Mittens Triumphant

Mitt Romney trying to cosy up to New Hampshire voters. 

Politics and real life collide too much. In the past weeks I've been meaning to blog more about the Republican primary, but it's just too exhausting. Rick Santorum alone got me so upset I couldn't even see straight enough to write anything. He came within eight votes of winning in Iowa and now he's on his way down. Mittens just won the New Hampshire primary and is boasting about his brand of venture capitalism. He's attacking Obama for being against capitalism--the President hasn't even said a word about Bain Capital. But it's more an attack on Newt for daring to sound like a Democrat and speaking against rich people screwing over poor people. (The Romney defense is that overall Bain helped more people than it hurt and there are winners and losers in a free market. But what this does not answer is the fact that Romney and his Bain cronies made tremendous profits by stripping down the failing companies, crushing unions, eliminating safety regulations, and destroying jobs. It wasn't just you win some, you lose some. It was we're gonna turn a profit no matter who it hurts in the process. If they shared in the failure by taking a loss that's one thing, but here they were profiting on the workers' misery. Maybe I'm naive.)

I think it's significant that Mittens used a teleprompter in his victory speech tonight and sounded very professional and polished. When he's off the cuff and ad-libbing, he comes across as stiff and uncomfortable, a plastic insecure phony. This is doubly ironic because Obama's critics always jump on him for using a teleprompter.

I look forward to the bloodbath in South Carolina where the going is traditionally very dirty. I want to see this Super PAC film Newt's Las Vegas sugar daddy financed--"When Mitt Romney Came to Town." I saw the preview on YouTube. During the past few days Romney has continually put his foot in his mouth, first having the nerve to say he can identify with working-class people worrying about getting a pink slip, as if he ever for one moment had to be concerned about his financial security. Then saying he enjoys firing people. OK, on that one, his remarks were taken out of context. He was talking about enjoying firing people who don't provide good service, specifically insurance companies. But he could have phrased it better. Both of these gaffes show Guy Smiley for what he really is, a rich elitist posing as just a regular guy. In tonight's speech, he sounded convincing. But on the debate stage, I think he'll trip up and Obama hopefully can show him up as a someone who only cares about keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer. But that is no guarantee Obama will win. You'll recall Kerry won all three debates against Bush and W was elected anyway.