In my previous life as a blogger, I was a prominent supporter/shill for Mitt Romney. Having officially morphed into a journalist this week, I hoped to get my hands on the elixir that gives New York Times reporters the Olympian detachment that so distinguishes them. Alas, I woke up today much the same as I went to bed last Friday–an unrepentant Mitt Romney supporter Dean Barnett for the Weekly Standard.
Frankly, this hasn’t been the best of times for Romney fans. It seems like the Romney campaign chooses a different theme for each 7-10 day cycle. Over the past several weeks some decided lemons have blemished the batch. Romney’s vow to move “In God We Trust” from the rear of our coins to the front was a dreadful piece of cornpone pandering. His boast over the weekend that he represented the “Republican wing of the Republican party” was even worse. Who at Romney headquarters thought it was a good idea to echo Howard Dean’s rhetoric? Someone please tell me that person’s not still pulling a paycheck from Romney ‘08.
At lunch a couple of weeks ago, a voracious follower of politics challenged me in regards to Romney, “How come people don’t like him?” The question’s premise isn’t quite accurate–where Romney has most actively engaged the electorate in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, and even South Carolina, he has made great progress in the polls. But the question does get to the heart of something. For some reason, Romney provokes a lot of hostility from a lot of people.
It may be because he looks like a politician straight from central casting. Good-looking and fast-talking, Romney appears and acts the way one imagines a politician would. After eight years of seeing George W. Bush wrestle with the English language (and usually lose via submission), you’d think conservatives especially would welcome the thought of a standard bearer who can express himself clearly and without undue effort. Alas, politicians remain one of our most reviled life-forms. The fact that Romney strikes people as a politician to the core doesn’t work to his benefit.
Read it here: Mitt Romney