Michael Tomasky on Mitt Romney’s Closing Con Game
Mitt Romney’s latest political ad makes it clear that he’s trying to portray himself as a uniter who will heal the divisions of the Obama years. Don’t believe it for a second.
by Michael Tomasky The Daily Beast,| October 30, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
So one of Mitt Romney’s closing plays is that he’s the great conciliator. He released an ad several days ago and has been hitting the theme ever since, arguing that we need (as Romney said in the first debate, quoted in the ad) “leadership that … could not care less if it’s a Republican or a Democrat” that said leader is working with. With this, Romney makes the full leap into Orwell-land, but with signs that some folks actually buy or at the very least want very much to believe this, it’s important to point out to those voters the precise nature of this con game.
Presidential candidates always promise that they’re going to change the tone in Washington. They have to. The media demand it. Polls show them that independent and swing voters (two different things, really; the latter is a subset of the former) yearn for it. Their advisers tell them that’s how they win over the undecideds. Also, and crucially, they come equipped with egos that permit them to convince themselves that they are unique among men, and they can indeed change this “tone.”
Barack Obama ventured further than most down this boulevard of broken dreams. He had an analysis, you see: The right hated the Clintons because of certain things the Clintons represented about the ’60s because the Clintons were products of that generation. Since Obama wasn’t a product of that generation, it wouldn’t be so bad for him. He believed it. I believed it too. In a career sprinkled with its share of shoddy predictions, I think that one may have been my worst.
(More here.)
by Michael Tomasky The Daily Beast,| October 30, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
So one of Mitt Romney’s closing plays is that he’s the great conciliator. He released an ad several days ago and has been hitting the theme ever since, arguing that we need (as Romney said in the first debate, quoted in the ad) “leadership that … could not care less if it’s a Republican or a Democrat” that said leader is working with. With this, Romney makes the full leap into Orwell-land, but with signs that some folks actually buy or at the very least want very much to believe this, it’s important to point out to those voters the precise nature of this con game.
Presidential candidates always promise that they’re going to change the tone in Washington. They have to. The media demand it. Polls show them that independent and swing voters (two different things, really; the latter is a subset of the former) yearn for it. Their advisers tell them that’s how they win over the undecideds. Also, and crucially, they come equipped with egos that permit them to convince themselves that they are unique among men, and they can indeed change this “tone.”
Barack Obama ventured further than most down this boulevard of broken dreams. He had an analysis, you see: The right hated the Clintons because of certain things the Clintons represented about the ’60s because the Clintons were products of that generation. Since Obama wasn’t a product of that generation, it wouldn’t be so bad for him. He believed it. I believed it too. In a career sprinkled with its share of shoddy predictions, I think that one may have been my worst.
(More here.)
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