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Why is Romney Such a Bad Candidate? It’s Not the Man. It’s the Policies.
Campaign for America's Future / Video Report
Published: Wednesday 8 August 2012
“The conventional wisdom is that Romney is weird, aloof, socially awkward, and removed from the lives of average Americans.”
While on The David Pakman Show yesterday, host David Pakman asked me why I thought Mitt Romney has proven to be such a bad candidate.
The conventional wisdom is that Romney is weird, aloof, socially awkward, and removed from the lives of average Americans. All that may be true, but it's also true of plenty of successful politicians. Politics is not the profession for the well-adjusted.
Instead, I noted that Romney is having such a hard time because of the fundamental incoherence of his and party's issue platform.
The Republican Party and the conservative movement simply have done no significant soul-searching following the debacle of the George W. Bush presidency. They have admitted no error, and in turn, have refused to make any adjustments to convince the public they are ready to return to power.
In Romney's case, he appears to have some basic understanding that he can't take Tea Party anti-government talking points and expect to win the middle of the country. But he also can't speak truth to the Tea Party either.
He won't offer policies that are any different from President Bush's, because to do so would require admitting that something out of the Conservative 101 playbook -- lower taxes on the rich, fewer rules on corporations -- didn't work.
Instead he dances around nearly every question on policy, and panders to every audience he sees, in hopes no one will notice and will simply vote for him out of antipathy for President Obama.
But doing that dance leads to plenty of mistakes. Furthermore, there isn't widespread antipathy for Obama. The result: Romney is losing.
If the race continues the way, Romney will lose. The pundits, egged on by the conservative elite, will quickly blame Romney the person for the campaign's failings.
But the campaign is failing because conservatism failed first.
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By Tara Culp- Ressler
8 comments on "Why is Romney Such a Bad Candidate? It’s Not the Man. It’s the Policies."
August 09, 2012 8:58am
I also have to disagree with your hypothesis - the problem is with Romney himself. Like George Bush, he is acting out his daddy issues. He has to prove that he can "do it on his own"... the problem is that he's had the silver spoon in his mouth for so long that he doesn't even realize how much he's been given.
His primary goal is to impress his friends at the country club... and the only way he can do that is to continually come up with ways to make them more money. All of his proposed policies help the wealthy, and hide behind the Republican mantra that giving money to the wealthy helps the poor and middle class. They're all repeats of the Bush policies because he is being manipulated by big-business ultra conservatives just like Bush was.
Another term with Bush/Romney policies will bankrupt our country for sure.
August 08, 2012 9:13pm
I have to agree with LARRONM's comments. However, I'm puzzled about why Bill Scher says Romney is losing. At the very least, he must be even with the President, according to most polls. The fact is that there are millions of voters out there who would vote for Donald Duck if he was running against Obama. I think understated racism has a lot to do with it. I've never heard such nonsense in my life as what is coming out of the mouths of those who don't like the President. According to them, Obama is a closet Muslim who hates America and wasn't even born here, and he's both a Nazi and a Socialist, blah-blah-blah.
It's really hard for me to believe that people adhere to such nonsense, yet I know that they do. How do you fight such b/s?
I just got through reading Charles P. Pierce's "Idiot America" and I recommend it. "How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free;" boy, does that apply in this election.
What's scary is that Romney defeated all his rivals by outspending them, and we know he can outspend the President, so I can't agree that Romney is "losing." Big Money can promote the Big Lie, and we all know that. Lies and smears work with the Fox News crowd which, unfortunately, numbers in the millions. I can only hope Romney's support is so weak that millions would rather stay home and shampoo their hair - or whatever - than vote for this smiley-faced empty suit.
August 08, 2012 9:05pm
Mitt Romney veers between pathetic, deranged, and deadly dull, punctuated only by sparkling gaffes. Here is a fabulous compilation video of Mitt Romney lying through his teeth, flip-flopping and bullsh**ting people—but still with his "presidential" hair in place—proof positive it's nothing but a one-party system and we're all watching a puppet show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x2W4GhSLlQ&feature=colike
August 08, 2012 1:20pm
It's the man AND the policies.
August 08, 2012 1:14pm
Romney, the man, is every bit a part of the problem as the party platform. His aide spoke the truth when he said the primary season's picture would be wiped away and a new picture would be drawn on the GOP etch-a-sketch. We could take a sure bet that the presidential campaign etch-a-sketch picture will change should Romney get elected. Romney is nothing more than a puppet that says only what his handler(s) say.
In physics, you cannot precisely know the position of a particle AND it's momentum at the same time. Since Romney's momentum is precisely known, by the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, there is very little precision in his position.
He does have a serious problem telling the truth, but then many in the GOP cannot tell the truth to save their lives. Making your own version of the truth does not count as truth.
August 08, 2012 12:05pm
Romney does not really exist as a defined person with set views and principles. Romney is a flag in the wind. He creates a Romney in accordance with which way the political wind is blowing at the moment. You really can't oppose him nor agree with him because he is no longer there by the time you hear of his comments.
August 08, 2012 10:29am
It's the man and his policies -- he's a plutocrat doing the dirty bidding of the filthy rich.
August 08, 2012 10:26am
While there may be merit to your analysis, I have to disagree. Having watched this race very closely, I am convinced that the real problem is Mr. Romney. I will admit that the party platform leaves much to be desired but there are enough uninformed folks out there to buy into the pitch. However, voters are beginning to realize that Mr. Romney is an empty suit. He stands for nothing. He has no convictions and no specific goals other than to get elected. Furthermore, he has a real and continuing problem with the truth. It is one thing to distort the truth in the form of "puffing" as most polititians do. It is another to lie about those things which are easily checked and about which there is no need to lie. When one lies when the truth will suffice it displays a disregard for the intellegence of the listners. That he advocates bad policies is a matter of opinion, that he advocates policies of several diverse groups with no sense of connection or logic suggests that his only motivation is to attract their votes. Should he be elected, a distinct possibility, we have no way of knowing what policy positions he would seek to prosecute. Here again we see the total breakdown of our institutions and the demise of understanding of our national ethos.