MITT IN THE SOUTH: A POLITICAL OPERA IN TWO NASTY ACTS

Primary and Caucus dates and election results

Bachman Gingrich Huntsman Paul Perry Romney Santorum

Date location type delegates candidate and percentage of the vote
B G H Pl Pr R S Others
January
3 Iowa caucus 28 5% 13 1 21 10 24.6 24.5 0.1

10 New Hampshire primary 12 0.1% 9.4 17 23 0.7 39 9.4 0.7

100 years ago, the presidential candidates had names like Beauchamp, Eugene, William Howard Taft, Judson, Oscar, Robert, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas, Woodrow Wilson.

This year’s presidential candidates insist on going by nicknames like Newt, Ron, and two! Ricks. It sounds like a company softball team roster. Mitt Romney’s name really is Mitt Romney. Willard Mitt Romney. I assume his middle name is a family name – or George had an obsession with baseball in that period. Does Mitt have a brother named Batt? It would be darned interesting to find out why Romney became “Mitt Romney” instead of “Will Romney.”


THE INSULT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Romney won the Iowa caucus barely. Then he won the New Hampshire primary by a 15 percent minority. He is the first Republican candidate to do so.

Romney lives in New Hampshire (and in California). The result means 61 percent of the voters voted for someone other than Romney. That is really insulting considering he and his family campaigned in New Hampshire for five years. What do the New Hampshirites want – free coupons?

HUNTSMAN VS ROMNEY

I will admit the only Republican presidential candidate that I can stand is Jon Huntsman. Here in Utah, the highly orthodox iron rod Republicans regard him as a hippie. He played in a rock band when he was a teenager. Today his beliefs remain in basic ways consistently conservative.

Romney is good looking in that really good looking sort of way. He went through well-known moderate to liberal political periods, and if he has done it once, he can do it again. Romney’s father ran for the presidency back in 1968. Despite his reputation for political indecisiveness, George Romney would have made a better president than Nixon, Romney, at least, was not nuts.

Mitt Romney impresses me as a reasonably articulate, beautiful, well-groomed buccaneer. “Buccaneer” may be too positive a noun. Pirate. He impresses me as the type of CEO who – if he had acquired any corporation for whom I worked – would have fired me.


GEE THANKS MITT. NOW THE SAINTS GET TO FIND OUT

Now we find out if Romney will attract faithful followers in The South and how many.

What will the racial bigots Borns Agains, and Southern Born Again Racial Bigots do? Will they vote for a Mormon to defeat a black president? What do they dislike least? Black Obama or Mormon Romney?

The Mormons living in the South now get the opportunity to find out what their neighbors and friends REALLY think of their religion. This will be an interesting season of frankness, discussion, and learning.


LOVE ME BECAUSE I AM RICH

“Pirate” may be a strong sort of noun to describe Romney’s record in business. Newt Gingich, who fancies himself the 21st Century Winston Churchill in exile, called Romney’s depiction of his business record “pious baloney,” which is certainly not very gracious, but essentially correct. However, after the New Hampshire primary, Romney's spokespersons started getting defensive about the public image of his record. His PR decried the following points:

1 Newt Gingrich's criticism of Romney's business methods, which Romney’s people characterized as “Fomenting resentment at success.”

Meaning: We in general and Republicans in particular must admire people who make money, because they are successful and made money. We cannot second guess the ethics of how people went about becoming successful and making money. This is what the Republican Party is – a vehicle to protect the making of lots of money with few strings and regulations and taxes attached.

2 They also said the Republicans must have a candidate who “supports free enterprise and does not condemn it like President Obama” does.

Meaning: when a man has made money, we have to admire the man and like it, no matter what. To make a huge fortune, typically a man has to make his compromises, and sometimes to break laws and break ethical standards. Then the man spends the rest of his life living with the consequences of those decisions and rationalizing and justifying the methods that made his money. A man does not need some poor whiners complaining about his methods no matter how egregious. Besides, America is bankrupt and has to downsize, so we need someone who has experience in taking an organizational wreckage and reaping profits from it.


IN CONCLUSION

Romney has a lot of gall to say that when his political opponents complain about his business practices that equal criticism and assaults on the free enterprise system and by extension Americanism. This is nothing of the sort. We have the right to judge Romney and free enterprise on a case by case basis.