Welcome to the big leagues, Mitt
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They’ve barely begun counting the votes and it already looks inevitable. Mitt Romney, the Republican Republicans love to hate, is going to be the Republican nominee for President.
How did it come to this? Mitt Romney generates less excitement in the GOP base than charity. He’s as authentic as John Boehner’s tan, and about as sexy. Bob Dole could give this guy charisma lessons.
Romney’s big pitch is that he’s the most electable Republican in the race. This says a couple of things about him, neither flattering.
The Presidency is supposed to be a means. A means to make changes in the way the nation works and what it stands for. A place where one can turn one’s core beliefs into history.
But Mitt Romney has no core beliefs. He says wherever sounds best on television; he parrots the complaints of his audience; he plays for applause in the form of votes. Mitt doesn’t want the office, he wants the trophy. He wants to win for the sake of winning.
Which is where his second problem comes in. Mitt got here by beating a team of midgets. This roster of stiffs included:
A pizza guy and serial philanderer who was in it to promote his book.
A thrice-married man who wears like Wal-Mart underwear, can’t stand success and is in love with the sound of his own voice.
A Texas governor who makes Bush sound like Jack Kennedy.
A homophobic, voted-out Pennsylvania Senator who thinks that life begins at first kiss.
A wack-job libertarian who’s convinced the problem with Iran is us and wants to shut the federal reserve and go back to the pewter standard.
A fellow Mormon who is moderate, thoughtful, and loathed for those character flaws.
And a wild-eyed woman who had no idea where she was and why she went nowhere.
So far, Romney has faced the bum of the month, and he’s not exactly setting the world on fire. He’ll probably get the nod, more by default than virtue. But once Romney wins the nomination, he’ll be in the big leagues. He’ll going up against the guy who beat Hillary Clinton so bad she wound up working for him. He’ll be facing Barack Obama.
That’s supposed to make it easy for Romney. Think again. It’s true that the country is in a bad mood, but ask yourself the big question. Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Well, sure you are. Four years ago the world was coming to an end. The markets were in freefall, the American auto industry was bankrupt, we had 150,000 troops in Iraq, Bin Laden was watching porn from his comfortable retirement villa in Pakistan, and we were heading face first into a bottomless economic pit.
Now, things are crummy but stable. The patient is out of intensive care. The rehab has been long and difficult, but Obama’s managed it about as well as it could be managed.
Obama stopped a depression. He has the economy growing again—weakly, insufficiently, but growing—and unemployment is inching down. He has ended more wars than he has started. He passed a health care reform law that, weak as it is, still covers more people than ever. He talks less about the war on terrorism and kills more terrorists than the guy before him. He doesn’t make you cringe in embarrassment when he speaks the English language.
In politics anything is possible. It is possible Romney won’t get the nomination. It is even possible that if he does, he’ll win. But in a way, it doesn’t matter.
No matter who comes out on top this November, we’re facing gridlock 2.0.
The pent-up resentment over what the Republicans have done to Obama is so strong that the Democrats won’t give Romney an inch if he wins. And we already know what the Republicans will do to Obama if he’s reelected.
So the choice boils down to this: Who do you want doing nothing in the oval office for the next four years? A reasonable, intelligent, articulate representative for America? Or a guy who will say anything to win, without a principal he hasn’t sold out, a guy who looks like an insurance salesman, talks like a used car salesman, and isn’t even trusted by his own party?
If I was a conservative, I’d be royally hacked off about now. Thankfully, I’m not. I’m a liberal who is mildly disappointed. I’ll take it, considering the alternative.
Comment by proletarian on 13 January 2012:
Oh, my, my, my, Mr. Snark — always a pleasure to read you. As usual you have been very eloquent in sprinkling fairy dust on the political scenery. I’ll try to keep this sweet and pithy.
I am uncertain how you can consider the economy stable; two million net loss jobs, a down grade in the US credit rating, real unemployment at about 18%, a 15 trillion dollar deficit, a historical high for repossessed homes, (including the years of the Great Depression)and many, many more unfavorable statistics. In fact, I wouldn’t be able to keep this pithy if I were to list them.
