Lisa Schiffren writes from The Corner:
One problem Romney has, which I was acutely aware of the other night, is that he comes off just a bit too effete. He is smart and thoughtful. But each time John McCain said something that was smirky or a direct lie, (the business about timetables), after trying to correct it, Mitt's natural inclination was to shoot a plaintive look at the questioners, as if to signal that he and they both knew that McCain was misbehaving.... This little bit of body language reinforced whatever it was that McCain's people meant recently when one of them was quoted saying, "Mitt Romney is the kind of guy that John McCain used to beat up at school." (That's a paraphrase.)
Mitt Romney may have achieved the distinction of becoming the most innocuously unlikable candidate since... I'm not sure when. The primaries have softened my view of him, though I still can't decide whether to vote for him or Dr. Ron Paul next Tuesday, since I think that's the strongest statement vote I could cast. Anyway!
Point is, Romney has been the butt of more of these kinds of lines than anybody else in the race. Huckabee was the first to land a body blow with his "reminds them of the guy who laid them off" line on Letterman. For a guy whose most evil acts to date have been to raise registry fees and push through a socialism-lite healthcare mandate in a state that might otherwise have backed the full-fat variety, it's a lot of hate.
The real problem with Mitt Romney is that while he's a good candidate in the abstract sense, his timing is simply all wrong. Had Romney succeeded Weld in '98 or sooner, George W. Bush probably would have retired to his ranch following two terms as governor of Texas. Those were the days when being associated with Wall Street was probably a net positive and people were looking for a comfortable consensus candidate who wouldn't raise or lower the temperature of the bath water too much.
My gut is that people today are looking for hot, or cold, but not lukewarm. McCain and Hillary are cold while Obama is hot. While fear of a recession ought to benefit the candidate who knows more about applied economics, financial engineers like Bain are increasingly seen as either a neutral or net negative actor, so Romney's resume haunts him as much as it helps. McCain, who evinces a certain disdain for any trade whose practitioners have soft hands, is much more suited to the present mood.
¶ 6:46 PM 0 Comments
The ads in gMail are an occasional source of unintentional hilarity. Once I was emailing a friend about having just seen Last Tango in Paris, and the top two ads were for "French Dressing Lingerie" and some place in Vermont that sold organic artisanal butter.
A moment ago I caught an ad for "Things to not say at work," which reminded me of one of the customers that I knew back in the day that I worked in the cigar shop. He was a a bit of a blowhard and a lot of a jackass, who liked to share his gathered wisdom with us young'uns. One day he comes in looking a bit ruffled.
"Eh, Walter, haya doin," sez one of the clerks.
"Let me give you one piece of advice," he says, in the same tone that guy in the Graduate said "plastics." A couple of us cock an ear over.
"Don't ever quote Hitler in a business meeting. No matter how well it fits the situation, it just doesn't go over well." ¶ 11:45 AM 0 Comments
When slugging your press release, think twice before using the word "gangbang." Not that anybody gives a crap what those whiny, short-skirted b----es at NOW-NY think anyway.
Institution whose endorsement you might want in the Democratic primary but will wish you didn't have come election time: Ted Kennedy.
Institution whose endorsement you might want in November, but wish you didn't have for the Republican primary: the New York Times.
Obama's biggest challenge is to prove that he's not too black, and he's about halfway there. Challenge #2 is to convince the public he's not a stark raving pinko. In that regard, he needs Uncle Ted's endorsement about as much as Romney needs the governor of Utah's.
Likewise, McCain is very conservative on a host of issues where Obama would certainly be caught wearing pink cowboy boots and a tiara. McCain is a typical DC deal-broker on others, some of which (*cough* judges *cough* First Amendment) are far more important to a narrow group of conservative activists and intellectuals than to most GOP primary voters. But, quite a few of the hoi-polloi do take the NYT's editorial board's opinion quite seriously when voting on a candidate. They do the opposite of whatever the paper suggests.
Obama's track record is about as innovative as Kennedy's. In selling himself as something truly sui generis, Obama needs to maintain the illusion that his present rhetoric represents his presidential direction more than his past actions. Eventually all candidates start looking like themselves. Kerry was a dreary bore, while Gore was a sanctimonius scold. If Obama is at heart a liberal, then a liberal he will be, even if he is the first cheerful one we've seen in 45 years. And I just don't see this country voting for a liberal. ¶ 6:06 PM 0 Comments
