Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Hollow Man

Say what you will about disappointment over Obama's first term, the ticket Republicans are offering as an alternative is absent any sense of purpose and devoid of substance. Mitt Romney feels he is somehow entitled to the White House by virtue of his repeated attempts to get there and his supposed savvy over all things economic. His wife Ann even declared in an interview, "It's our turn," as if the presidency was some sort of take-a-number deli line. Commentators and politicos have served up phrases to fit Romney like "out of touch," "rich guy-itis," and "unable to connect." People are waiting for his speech at the GOP convention Thursday night to highlight who he is personally. The fact is Mitt is a privileged Ken doll of a candidate who has no acquaintance with what average Americans face every day. There is no there there. He's a man who has mastered appearances and little else.

Romney is vying for an office which requires tremendous finesse with the spoken word, as the whole world hangs on every sound bite from the commander in chief. Yet he says inexplicable things like "The trees are the right height," when he stumped in his home state of Michigan. On the same visit he proclaimed his love of automobiles, even though he thought it was okay to let General Motors fail. He goes on an overseas jaunt for what should have been a cakewalk and ends up insulting the Brits, our greatest allies. The dude thought it was a good idea to strap his dog to the top of his car for a family road trip. On another campaign stop, sitting at a picnic table surrounded by doting women, he had an issue with the quality of the cookies they served.  This man continuously demonstrates a deep detachment from real life, from ordinary affairs, yet he wants us to make him the leader of the free world?

To make matters worse, he chose Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mr. Gut the Social Safety Net budget fixer. Notwithstanding his gym rat status as a workout devotee, Ryan sports a haircut my boys outgrew at age twelve. He may look like an innocuous boy scout, but he co-sponsored two bills to redefine rape with the Right Wing's albatross Todd Akin, the cretin who thinks women are equipped with spermicidal secretions which shut down pregnancy in cases of "legitimate" rape. Akin has Republicans pleading for his withdrawal from the Missouri race for the Senate, and Ryan revamping his stance on the topic, now saying, "Rape is rape." He also claims to have fallen in line with Romney's slightly less Neanderthal views on abortion. That's one thing R & R have in common: change your position on issues when warranted and evade questions on your brazen inconsistencies. Meanwhile, when in doubt, crack a bad joke about the president's birth certificate.

As I write this post Ann Romney is gearing up to give a speech at the convention that will reassure female voters that her man is a flesh and blood sweetheart. I'll bet she trots out some cutesy anecdotes about how Mitt helped her raise their male clan.Women are the engines behind voting in most households and they won't be fooled. The choice this November is simple: You can vote for a real human being or a wind-up toy.