But then on the other hand, I can understand your view. If one were to buy into the “created or saved” jobs rhetoric, then one could reason how Obama stopped a depression. The problem with what is, what you write is is fallacious.
Comment by proletarian on 13 January 2012:
Sorry Mr. Snark, I’d like to do a little follow-up if you don’t mind. I refuse to vote for Mitt, I find him perfidious. Not that he’s too liberal mind you, I mean after all, I am a centrist. However, I don’t see where he has any intention in returning order to the country, or turning legislative authority back to the states for them to govern themselves as orginially intended.
I have decided — if Mitt gets elected I’m selling everything I own and moving to Mexico. If Obama gets elected, I’m commiting suicide. Everything will be over anyway.
Comment by Snark Twain on 26 January 2012:
Now don’t do anything drastic, Prole! I remember some of my more fringy friends on the left wing fringe who said the same thing in 2004 about Bush. They sensed-up and skipped the Hemlock in time. I prefer your disagreements to the ones I get from the moron radicals on opednews, and the moron conservatives from wheresoever they lurk. You comments are literate, even when they give me the fan-tods.
As for my writing being “fallacious,” well, word on the street is that I’m a master fallaciouist.
Hmm, is that another way of saying “I blow smoke?”
Keep reading and writing, Prole. And I’d tell you to “keep hope alive,” if I wasn’t worried that would send you lips-first to the gas pipe.
Comment by proletarian on 28 January 2012:
Hey Snark, good to hear from you. I have a confession to tell. Whether I agree or disagree with your ideology, your views and opinions, you are still the best read on this site. I never have been able to understand how our society fails to converse on difficult, controversial, and sometimes painful subjects; e.g., religion, politics, abortion, gun control, etc.
As far as fallacious, or a term more commonly known as an insult against logic, I run into this dilemma on a regular basis. Let me give you, hopefully, a pithy example.
The other day I made a similar reference on the Huffington Post about job loss, such as I gave you. To my dismay I was promptly excoriated for doing so. I said that under the Obama administration we have lost 1.6 million jobs. The only president in modern history that that has happened to. Now the way Obama tells it, and what his vassals believe, is that during his tenure, so far, he has created three million jobs. Something that I have not been able to confirm. Maybe that’s part of the “created or saved” scenario.
Anyway, we must have lost 4.6 million jobs, if indeed Obama’s claims are accurate. That’s the only way PolitiFact can come up with a net loss of 1.6 million jobs. And I assure you, PolitiFact has less of a political agenda to embellish than Mr. Obama does. Regardless of this fact, I was still called everything from a troglodyte to suffering from Obamaphobia. If there were ten sardonic comments, there were a hundred.
Now, this is where someone may have thought I was being fallacious, and was in fact accused of exactly that. So, I promptly posted my source, PolitiFact.com. And this is also my point to you; if you have facts to back up your commentary I would love to see it. If not, it is simply nothing more than commentary You see, we all have our opinions Mr. Snark, and I do love how you couch yours.
Oh, and as a sidebar, I listened to Obama’s speech the other day at the University of Michigan. Can you believe he still blamed Bush for the plight of students and the cost of education? I was astounded. Exactly when is he going to take responsibility for the office? I told my wife just today; I’ll give to Obama that Bush is the why for all our woes, I simply want him to move on with a plan that is not belied by his actions. A true executive doesn’t care how the organization got to where it‘s at, whose fault it is or what they did wrong, he’s solely concerned with what ideas he can implement to get back on track and get the organization growing again. Has this president done that? Healthcare? Stimulus? Bailouts? Onerous regulations? The most preponderant thing he’s done so far is repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Pitiful, simply pitiful.
But nonetheless Mr. Snark, I truly enjoy our banter. It’s always a pleasure to have dialogue with an equally intelligent, and much less vitriolic, intellectual as yourself. I wish you all the best with your writing, or whatever endeavor you so choose. Ta-ta.
Comment by proletarian on 28 January 2012:
Again, if you don’t mind, a short follow-up Mr. Snark. Please forgive me for being so circumlocutory in my response. I have taken on a new endeavor in trying to write short stories; 500 words or less. Apparently I haven’t conquered it yet. Then again, maybe it’s just this toddy I’ve been nursing on. Ave my frined.