Mitt Romney is the epitome of everything Americans say they are tired of. He's a master shape shifter morphing seamlessly from position to position apparently without shame. His campaign staff mirror his "ya, ok, I lied, so what" attitude perfectly. A campaign ad that accuses Obama of changing the rules about work for welfare recipients is found to be false. Romney's staffers answer without a pause, "We wont be dictated to by fact checkers, Its working". When questioned about how a position Romney took during the primaries will play for general election voters a Romney staffer replied, "everything starts over now, we just shake the etch a sketch".Did Mr Romney bully a young classmate in high school? He cant remember.Will he show his tax returns, no. Did he leave Bain Capitol when he said he did, no. And so it goes, we have arrived in a freaky alien otherworld where a candidate for president can just lie and shrug it off and move on while the voters react like anesthetized sheep accepting blatant dishonesty as part of the deal. Have years of political spin doctors and talking points so blurred the line between truth and reality that some of us can no longer tell the difference or care?
So the man who wrote the blueprint for Obamacare in Massachusetts has shaken the etch a sketch and promises to repeal the Affordable Care act. SHAKE, SHAKE, videos of Romney supporting abortion rights and planned parenthood, shake it again and Mitt is telling a crowd he will be defunding Planned Parenthood. The wind of political change has blown across the Republican party and it seems Mitt will set his sails whatever direction it takes to win.
As a liberal democrat I would be voting for Obama regardless but the threat of Mitt Romney is terrifying and I cant conceive of how a fairly large percentage of the population says they will vote for him. His actions during the campaign are like huge red flags warning us to beware. It seems each day brings a new report of some sort of dishonest or underhanded behavior. Miners at a coal mine are forced to attend a Romney fundraiser and donate. Romney evidently cant find any disgruntled young former Obama voters so he uses a staffer to portray one in an ad. Romney attempts to push new delegate rule at convention to weaken candidates from insurgent parties. Romney sends staffers to heckle at an Obama rally, then shocks Morning Joe host, Joe Scarborough by not even trying to deny it.
Finally, Romney seems to operate out of 2 modes.The direct lie and by revealing his true positions by way of placing his foot in his mouth.For example "if you want to go to college, borrow the money from your parents", "why of course corporations are people"and "I love to fire people". When asked by a reporter why didn't he bring up Afghanistan in his acceptance speech, Romney says, "Well I only talk about important things in a speech", These"mistakes" are actually Romney being honest about his positions.
And why should these things concern us? They should concern us first because we are Americans. We live in a country where at least in theory we don't approve of the end justifying the means. We live in a country that used to believe that winners never cheat and cheaters never win. We live in a country where our first President had the reputation that he could not tell a lie, where one of our greatest Presidents was known as "Honest Abe". And lastly these things should concern us because we know where they lead. They lead to places like the Watergate hotel, enemies lists, the torture of military prisoners and Wall street crashing the economy, they lead to the the rich and powerful rigging the system to work for them, they lead to wars for profit and they end with flag draped caskets and grieving families and seeing the land of the free and the home of the brave committing human rights violations. They lead to massive federal debt, an economy in ruins, bankruptcies, foreclosures and unemployment. They are the result of putting politics above people and they will bankrupt us morally as well as financially.
And thats the rub, he lies constantly but he's blatantly honest. I've read somewhere that in the first weeks of a relationship the other person tells us everything we need to know about them but we don't choose to hear it. Later we wonder, how could we have fallen for this person? In the world of Presidential politics this is the dating phase. He's right there, he's telling us everything we need to know. I will do anything to get elected, he's saying, I represent the wealthy he tells us. I will put their needs and interests above all else, I will gut the student loan program, roll back the clock on womens rights, send you're sons and daughters to fight in more needless wars, end Medicare and social security as we know it and finish the destruction of the middle class in this country. He is simultaneously the most dishonest and completely transparent candidate we may ever see and if you hand him the power he seeks, if you place him in the seat where Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat, where Dwight Eisenhower sat, where John Fitzgerald Kennedy sat, and where Teddy Roosevelt sat, you will have no excuse whatsoever to bemoan the results.
