There’s something weird going on regarding the expectations of Governor Romney as a Republican party presidential nominee. On one hand you have people in the right-wing noise machine either explicitly or implicitly endorsing Romney as the most electable “conservative” candidate. [Apparently, McCain, Huckabee, and Guiliani are conservative enough, and they don’t see Thompson ever getting off the ground.]
On one hand you have a number of Democratic activists urging Democrats to vote for Romney, because they think Romney’s continued presence in the race will spawn Republican turmoil. Embedded in that view, however, is the assumption that Romney is either (1) not a significant threat to win the White House, or (2) a more acceptable GOP candidate that the other contenders.
So we’ve apparently got Republicans supporting Romney due to his political viability at the same time we’ve got Democrats routing for Romney because they think he is unelectable. Someone is misreading him.
I guess this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. One of Romney’s talents seems to be his ability cast his image differently depending on which audience he’s playing to.
For now that’s the conservative base. Should he win the GOP nomination, will he change his colors again and moderate his stances again? It beats me.
Due to this uncertainty, I don’t know what to make of Romney as a potential president. Moreover, apart from his flip flopping, I’m disturbed by Romney’s ability to make ridiculous statements with a straight face. Take this from a recent campaign advertisement:
Like his latest ad in Iowa, the new Granite State ad is positive, and it is more forward-looking than other Romney ads.
“No one votes for yesterday,” Romney says in the spot. “We vote for tomorrow. Every election is about the future. Many are pessimistic. I’m not. In the next ten years, we’ll see more progress, more change than the world has seen in the last ten centuries.
“Our next president must unleash the promise and innovation of the American people,” he continues. “I’m ready for the challenge. The future begins now.”
More change in the next 10 years than there was in the last 1,000 years? That’s absurd. In essence Romney is claiming that a person today would better relate to life in 1008 AD than he or she will with life in 2018 AD.
What’s odd is that Romney doesn’t need to make bizarre claims like this, or marching with ML King, Jr. or being a “lifelong hunter”–he could simply run on his record. But for some reason he’s compelled to go over the top to make a sell. That characteristic doesn’t fly for someone aspiring to stand on the world’s premier soapbox.