THE STUMP NOVEMBER 8, 2011
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We have been unfair to Mitt Romney. We have depicted him as a man driven to be president, so eager to succeed where his father failed that he has been willing to twist himself into whatever pretzel the moment requires to pass muster with the electorate at hand. But no. Romney actually had no intention of making a second try at the White House after coming up short in 2008. That is, until the inability of the current president to turn the economy around convinced him that, like Michael Jordan coming out of retirement, like Churchill returning from exile, he was needed.
As he just told George Stephanopoulos: "We thought we weren't going to be running again. And, frankly, had the economy turned around like I expected it would and we got down to a 6% unemployment rate, I wouldn't be running. But the failure of this presidency compelled Ann and me to say, look, we've got to get back in, in part because of the experience I’ve had in the economy."
Never mind that Romney spent much of 2009 working on a classic pre-campaign, anti-Obama tract, "No Apology." Never mind that he spent much of 2010 traveling the country campaigning for and giving hundreds of thousands of dollars from his "leadership PAC" to Republicans running for local and state office, with a special focus on those running in early states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. Oh no, Romney was ready to hang it up, really he was. He was just going to kick back in his too-small beachfront house in La Jolla and watch Modern Family.
Really, he was.
6 comments
Yeah but his personality algorithm software is improving. He's starting to appear almost eerily human.
- Tristan
November 8, 2011 at 4:04pm
Ah, so before he was running, he'd decided NOT to run. But now he's running, "because he's needed". Somebody better tell the Republicans that they "need" him, because so far they've been voting for "anyone but Romney". So apparently his entire campaign consists of one BIG flip-flop, containing a whole bunch of little flip-flops. So I suppose we're expected to think that should he actually get into office, he'll flip-flop back to being a responsible leader, instead of a flip-flopping demagogue? Well, we hoped Bush would be a responsible President too, but instead he dilly-dallied until 9/11 happened, then started two wars over it, deregulated the financial markets, and led America into the greatest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. In other words, I wouldn't bet on Romney being a responsible leader either.
- AllanL5
November 8, 2011 at 5:20pm
Just when the collection of Republican clowns competing with him start to make Romney seem just a bit less distasteful, he reminds us what a phony he is. Thanks, Mitt.
- Thunderroad
November 8, 2011 at 5:50pm
I think AllanL is right -- deep at the heart of the Romney campaign is a small office in which two trusted staffers work long hours, and never reveal the secret: that Mitt thinks that folks will vote for him because they know he'll revert to being a pragmatic management type once he's in the White House. And that may have been true, but I don't believe it is any more. I wonder also if he knows how his words here have the Tea Party squealing like the devil showered in holy water: even if the unemployment rate was 4%, they would be working to take down Obama with his foreign ways and Kenyan birth and Muslim socialism.
- ironyroad
November 8, 2011 at 6:05pm
"And, frankly, had the economy turned around like I expected it would and we got down to a 6% unemployment rate" This just in, Romney expected Obama's stimulus plan to succeed. If he had experience in the economy he would have known what would have happened and therefore would not have expected a 6% unemployment rate. I romney were not such a robot I might actually dislike him.
- blackton
November 8, 2011 at 7:00pm
I have gotten so used to Romney's opportunism that I think he wouldn't be able to function if he wasn't saying whatever it was he thought the people listening would agree with.
- Nusholtz
November 8, 2011 at 7:56pm