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Monday, January 02, 2012

Mitt Fits



I tend to think of Romney as stiffly robotic -- not entirely unlike John Kerry in that respect, and likely comparably hard for his base to warm up to -- and so I am intrigued to see this DNC attack ad beginning to elaborate this intemperate counter-narrative.

Perhaps the DNC thinks the lack of base enthusiasm will be compensated for in Romney's case among Repugs by their fulminating hostility to Obama (who is, after all, I'm sure you've noticed, Black), or perhaps what is really being elaborated here is not so much Romney's temper (which seems less a problem by far than Grumpy McAncient's last time around) but his unattractive sense of entitlement, an oblique exposure of his one percenter problem in the age of the 99%.

I don't know, I'm just curious what this particular negative narrative says about where the DNC is as Romney likely sews up the nomination quickly, ending the long clown college spectacle (which has been pretty devastating to the Republicans), ending earlier than one might have wanted the period when Republicans attacking Republicans was doing so much of the work for Dems, saving Romney lots of money and giving him nearly a whole year in a one on one contest, amply ready to lie the world into the image of whatever fantasy of blame and delusion he's selling to gain the White House he so ardently craves for whatever reason with endless campaign ads funded by endless money without the least scruple to contain the torrent.

It is interesting that Willard's own campaign has seemed to make the exactly same (to me) counter-intuitive decision and at the same moment as the Dems have -- as the rather, er, soulless Romney makes his final pitch to Iowans in terms of a fight over America's soul. I mean, sure, it's just another occasion for insecure hicks to bash Europe, but I still found this rhetoric unexpected for so many reasons -- eg, robots don't have souls, why remind Dominionists of the whole Mormon heathen thing, does anybody think Romney has more soul than the man who had Aretha sing at his inauguration? and so on.

1 comment:

jollyspaniard said...

He seems like a weird rich guy to me. He doesn't feel empathy for normal folk and that comes across in his interactions with them. The fact that it's so glaringly obvious suggests that it's more than just a slight lack of empathy.

I expect during the general election we'll see less if not no retail campaigning from him and more stage managed events.