Romney a Lock - You Can Put it On the Board YESSSS!!

It seems to me that Obama's got easy pickings for campaign ads in this sense: there are so many examples of Romney saying one thing in one campaign, and then the opposite thing in another in another campaign (or perhaps even on the same day in the same campaign), that he could make the narrative Romney as empty suit. After all, the reason Republicans didn't warm to him was because they didn't know what he was about, or didn't believe he was sympathetic to the conservative cause. What better way to anti-inspire Romney's potential voters then to point out that he stands for nothing?

 

Later that day, when handed a baby to kiss, Romney said "Whoa, this one won't win any beauty contests!"

 

I think Romney hired Ozzie Guillen to coach him on effective strategies for off-the-cuff remarks.

 

I'm not saying he's Horatio Alger, but Romney did make his own money, moreso that someone like W. or Kerry.

 

As I've said before, I can't fault Romney for having no people skills. Born into a millionaire's family, raised devout Mormon, married young, lived among the poshest of country club set ever since. How the hell is he supposed to come across as a common man?

Romney should just own his personality. No CEO or Forbes 500 Chairman is chosen based on his glad-handing, back-slapping persona (or at least, shouldn't be). Romney should just admit, "Hey, America, I'll never be the guy you want to sit down and have a beer with. I don't even drink beer. But I am the guy who works 18 hour days with spreadsheets and meetings with experts, and I'll be the guy to get us out of this economic mess."

Then, he should run the first 21st Century campaign for President -- i.e., quit holding bakery meetings with a dozen common voters. America elects a singing Idol twice a year without ever meeting them in person, it sure as hell can elect a CEO President that way.

 

The most quietly effective cookie in confectionary history.

 

As has been noted many times, Romney "made" his money by moving numbers around on corporate earning sheets. True, he made it. But that doesn't mean America's voters think he earned it.

 

He "made" it by pilfering money off existing companies' bottom line. That's what private equity companies do.

And he got there entirely because of who his dad was. I know you guys like to think that didn't have anything to do with it and Harvard and Bain Capital were all a meritocracy, but when they started their careers he had better family connections than either W or Kerry did.

 

Obviously, having a famous father didn't hurt... But better connections than W? That surprises me that you say that. I always saw W. as the kid who begged his father's friends for money for an oil company and a baseball team and fell backwards into politics because of what his last name was and only ran for president because his older brother couldn't keep his wife in line.

 

Romney took his silver spoon and used it well for himself and his family, and that's more than Bush did.

A low bar to be sure.

 

Yeah, I would say W had far deeper connections, at least in terms of number of prominent generations before him, than Romney. George apparently tried to make Mitt's life as not-rich-kid as possible, though there were limits. It's not like Mitt had to work at McD's to earn his college money, or that Dad told him to forget Harvard and major in couch-burning at Michigan State.

 

Romney's father had been a state governor and auto company CEO and held a secretary position in Nixon's Cabinet. For a time he was the GOP's preferred candidate in the 1968 presidential election. That's a bigger profile than W's family had. When Mitt was starting his career, W was still playing tennis and driving drunk, and in the ensuing years obviously the Bush family lapped the Romneys. But yeah, when Mitt started his career there weren't 100 people in all the U.S. who were better connected than he was.