Romney is a success after all—he got what he was seeking

With the exception of the first debate, Obama was running to defeat his opponent and win the election. Romney was running to be a nice man, and in particular to be seen as unthreatening to women.

Guess who now has been re-elected to the most powerful office in the world, and who is hanging out in the kitchen with his wife?

Comments

Jack S. writes:

Romney in that picture (and in the rollercoaster picture) looks like the wimps from the Viagra commercials that need little blue pills in order to service their wives

LA replies:

Except that the men in the Viagra commercials don’t look like wimps; they look perfectly normal and healthy. That’s what’s so sick and perverse about the ads, along with their creepy music and lighting. Their message is not: “This product is for men who for some reason lack normal potency, and need medical help.” The message is: “This product is for healthy men who already have normal sex lives, but who want to enhance their erections through artificial means.”

It’s analogous to women with normal-size breasts wanting giant breasts via silocone implants.

Terry Morris writes:

Some people are terminally optimistic. Look at him—the country has gone over the cliff, and he hasn’t a care in the world. Sometimes I wonder whether he didn’t purposely throw the election.

D. Edwards writes:

What I find depressing in the photograph you posted is that Mittens has his lock on Anne. My G-d I think he thinks that 2016 is his year. Lots of money, all the contacts a little tweaking—I could win! He could have won this year had he appealed to the country. He did not and he cannot because he doesn’t know this country.

LA replies:

I don’t know where you get that notion. Obviously he knows that his career as a presidential aspirant is over, and he hasn’t the slightest thought of running again.

November 26

James P. writes:

I am not sure what you and Terry Morris expect Romney to do. He lost. His political career is over. Pictures of him moping and scowling would serve no purpose other than to amuse and hearten the Democrats. [LA replies: Talk about disagreement for the sake of disagreement. My point was not that Romney should do something. My point was that Romney lost, and why he lost, and how that photo (and the other one of him at Disneyland) dramatizes the mentality and other personal qualities that made him a loser.]

If Romney were a sitting governor or a Senator, there would be a natural role for him as Leader of the Opposition. But he holds no political office, and therefore we see him depicted as what he is—a wealthy private citizen. I’d be happy and relaxed, too, if I had his money! I have no doubt that if you asked him, he would say, “Yes, this country has very serious problems, but I can’t do a single thing about them because the people chose Obama.”

Patrick H. writes:

You’re right that Romney does not look like a man who is thinking of 2016. Nor does he look like a man without a care in the world. He looks shell-shocked, even broken.

He still does not understand why he lost.

Ed H. writes:

Subject: Romney the happy loser

Now that Romney is a free man, without the pressure of having to watch polls and moderate his opinions for maximum appeal, I would like to hear from the him as a free thinking individual. Can he tell us what mistakes he made? Can he explain why he conducted a non-confrontational campaign after having seen the same thing fail with McCain? Now that he is free, will he step forward as a leader with real honesty? Does he have real ideas on how to end the stranglehold of liberalism on this country? How to get beyond the media? Why the GOP just can’t seem to see reality and has created the demographic disaster? He has nothing to lose now, he is no longer in the political game and is financially independent. It must be a relief finally to be able to say what he thinks. So what are you thinking, Mitt? One thing I do know is that VFR will be the first to broadcast those statements, which will be forthcoming shortly.

Dan R. writes:

Mitt was in over his head. He’s a businessman, perhaps even the super-competent businessman you claim him as, but an election is not business—it’s politics. As a friend of a friend put it: “different skill set.”

Romney is middle-America … I’m guessing pretty much the nice guy he perceives himself as, but with no clue as to the nature of his opponent: an artful Marxist ideologue, considerably more skilled and smooth than his predecessors, whose super-competency lies in the application of former American Communist Party leader Earl Browder’s slogan, “Communism is 20th-century Americanism,” to 21st century America. A “coat-and-tie radical,” as R. Emmett Tyrrell dubbed the type back in the 1970s, and in any case a political man through and through!

The election bore a resemblance to Romney’s 1994 Senate race against Ted Kennedy, in which he began as a conservative but during the debate had Kennedy ridiculing him for adopting some of his own positions! And the result of that one? A decisive loss for Mitt, something that earlier on should have been regarded as an omen for this year’s election.

LA replies:

There is a perfection in the arc of Romney’s political career. I first became aware of him in his 1994 debate with Edward Kennedy when he said, “I believe in the same goals as Senator Kennedy; I just think I can do a better job of achieving them.” When he said that, I wrote him off, and actively hoped for his defeat, which duly occurred.

That was Romney’s first debate as a political candidate. And what was his last debate as a political candidate? His third debate with Obama, in which he stated, repeatedly, that he agreed with Obama’s foreign policy, but that he could do a better job of carrying out that policy.

So this intellectually empty man ended his political career on EXACTLY the same pathetic, losing note with which he began it, showing that he had learned NOTHING in the previous 18 years.

LA continues:

I have a theory explaining Romney’s bizarre emptiness. It has to do with his Mormonism. Mormonism consists, at its core, of many ridiculous assertions that no rational person could possibly believe. How, then, does Mormonism attract and keep so many adherents? Because the core of the religion is not this folderol about a family of sixth century B.C. Jews sailing from Mesopotamia to North America or Joseph Smith discovering a 2,000 year old platinum scripture written by an angel buried behind his farm in upstate New York, but the patriarchal way of life it teaches. This is deeply appealing to people, and it works for them. That’s why they are Mormons. At the same time, in order to be Mormons, they have to turn off their rational faculty when it comes to questions of truth. They disregard questions of truth, and focus on the pragmatic, ethical aspects of Mormonism.

This describes Romney perfectly. As a Mormon, he has turned off his faculty of the rational search for truth, but at the same time he follows the healthy and solid Mormon maxims on how to live a good life. As a result, he is a man devoid of principles, even while his personal character is exemplary.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 25, 2012 10:23 PM | Send