So now Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, has what he has wanted all of his life: to be the nominee of the Republican Party for the Presidency of the United States!
Now the problem is to WIN the Presidency from a man who is one of the great orators and political “animals” of the modern Presidency, right up there with Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.
Each of the above had his shortcomings and weaknesses, but each knew how to inspire and motivate people, and have people believe in them and their principles.
Mitt Romney has no such problem, no such oratorical gift, no such ability to inspire and motivate people, and no principles he will not abandon in his mad dash to be President!
Mitt Romney offers himself as a chameleon who will change his views on a moment’s notice if he believes it will help promote his desire to be President!
But by being so inconsistent, so changeable, so lacking in embarrassment that he has totally changed his views and repudiated his record as Governor of Massachusetts, he makes it difficult for anyone to feel a commitment to go out there and vote for Mitt as a principled political leader who one can know how he would conduct himself as President.
Mitt Romney is phony even when he laughs, even when he tells a joke, even when he attempts to sing. One finds himself embarrassed for him, that he cannot look at tapes of himself and wince at how he appears to the American people.
This is a man of unknown quality, an intelligent man for sure, a good family man for sure, probably a lot of fun to be around in private according to his wife’s testimony, a man of strong religious principle for sure, and a man who if he was not running for President might come across as genuine if he was not seeking your vote.
But he is asking us to vote for him without having any clue as to whether he will go back to being a moderate, or remain on the right wing of the Republican Party. We do not know if he would be willing to gut the social safety network that even George W. Bush expanded. We do not know if he would be able to get along with right wing Republicans in Congress, or would be his own man and break with the extremism that they represent.
We do not know how he would shape the Supreme Court, whether he would pick moderates or make the Court so right wing that it would set us back for two generations of time.
We do not know how he would communicate with the media, and through them, with the American people on a daily basis. He certainly would have a tough act to follow, lacking the charisma and personality of Barack Obama.
Would Mitt Romney be willing to preside over the dissolution of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as we know it? Would he be unwilling to work with our European allies, and be ready to commit troops to ever continuous war in the Middle East? Would he be someone who would resist religious influence to promote an intrusion in government beyond the wishes of the Founding Fathers? Would the Mormon Church gain a special foothold in government, and be able to promote its backward, resistance to change, mentality with a Mormon in the White House, or would Romney, like John F. Kennedy, make clear that he happens to be a Mormon, but is not the Mormon President, not dedicated to the church’s advancement in a nation that is a country of all religions and also, no religious beliefs?
What it comes down to is that Mitt Romney as President would be a total “blank slate”, an unknown, who we would have no idea of what kind of President he would turn out to be.
The question is whether the American people want to gamble on a man who is so much an unknown quantity, due primarily to his chameleon nature!
The betting is clearly that the answer will be NO!