If there’s one thing that’s become painfully obvious about this race, it’s that people just don’t like Romney. I know, I know, “but you’re a Democrat! Of course you don’t like Romney!” Which may be technically true, but I’m actually pretty neutral on the man. He doesn’t seem like the devil incarnate (although I do think there may have been a deal with the devil at Bain Capital…but that’s another matter) nor a particularly hate-able person. In fact, I would say I spend about as much time obsessing about Romney as he does thinking about me: which is to say, zero.
If he weren’t running for president, I doubt I would be thinking about the man at all. I just don’t feel a strong emotional reaction to him the way I always did George W. Bush. [I must have been one of five kids at my Alabama high school who proudly supported Gore over Bush…and one of ten in college who supported Kerry over him.] Unlike Dick Cheney or Karl Rove, I don’t hate Mitt Romney. I don’t like him at all either, but when he loses, I won’t want to punch him in the face if I ever see him at an airport. [Where he will probably pay someone to punch me back.]
However, Mitt does seem like a quasi-jerk. A spoiled, uncaring rich kid that was the villain in every 80’s comedy. And I suspect it’s that better-than-you attitude and stiff, straight-up strange speech patterns of his that have left a lot of voters entirely unexcited about him.
Whenever I talk to Republicans or “independents” that are voting for him, they almost never say a kind word about him. I hear a lot of “Well, we just have to get Obama out of there!” Or “I’m choosing the lesser of two evils, Obama being reallllly evil!” Or “Obama, Obama, Obama”…and then barking at a park bench for ten minutes before arguing with a squirrel.
Roughly 40 percent of the country hates Obama so much that it’s slowly driving them crazy. For them, this is election is about him and how awful he is. And for a different 40 percent (my 40 percent) it’s also about Obama and how good he’s been. Even the other 20 percent are thinking a lot more about Obama when they weigh his performance, than they think about Romney when they weigh his…uhhhh…I don’t know, complete refusal to engage humans on an emotional level.
No matter what side you’re on, Romney feels like the odd man out in a two way race. The cuckolded husband while America has a raging love/hate affair with a black guy. While watching these bogus conventions unfold, I really get the feeling that both sides would be happier if you could have the liberal Obama debate the Republican’s Muslim/Socialist/Kenyan/Radical Atheist/Fictionalized version. That debate would be infinitely more interesting than anything Romneybot’s going to come up with.
And so the question remains “Can Mitt Romney win solely based on people’s reactions to the other guy?” Recent history says no. In fact, recent presidential elections point to a definitive trend: the more divisive you are, the better.
Fifty years ago, sure, people cared who the most “radical, scarrrrry” candidate was, which is why guys like Barry Goldwater almost always lost. But people are a lot more comfortable with crazy now. First choosing the radical Reagan—–who openly touted a “revolution,” sure, a conservative one, but not something any candidate would have in 1960—–in a landslide, then going with Bill Clinton (not a radical at all, but by far the guy controlling the conversation in both his races), then George W. Bush for two terms he “won” by the skin of his vote-rigging. Bush was so politically polarizing that he was talked about as the other man (against Obama) in a race he wasn’t even in 2008.
What do poor, pitiful losing candidates like Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, and John McCain have in common? None of them controlled the “heat,” the conversation, the fiery passions of the races they were in. They weren’t the most divisive men in the room…and it turned out that there was a reason for that: nobody really cared about them one way or the other.
You can say roughly the same of Romney today. But you can’t say that about Obama.
Great article. Hope America wakes up in time.