PLANK SEPTEMBER 21, 2012
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As this terrible, no-good week comes to a close for Mitt Romney and the country’s political writers scramble to pre-write their obituaries for his campaign, it is time to discuss the real reason Romney has found politicking so difficult. The man has too much of a poet’s soul for the trail.
Oh, sure, the conventional wisdom on Romney is that he’s a robot, a soulless plutocratic technocrat who can’t connect with humans. The kind of guy who doesn’t get why saying that his wife has multiple luxury vehicles might be a turnoff. But perhaps that air of disconnect he has from the common man stems not from a lack of emotional vibrancy, but from too much of it. Maybe he said “couple of Cadillacs” for the alliterative opportunity, not out of ceaseless carelessness. Like any poet’s, his head is, literally, in the clouds—as we saw yesterday, per the campaign pool report.
As Romney walked back to the plane to shake hands with the five individuals who drove vans in the motorcade, your pooler asked Romney if he was going to be campaigning a little harder from here on out.
“Ha ha. We’re in the stretch aren’t we? Look at those clouds. It’s beautiful,” he said, pointing to the sky. “Look at those things.”
A gaffe—or a Wordsworthian spot of time?
This isn’t the first time Mitt has been distracted from campaigning by nature. He is particularly obsessed with it when in his home state of Michigan, where, with a Frostian simplicity and appreciation for the American countryside, he has declared multiple times that the trees are the “right height.” It is a generous and expansive understanding of the concept of right: to declare a constantly growing object—not to mention thousands of infinitely varied permutations of said object—perfect at any given moment requires a Romantic vision of the world. One that Mitt doesn’t just limit to things above his head, either:
“The grass is the right color for this time of year, kind of a brownish-greenish sort of thing,” he said—nay, emoted—in Michigan. “It just feels right.”
And, of course, there was perhaps Mitt’s most poetic moment of all, the haiku fragment of his mind we were given a glimpse of over the summer when he described lemonade not in the hackneyed terms with which we usually describe it (“refreshing!” “Sweet!”) but with an elemental, incisive simplicity. “Lemon. Wet. Good,” he declared, a bold, modern, and evocative turn of phrase to rival anything William Carlos William ever wrote.
But the most compelling evidence yet that Mitt Romney has the soul of a poet? He didn’t do his taxes right.
13 comments
Mr. Mitt may decide to become the education president or philosopher king. If elected, Mr. Mitt can be counted on to offer empirical observations not only of nature, but of every illustration found in any magazine located in the waiting room of any dentist, doctor, etc, provided the illustration has not been partially or completely torn out. Records of these sayings are out of the question as Mr. Mitt is aware of the perils associated with paper trails.
- Doug12
September 21, 2012 at 5:10pm
"...he has declared multiple times that the trees are the “right height.” Which sounds to me like something somebody "on the spectrum" might say. (I mean the autistic spectrim.)
- Haole45
September 21, 2012 at 5:32pm
Well, Mitt is a Pisces. We Pisces are complicated creatures. Who are not known for doing taxes, but, cloud watching - now - that is one of my hobbies. This worries me.
- Sophia
September 21, 2012 at 6:08pm
Wise ass.
- Curran1
September 21, 2012 at 6:55pm
Romney may have been remembering one of Wallace Stevens's minor poems, which I quote here from memory: One day in Michigan One day in Michigan the candidate Noticed the trees, that their height Was pleasing; Not to short; not too tall. He told his audience this, and they took Him at his word. Another time the grass fired his vision As he looked around, surprised: A brownish-greenish intermezzo Negotiating growth and decay like a deft politician. He told the audience this too, and they Nodded in agreement. The tree are the height that they are. Green is a candiate for brown.
- ironyroad
September 21, 2012 at 8:43pm
Does he have Asbergers? I am being kind because it is either that or he is a sociopath.
- blackton
September 21, 2012 at 9:06pm
I'll accept that he's a romantic. The problem is that, besides being a romantic, he's an over-priveleged ignorant man, who condemns 1/2 of the American electorate because he thinks they're too lazy to stand on their own feet. At that point, I don't care how "romantic" he is. It's one thing if he sees the romance of making America great by serving both the great and the small. It's another thing if he implements his romanticism by kicking the little guy out of the boat. Yeah, I'm leaning toward "Sociopath".
- AllanL5
September 21, 2012 at 9:55pm
He installs elevators for his wife's multiple Cadillacs. What could be more romantic than that?
- magboy47.
September 22, 2012 at 11:48am
This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold PS I have also eaten your Medicare and Social Security benefits, because they were there And you were snowed
- Sophia
September 23, 2012 at 1:02pm
Or, alternatively: PS I suppose you're going to sound all victimized now! Should have padlocked the refrigerator.
- ironyroad
September 23, 2012 at 4:44pm
A person With initiative Would have padlocked The refrigerator But you didn't Tough.
- Sophia
September 23, 2012 at 8:11pm
Sophia your pastiche beats mine!
- ironyroad
September 24, 2012 at 2:04am
Well it was your idea (the padlock:) Was also thinking, maybe she should have insured the plums:)
- Sophia
September 24, 2012 at 3:02am