Mitt Romney, reluctant candidate

They're still doing post mortems on Romney's failed bid for POTUS. Boston Globe rehash is pretty good if you're not sick of these yet. This part is the only thing that's new and much mockery of Tagg's claim ensued on the social nets.

More than being reticent, Romney was at first far from sold on a second presidential run. Haunted by his 2008 loss, he initially told his family he would not do it. While candidates often try to portray themselves as reluctant, Tagg insisted his father’s stance was genuine.

“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” said Tagg, who worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”

I actually believe Tagg. I mean, I think once he decided to run, Mitt wanted to win because he's that competitive but I don't think he ever really wanted to be President, at least not this time. I think it was Ann who really, really wanted to be FLOTUS and Mitt always gives his Queen Ann everything she wants. Just a theory. [Reuters photo via]

If you don't know me by now

It took me a long time to believe that Mitt Romney really didn't know he was going to lose the election. I assumed it was just a ploy to placate the investors. When I saw this photo of Romney's last stop in Pennsylvania I honestly thought he saw his future and this was his last bittersweet moment of public adulation.

[photo via]

But having read about Romney's post-election malaise, I'm beginning to believe he really was clueless. It appears he was so sure he was going to win, he didn't bother to make any plan in case he lost.

Mitt Romney looks out the windows of his beach house here in La Jolla, a moneyed and pristine enclave of San Diego, at noisy construction workers fixing up his next-door neighbor’s home, sending regular updates on the renovation. He devours news from 2,600 miles away in Washington about the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, shaking his head and wondering what if.

However, I do remain convinced that Ann Romney's burning desire to be First Lady was the driving force behind his decision to run in the first place.

By all accounts, the past month has been most difficult on Romney’s wife, Ann, who friends said believed up until the end that ascending to the White House was their destiny. They said she has been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses.

I deleted many a tweet saying just this in the last three weeks. It's exactly as I imagined, but it felt too cruel to mention it. It was long clear to me that she enjoyed the celebrity much more than Mitt and thus would take the loss all the harder.

Indeed she did not look all that thankful in their Thanksgiving photo.

Unlike many I've seen, I take no satisfaction in the Romney's sorrow. But I am enormously grateful that he didn't win. And not because Mitt apparently couldn't organize his way out of a long hall with only one door. Of all the reasons a Romney presidency would have been a disaster, this is the biggest one:

“Nothing so unbecame his campaign as his manner of leaving it,” said Robert Shrum, a senior strategist on Democratic presidential campaigns. “I don’t think he’ll ever be a significant figure in public life again.”

Being president requires taking setbacks and losses with grace and equanimity. Mitt simply didn't possess these qualities in the slightest measure. So we didn't just dodge a bullet when we re-elected President Obama. We dodged a megaton nuclear bomb.

Money can't buy Ann Romney good taste

I hate to get all shallow about it but Ye Gods, Ann Romney simply can't be our next FLOTUS. It would be too embarrassing. She has the worst fashion sense ever. I didn't watch her Leno interview but it appears the only thing notable about it is the horrible outfit she wore for her appearance.

You can see the full length shot with the hideous shoes here. As it's described:

Ann Romney, whose hubby, Mitt, is running to become the next president of the United States, left her campaign-trail cardigan at home while making an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on Wednesday. Instead, Romney sported an odd black tiered leather skirt (although it looked a little more like pleather) and matching jacket, along with a pair of lacy heels. Perhaps her next stop was a biker bar? (9/25/2012)

I'm reminded of Condi's debut as Secretary of State when she strode into the arena in full dominatrix regalia. But at least, while it was totally inappropriate, Condi looked hot in her outfit. Ann looks like some weird grandmom on Toddlers and Tiaras. After a certain age, full leather just doesn't work unless you're actually in the S&M scene or at least work out to keep your body looking trim enough to carry the look off. But even then, it's just not appropriate for a wannabe First Lady. [Daily News photo]

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Private audiences only for Ann Romney

Well it looks like the Mittsters "secret weapon," her royal highness Princess Ann Romney won't be speaking to the press for a while:

In Omaha for a closed to the press fundraiser for her husband Friday, Mrs. Romney was supposed to give interviews to several reporters but canceled due to the controversy over her blow up at Republicans on a radio interview, in which she ordered Mitt’s Republican critics to “stop it.”

