Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Santorum and Romney Create Comedy Team

Why are they so crazy?! I just don't get it. Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney need to create a comedy team: Mitt would be the straight one and Rick would be that wild and crazy guy that just says whatever comes out his mouth.  Kind of like Mortimer and Randolph from the classic movie, Trading Places. They are saying some wacky stuff that is scaring the crap out of people. More to the point, they're chasing off the very people that might possibly vote for them later.

Santorum, when questioned if Obama was a “secular, liberal, Christian,” seemed to imply that there is no such thing as liberal Christian.
When you turn the “salvation story” into a “liberation theology story,” as Santorum claimed Obama’s Chicago church, United Church of Christ, had done, you “abandon Christendom.”

As a member of a United Church of Christ congregation in Washington, DC, I take umbrage at that statement. But that's not the point.  The point is: A whole lot of people take umbrage at that statement because now you're saying that if you don't view Christianity the way I view it, you're not Christian.  Yep, that'll win my vote.

Then he calls the president a snob because he, inaccurately, says that Obama wants everyone to go to that God-awful place: college.


It was an extension of that cultural attack when he criticized Obama on Saturday as a “snob” for wanting “everybody to go to college.” He went on to say that Obama wants students to attend liberal universities so that they can be inculcated in the same values that drive the president. 
“Not all folks are gifted in the same way,” Santorum told a crowd of more than a thousand activists at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Mich. 

Well, I guess he was 'gifted in that way' and so are his kids because at one point, when he was talking about how he has the same problems as everyone else, one of those problems was that he has two kids in…you guessed it -- college. As a matter of fact, I don't know of anyone in congress or any governmental body that doesn't have at least a four year degree in their background. Gingrich is Dum dum Dum: a college Professor; Ron Paul is a physician, Romney has an MBA and I believe Santorum is a…lawyer.  Mmmm..I guess college is good enough for him, but everyone else doesn't have the same 'gifts'.

Meanwhile, Romney just can't turn his rich mouth off.  His wife owns and drives a couple of cadillacs and he's not really into nascar, much but he knows quite a few owners of the teams.  All I can do is shake my head.  Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post writes about the bias of the media concerning these stories and she has a point. 


His economic speech Friday was a perfect example. For weeks the media (parroting Rick Santorum’s complaints) have chided Romney for being too negative and failing to articulate a positive message. So he delivers a major economic address in Detroit. He includes lots of details. And virtually every outlet from the New York Times to the right-wing blogs ignores the content of speech and becomes obsessed with the seating arrangement. 
The crowd of 1,200 was on the floor of a large stadium, leaving thousands of empty seats. So what? I mean, maybe you give it a line or two. But to dwell on it endlessly seems to be an intentional effort to ignore what the candidate is saying and simply throw stones at the candidate whom they like the least.

I actually feel sorry for the man. However, the reporters were looking at the optics of the situation because Romney's whole strategy has been based on his inevitability and mass appeal.  An empty looking stadium  shatters that myth. Period.  

But each flub frankly is a good story and just makes it more and more plausible to the electorate that Romney has no idea what it's like to live like the rest of us, no matter how hard he tries.  Each flub makes us trust him less not because he's not in touch with people but because he's not learning; he keeps making the same basic mistake!  He's not a good political candidate.  It's so easy to change the rhetoric and optics and make it acceptable. It's so easy to talk about the values that all people who work hard and treat people well have. It's so easy for him to be rich and say the important policy things that he needs to say. But he keeps trying to "connect" in ways that just make him look insincere and fake.  He needs to wear his suit.  That's what businessmen wear.  They don't wear jeans.  He can tell us his dog stories, just leave out the part that it was strapped onto the top of his car, hurtling down the road at 65 miles per hour.  All his substantive viewpoints are overshadowed by those dang trees that are the right height.

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