Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney Shakes His Etch-A-Sketch, But Women Don’t Forget (April 16, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Frankly, I was surprised that Rick Santorum threw in the towel last week. The numbers made clear that a path to winning the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination was all but impossible for our favorite radical Christian, but the current slate of candidates have never gone in much for reality. I think it’s the practicality of the move that stunned me.

With Santorum disposed, Mitt Romney’s remaining competition includes King of Hubris Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, who indicated throughout the entire primary that he understood his campaign’s futility. Quite an inspiring duo aren’t they?

So the candidate nobody in the GOP really wanted, and for whom they still can’t get an erection, is on his way to accepting the nomination in scenic Tampa, Florida this August. Tampa, land of strip clubs and men in trucker hats, seems a fitting locale for a bunch of wealthy, mostly white, patriarchal ideology producers to anoint their sacrificial lamb.

Because now Romney has to shake that Etch-A-Sketch. Game on. (I bet Eric Ferhnstrom, Romney’s adviser and utterer of the ubiquitous sound bite that keeps on giving, wished for a time machine in his Easter basket.) President Obama long enjoyed the luxury of not having to address the freak show exhibits that comprised the Republican primary slate. But now that we’ve got something approximating a general election campaign, he occasionally has to tear his attention away from running a nation facing so many challenges to swat away jabs from Mittens.

To a point I sympathize with the Romney camp. Not only is their man dull as a butter knife (no insult to butter intended), which will only become more glaringly obvious when he enters the debate arena with the President, but he’s also saddled with a comical load of flip flops and rhetorical left turns. I don’t know how his staff will find time to prepare an offense when there’s so much to combat defensively: family dogs on the car roof, Romneycare and the good old Etch-A-Sketch comment just to pick a few easy cherries.

Romney has spent months and years pandering to the GOP power base, social conservatives who treat a belief in global warming or women’s reproductive rights as a “liberal” litmus test. There have been moments when I’ve pitied the open degradation of Romney’s integrity, his unwillingness to stand by his moderate record, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

That type of radical right kowtowing may have seemed necessary until last week. But Romney has to face the rest of us now, the mainstream whose votes he needs just as badly. And given his limp track record for uniting his own party, Mitt has a tough slog ahead. How do you hit the reset button and arrive at anything approaching credibility?

President Obama excels at campaigning, to put it mildly. He is a wunderkind, an interview subject and debater able to convey intelligence and gravity as well as charm and humor. To watch him make mincemeat of John McCain on the regular during the 2008 campaign tempted invocation of the slaughter rule.

Mitt Romney is in for it. If nothing else, McCain has a personality and the deserved respect of his country as a decorated war veteran. Romney is a corporate viper, a smarmy, colorless ladder climber who approaches the Presidency like an item to check off his career bucket list. He will say anything to win the election, hitching his wagon to the notion that his fellow Americans are a bunch of ADD-afflicted sheep who will forget everything he has said and done in the past to accept his position of the moment.

I don’t think it’s possible to shake the Etch-A-Sketch hard enough to make the nation’s women forget the attacks on their rights this year. That’s slightly over half the electorate right there. Like I said, game on.

The Latest Schadenfreude: Big Oil Republicans Blame Obama for Gas Prices (March 27, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

I live in the city of Chicago, a locale that currently claims the dubious distinction of  the highest priced gasoline in the United States. CBS reported this morning that citizens of the Windy City are paying an average of $4.56 for a gallon of regular unleaded. Over the weekend, I saw a humorous post making the rounds on Facebook. It read, “Wine now cheaper than gas. Drink. Don’t drive.”

The Republican Party, particularly its tepid field of Presidential candidates, is having a field day laying blame for rising prices at the pump at the President’s door. ABC News quoted presumed front-runner Mitt Romney, who offered the following assessment of the situation: “Now I have some suggestions for [Obama]. Maybe it’s related to the fact that you stopped drilling in the Gulf. Maybe it’s related to the fact, Mr. President, that you weren’t out drilling in ANWR. Maybe it’s related to the fact that you said we couldn’t get a pipeline in from Canada known as Keystone. Those things affect gasoline prices, long-term.”

Ah yes, a failure to drill. This response from GOP standard bearers isn’t predictable at all, is it? The gouging of Americans at the gas station has nothing to do with OPEC policy, the exponentially rising demand for fuel in China and India, or the vague threat of war constantly looming over the Middle East. The jarring jump in the cost of gasoline is owing to nothing more (surprise!) than the POTUS’s unwillingness to turn over all available lands and water to the gleeful plundering of the nation’s oil companies. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

And as usual, the right is attempting to have it both ways. While astronomical charges line the pockets of Big Oil executives, they use the situation to foster the illusion that Obama is sandbagging the American people in their quest to drive to work without filing for bankruptcy. I have never been happier to be off the car ownership grid.

