Mitt Out of Luck?
Jul 31, 2020198K Shares2.9M Views
Illustration by: Matt Mahurin
OK, back to the election. Romney had a way, way bad, no-good night. (First the Pats lose and now this!) Holly, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. My ex-boss Josh Marshall postedsomething last night suggesting Mitt might be ready to call it a campaign. Who knows.
Everyone’s had a lot of fun at Mittens’s expense, what with the empty-suitness, the Reed Richards hair, the flipping and the flopping and the Mormonism. But Elana Berkowitz, who was at Romney’s Boston campaign HQ last night, writes for Huffington Post that he faced a more profound problem: Romney was a governor without a state, at least on the campaign trail.
Of course, this stand off only enhances his campaign image as an eyedropper full of red in an ocean of blue. This message irks some Massachusetts residents. As King points out, "he is selling himself as being from but not of Massachusetts, by disciplining the belly of liberal America." (This tactic isn’t unlike the one Giuliani pursued as he attempted to find a toehold with the conservative base using a message that seemed to distill down to "Can you believe I managed to tame the rabidly liberal multicultural beast of New York City? Oh, and 9/11."
But, of course, distancing himself from his former record causes a bit of whiplash to those he used to govern. When Bay State residents hear Michael Murphy, a Romney advisor, explaining ”[Romney's] been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly," one can understand a bit of cognitive dissonance. As Carl and Judy Sapers, 75, of Cambridge, explained, "He was a satisfactory governor, he was dashing, and, at the time, he was where we’d like him to be on social questions like gays and choice whim makes him seducing the fundamentalist so much more infuriating. He doesn’t feel like he is ours." Ultimately, Romney has a bit of the feel of a man from nowhere in particular.
Rhyley Carney
Reviewer
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