Romney, Relaxing
Perhaps it was the sense of relief after Mitt Romney snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Michigan. Perhaps it was the Romney campaign realizing that, front-runner or not, their candidate's palpable discomfort on the campaign trail was going to be a liability going forward. But whatever the reason, Mitt Romney did something important in his victory speech last night: he exhaled.
The questions about Romney's substance have been compounded by his style, which has heretofore resembled the guy who's a little too quick to offer you his business card at a cocktail party. His cadence is rushed; the flatness of his jokes is underlined by his deathless tendency to end them with a short, leaden chuckle (pity laughs are bad; giving them to yourself is worse); His relentless insistence on quoting from "America the Beautiful" makes him sound like someone who skimmed the first two chapters of "Conservatism for Dummies"; When he tries to insert some local color, he ends up ruminating on the proper height of timber.
There are two factors at work here. The first is that Romney is an unironic man in a deeply ironic era. He has a pre-1960s sensibility (one that is virtually dead outside of patrician circles today) that prizes decorum, restraint, and understatement. That trait is likely so deeply ingrained in his personality that it will not change. And, frankly, it shouldn't. Let the critics take their shots at Ward Cleaver's America. That they draw offense at the best kind of bourgeois values says more about them than Romney.
The other trend -- one that the candidate can remedy -- is that Romney has simply been trying too hard. He need not attempt the Sisyphean task of convincing conservatives that he is one of them; that, if his life had taken a different turn somewhere down the line, he'd be opening a Tea Party rally somewhere in the Detroit suburbs with a reading from Von Mises. Rather than projecting the desperate -- and transparent -- need to be loved, he needs to exude the confidence that ability breeds affection. And he also needs to endlessly drive home the point that Barack Obama doesn't have that ability.
While the transition is not yet complete, Romney did a good job of moving toward that tone last night in Michigan. For the first time in recent memory, he seemed relaxed, not rushing his words as if someone had given him five minutes to deliver a quarter hour's worth of remarks. The cutesy material and the self-conscious laughter were mostly jettisoned. And in their place were some new lines that effectively cut at the president. Some of Romney's better moments:
This President likes to remind us that he inherited an economic crisis. But he never mentions that he also inherited a Democratic Congress. With majorities in the House and Senate, President Obama was free to pursue any policy he pleased.
Did he fix the economy? Did he tackle the housing crisis? Did he get Americans back to work? No. He put us on a path toward debt, deficits, and decline.
... He thinks he deserves a second term. He keeps saying, We cant wait. To which I say, Yes, we can.
... We've seen enough of this President over the last three years to know that we don't need another four. President Obama believes he is unchecked by our Constitution. He is unresponsive to the will of our people. In a second term, he would be unrestrained by the demands of re-election. If there is one thing we cannot afford, it is four years of Barack Obama with nothing to answer to.
All sharp lines of attack. All ably delivered. It's not time to despair just yet.
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Dec '10
Re: Romney, Relaxing
Gus Marvinson
Stuart Creque
Gus Marvinson
Yes. I am repulsed by good candidates but attracted by good leaders. · 3 minutes ago
I think it's necessary to have both qualities in a nominee. I don't want a candidate who's a great salesman for bad policies, and I don't want a candidate whose policies are great but who can't convince any voters of that fact. I want a candidate who can convince a majority of voters to enable him to put his great policies into practice. · 1 minute ago
And my point is that if it isn't natural, and he's doing it after umpteen years of trying, chances are he's faking it. · 28 minutes ago
Yes, that's a worry: if a practitioner of any art puts more effort into faking competency than learning competency, that's a recipe for disaster for the practitioner and for the people who rely on him to do his job competently.
Oct '11
Re: Romney, Relaxing
I think what he actually said was, "Democrat Congress."
Re: Romney, Relaxing
May have. This is taken directly from the linked transcript, however, so apologies if I've passed on their error.
As an aside, the whole "Democrat" -- "Democratic" dictional trick has always struck me as a little petty. It does nothing to enhance the speaker's message. It just makes them seem so monomaniacally partisan that they can't utter even the most benign description without turning it into a cudgel.
Dec '10
Re: Romney, Relaxing
Frozen Chosen
I agree with your assessment, Troy. Romney needs to stop trying to be someone he is not and present himself for who he is - a family and church oriented businessman who spends his spare time hanging out with the grandkids at the lake cabin in New Hampshire (having a lake cabin is very common here in MN, it's not exclusive to rich people by any means).
Except Romney's "lake cabin" is a $10 million estate with a stable house worth over $2 million itself. More power to him, I say, but it probably isn't the image he wants to feed politically.
Re: Romney, Relaxing
However extravagant the house, vacationing in Wolfeboro is a beautifully low-key, family-oriented way to spend the summer (when my sons were young they spent time each summer down the road at Camp Brookwoods). Compare Mitt's style of relaxation to that of our peripatetic first couple: 16 vacation trips in the last three years. When it comes to how he unwinds, by comparison to the president Mitt scores an unusual win in the common touch department.
Re: Romney, Relaxing
Dec '11
Re: Romney, Relaxing
If at some point, they start playing "It's Hip To Be Square," by Huey Lewis, at Romney campaign rallies, you'll know he's back to being comfortable with himself.
Dec '10
Re: Romney, Relaxing
George Savage
However extravagant the house, vacationing in Wolfeboro is a beautifully low-key, family-oriented way to spend the summer (when my sons were young they spent time each summer down the road at Camp Brookwoods). Compare Mitt's style of relaxation to that of our peripatetic first couple: 16 vacation trips in the last three years. When it comes to how he unwinds, by comparison to the president Mitt scores an unusual win in the common touch department.
Seems like a net loss, as the "common touch" evaporates when it comes out that Mitt's "cabin" is a $10 million compound. That will also draw attention to his $12 million "getaway" mansion in La Jolla, which is too small so he wants to level it and build a new one four times as large. Then there's the "townhouse" in Belmont, the mansion his son lives in, and the $5 million dollar ski lodge, and on and on. This is a great testament to how successful Mitt has been, but it fails the "common touch" test about as badly as when he said he was "unemployed." He's wise not to go down this road.
Apr '11
Re: Romney, Relaxing
Just to reiterate a point that I frequently and probably boringly make, the guy with more delegates than all the other candidates put together is not a truly catastrophically terrible candidate. He may not be Reagan, but he is not Huckabee, Palin, Giuliani, Cain, Perry, Huntsman, Bachmann, Newt, Thompson, or Paul, either.
May '10
Re: Romney, Relaxing
True, James. And not only is he not a truly catastrophically terrible candidate, he's not even a terrible candidate. He's winning, afterall.