As Jerry McGuire said, “We live in a cynical world,” but the present-day Republican party has no boundaries at all. There is no longer an issue left which they will not deceitfully manipulate in order to reap maximum benefits for themselves and their cronies. The number of hot button issues on which the GOP willfully smirks at being on the wrong side of is staggering. Do they really think this is funny? Battles that have already been fought over health care reform and women’s reproductive rights must be argued anew within the justice system and the court of public opinion. The tragic case of Trayvon Martin has cast a much-needed spotlight on the extreme application of the Second Amendment. These are just a couple of examples.

The part that sets a liberal’s teeth on edge is the conviction, difficult to prove, that none of these arguments, including the latest about the genesis of rising gas prices, stem from genuine ideological disagreement. The GOP knows climate change is real, rather than the hokum of conspiracy theorists. They are more than aware that playing Russian roulette with women’s health is a not a facet of the right-to-life debate but instead a concerted effort to marginalize and control the masses. And they damn well know that nothing short of an energy revolution, a movement away from dependency on oil, can affect the long-term pricing of gasoline. It’s basic supply and demand economics.

But it’s not in Republican interests to debate these structural problems in a real way. There’s too much money to be made, too much power to be co-opted. But what happens when the proverbial turnip runs out of blood?

Apathy In Illinois: Romney and Santorum Fight For Right to Lose to Obama (March 20, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Illinois’ Republican voters go to the polls today, in an effort to select a Presidential candidate from ideologically amorphous bore Mitt Romney, stubborn fungus Newt Gingrich and seriously-wasn’t-this-guy-a-political-punchline-just-six-months-ago? Rick Santorum. Fortunately for Illinois, my home state is one used to lose-lose situations at the polls. A prime example: in 2006 the now-incarcerated Rod Blagojevich handily won a second term for Governor, edging out state treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, a leading figure behind Illinois’ runner-up status on the list of states running atrocious budget deficits. Graft, like everything else, has gotten more expensive.

But you know something? The Land of Lincoln has a long, fine tradition of lawmakers equally crooked and inept on both sides of the aisle (see Rod Blagojevich). Because of the majority population of the city of Chicago, Illinois traditionally leans blue, but nearly everyone can jeer the fact that half of our Governors since the 1970s have gone to jail in a bipartisan way. Most Chicagoans will agree that the last Mayor Daley (Democrat second, Machine first) is an excellent argument for term limits. Party politics, while certainly at work, don’t get as much play until the Presidential elections roll around.

This year promises to be no different. However it seems that Illinois is being taken more seriously as a potential red player for the GOP. Cokie Roberts said on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday that the state has “been trending a lot more conservative in recent years.” It’s no coincidence that I haven’t been able to turn on CNN for days without Rick Santorum’s mug rearranging my chi (added to the massive list of the former Senator’s offenses).

And it seems that the most personal freedom-restricting candidate we have on the election canvas has a better than decent shot at besting “front-runner” Romney. Allow me to pause for a moment to reflect upon the fact that the presumptive recipient of the party’s nomination can’t put away Santorum, a man who lost his incumbent Senate seat in 2006 by the largest margin in Pennsylvania history.

Anyway my point is that things are getting a little testy in Illinois, and not just amongst the growing Tea Party minority in the State. Did I mention that Santorum has a legitimate claim to community ties? In fact he graduated high school not far from where I work. While his parents held jobs at Naval Station Great Lakes, Santorum attended the Roman Catholic Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois for one year, his senior, in 1976. You know what Illinois voters like almost as much as sweet corn? Local folks making good. We’re a supportive people. This has got to feel like a nightmare for the Romney team on so many levels.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. Conventional wisdom has it that Romney will still walk away with the 54 delegate prize, but Romney isn’t running on conventional wisdom, and he has lost key states to Santorum already. Plus Santorum has been making the rounds all over the Chicagoland area, and everywhere else within the border. Where are we to hide from the messages of intolerance?

The only comfort for a dyed-in-the-wool Illinois Democrat at this point is that no matter who emerges the victor this evening, neither candidate stands a chance against Obama in the general election. This is quite true nationwide, especially with the POTUS’ approval ratings up and the wobbling economy showing some signs of life. But neither man has a shot in Illinois. Romney and Santorum can have their fun today, but you know what Illinois voters like even more than sweet corn and local folks making good? Politicians whom we can claim without embarrassment. It doesn’t happen here very often.