Larger Editorial: Mitt Romney’s Not an Idiot, He Just Plays One On TV

By now we’ve all gotten to know Mitt Romney so well, that it surprised me this week when I discovered that I really know nothing about him. The single largest criticism of Romney is that he’s a flip flopper, a phoney, an artificial mannequin who will say or do anything to get elected. In other words: a politician.

At least, an old school, populist politician before it became cool to deliberately shit on people. [Just look at the GOP debates where executing people, an electrified border fence to shock illegal immigrants, and kicking gay soldiers out of the military have met raucous applause…and Jon Huntsman’s compassionate-by-way-of-pragmatic conservatism has been met with bewildered looks and confused crickets.] It’s often been said that Romney is disconnected from the current Tealiban-rule that’s infected the GOP primary season, and that’s why the party is desperate for a candidate, ANY candidate, other than him. In the past six months alone, we’ve seen “Frontrunners” Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain, who is slightly more qualified than the General Manager of a Papa John’s. We’ve also seen candidates beat Romney in polls that were not even running, such as Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, and (shudder) the Trump, who has now become the blowhard you officially avoid at parties.

But Romney is a throwback in another way as well: he’s a smart man in a party now overrun with fools. The past thirty years of conservative politics have given us a GOP moving further and further rightwing until you now have to believe evolution is a lie, global warming is a hoax, and trickle down economics works. It’s become the party of dummies like Reagan, Palin, Bush II, Quayle I, Bachmann, and Rick Perry. And yet, there Romney is, trying his best to get that nomination from individuals he’s lightyears smarter than. In that way, he’s kind-of like a healthy-looking Richard Nixon.

So Romney goes out there on the debates and he just about lobotomizes himself on national television. Unlike Jon Huntsman, Romney’s actually gotten very good at seeming dumber than he really is (Huntsman never really convinces you he’s not merely holding his nose and you can feel the disdain he has for it). He’ll give some answers that are vague, some that dodge the issue completely, and others that are an outright lie. For example, I don’t believe for a second that Romney would “work tirelessly” to repeal “Obamacare,” based on the same healthcare law he instituted in Massachusetts. I think he would see its staggering benefits, throw out a handful of provisions, keep it, and, after a few years, Republicans would hail the law as an “overwhelming success.”

But the man currently on that debate stage trying to win the GOP nomination can’t say any of that. He’s in a fight for his life against the other clowns on that stage that are actually stupid, and–as Romney has proven time and time again–there’s nothing he won’t say to stay competitive. So tomorrow, if you wake up and the top story is “Rick Perry proposes law making homosexuality illegal,” you can expect to see “Mitt Romney proposes law making homosexuality a capital offense” the day after. Because right now, Romney has to convince the GOP base that he’s one of them: an idiot. He’s a Mormon chasing evangelicals, a moderate Massachusetts Governor wooing hardliners, a rich guy after poor votes, a smart man trying to win over fools.