his wife Ann telling us that $250 million wasn't really a lot of money and she didn't consider herself wealthy? I am sensing a serious disconnect here.


"We can be poor in spirit, and I don't even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing, it can be here today and gone tomorrow."Anne Romney. 


How true Ann, but two hundred million bucks up and poor in spirit is still a chunk of change where I come from.

“This president has already shown that he’s not who he said he was. He claimed he was going to bring everyone together, he was going to be this uniter. He’s been the most divisive, nasty, negative campaigner this country’s ever seen without running any positive ads.” Rance Priebus

Who is running this dog and pony show? This week the RNC's Rance Priebus complained that President Obama is running the dirtiest, most cynical presidential campaign on record, familiar refrain in right wing circles lately. Really? Where in the hell have I been? Seems like the normal mudslinging to me. Like he's not supposed to ask about the offshore stuff in the Caymans and Bermuda and the Swiss bank account? The $100 million dollar retirement account. Why is this supposed to be off limits? Or is it unfair to judge a businessman for being a good capitalist?


A Romney supporting woman made rather intemperate comments about the uneducated, poor people understanding the big picture. Invocations of class war from the top down are evidently okay, still a stupid and inaccurate thing to say.


“The Obama campaign’s latest unfounded character assault on Mitt Romney is unseemly and disgusting,... Obama is a typical politician willing to use false and dishonest attacks to save his job after failing to do his job.” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul 


The problem is Andrea, you people keep calling allegations false and dishonest but you never explain why they are false or dishonest. Any questions about Bain or outsourcing or the nature of private equity are dismissed as beyond the pale of decency and propriety. But nothing is ever explained. Unfortunately the american public usually wants some kind of plausible answer to this kind of stuff. We rarely write blank checks in this country, tending to mistrust politicians.

In my eyes it is less a case of Obama engaging in this so called Chicago Pol knife fighting we hear so much about and more of Romney being incapable of framing or communicating a clear message. All he has shown is that he is against everything Obama but he has a difficult time enunciating or defining any concrete plans of his own. Couple this with his dancing around on the semantical mandate tax question (mine was a mandate, yours was a tax, the SCOTUS said so but don't ask me to explain it.) 


He has a real problem with filling in the dots. Is this a rope a dope, a bait and switch, a careful political calculation that people are so sick of the incumbent that they will trust you to work out the sniggling details once the nomination, or should I say coronation is in the bag? I think that as depressed as people are, that is still a stretch.


I think that the intensity of the fight is frankly getting to Romney. It shouldn't, he was raised in this arena, I remember when his Dad was battling Rocky for the Republican nod. But he still looks hopelessly outclassed, a maiden claimer trying to hang with the Stakes horses, stay near the pack and try to steal the race at the last turn. Last week his wife, possibly way off message candidly said that Obama was trying to kill, albeit figuratively, her husband. This is the closest person to Mitt and I got to think that it is the most honest indicator to date of Romney's actual feelings about his chances in this race.


Unless Romney completely revamps his campaign strategy and fleshes out some concrete details I can see this one decided by the quarter pole.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Evening Robert - There is no "race" - the contest has already been decided and the winners are (drumroll and fanfare) the NY banksters (led by "bomber" Ben Bernanke) and the DC thuggocrats (temporarily led by B. Hussein Obama - or "comrade" Hussein as I like to call him). "Mittens" Romney won't really conduct a campaign as his sole function was to ensure that Ron Paul didn't have a chance to win the Rep. nomination. Now that that's accomplished he can go back to enjoying his ill-gotten gains from corporate "raiding" and speculative financial manipulation. I have no doubt that Ann Romney is "poor in spirit" - the woman is nauseating. - R

Anonymous said...

Is that Secretariate in the Belmont?

BV

Blue Heron said...

Good eye, BV. It is the greatest race horse that ever lived. Long time no hear, where the hell have you been?