That would be Mrs. Romney's interview with Radio Iowa where she bitched out her dear hubby's GOP critics:

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

Apparently Princess Ann has been treated like Mormon royalty for so long, she was expecting a coronation instead of fight once they got the nomination. You might have thought she would have realized that campaigning was the price of admission to the White House. It's not like they haven't been doing this for what, seven years now.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Romney's laser like focus on the economy

I'm so old I remember when Romney's campaign was going to be all about the economy and his self-vaunted business experience. But hell, if that doesn't work, then the culture war suits Romney just fine:

In the past 72 hours, Romney has endorsed the controversial conservative Iowa Congressman Steve King, appeared onstage with televangelist Pat Robertson, debuted a revamped stump speech with warnings of encroaching secularism at its center, and devoted substantial time to a hot dog-heavy photo-op at a NASCAR race.

"The pledge says 'under God,'" Romney declared to a hangar full of flag-waving partisans in rural southern Virginia. "I will not take God out of the name of our platform, I will not take God off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart!"

Take God off our coins? That myth is straight out of the viral emails the angry cons take as gospel. Of course, after a robust mocking on the internets for that one, Flip Flopney dropped the talking point.

Meanwhile, the Mittster's chief ambassador to the little ladies in the electorate, Ann Romney insists she can't answer questions on social issues like access to birth control or equal marriage rights because women she meets on the campaign trail don't care about these things. Mrs. Romney dutifully assures us Mitt has a laser like focus on the economy and that's the only thing that matters -- to anyone.

To be fair to Ann, I'm sure that's probably true. Feel relatively certain most of the women she meets at big money fundraisers on Long Island really do care more about their money than social equality.

Meanwhile back at the NASCAR race, poor Mitt didn't get his "man of the people" moment. As sadly announced on the twitter:

Olivier Knox: RT @AshleyRParker: Due to a rain delay, Romney will no longer be saying, "Drivers, start your engines" at NASCAR. ...

Disappointing on so many levels. And he still had to eat the damn hot dog. Which probably explains the look on his face in the photo. [Photo credit AP at Atlantic Wire where they posit Romney is doomed.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Ann Romney's struggles

Bit of buzz today about this verbal slip by Ann Romney at a speech in Stamford, CT.:

Romney alluded to the fact that not all women can stay at home saying, “I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.”

Commentators are being careful not to misinterpret it, but I'm not so sure she didn't actually mean exactly what she said. People are forgetting the Mormom church is very much against women working outside of the home. Their elders preach financial sacrifice so they can devote themselves solely to child rearing and homemaking for their husbands. So she may well really love that some women have a valid excuse to seek a fuller work life than being simply consigned to mere chattel status.

Thinking, this pandering is the real insult to mothers forced to work.

“I know what’s like to finish the laundry and to look in the basket five minutes later and it’s full again. I know what’s like to pull all the groceries in and see the teenagers run through and all of a sudden all the groceries you just bought are gone,” Romney said to the crowd. “And I know what’s like to get up early in the morning and to get them off to school. And I know what’s like to get up in the middle of the night when they’re sick. And I know what’s like to struggle and to have those concerns that all mothers have.”

Clearly, Ann is still milking the diminishing Rosen kerfluffle with this, and it's pure bullshit.

Ann doesn't have clue what it's like to have never-ending laundry when you have to cart the wash to a laundramat, nor has she worried about how she's going to pay for that second trip to the grocery store. She's never had to explain to her kids why there's no food in the house because they ran out of money. She's never had to drag herself off to a crummy job after staying up all night with a sick kid, nor has she had to choose between taking time off from a job to care for them and not being able to pay the utility bills because she's lost a day's pay.

Of course, this sob story no doubt plays well in Stamford. She's pitching a big money crowd where no mom really has to work an outside job. But she will never know the struggles of all mothers. She never can, because she'll never have to make the agonizing choices forced on poor moms by the contraints of poverty. It's deeply insulting that she never acknowledges her own advantages in making those bogus claims. [photo via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]