At breakfast Monday in Tampa, Fla., Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom was responding once again to the question, “Why’d he say it?”
On Friday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney returned to Michigan, where “the trees are the right height,” and waxed nostalgic about his childhood in a wealthy Detroit suburb.
“Now I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born,” Romney said, referring to his wife. “Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
When all hell broke loose in Twitterland and beyond, Romney quickly said he didn’t mean anything by his birth-upmanship. It was all a joke. A “lighthearted” one at that, Fehrnstrom said.
That’s the press for you: Can’t take a joke. In politics, a joke is what you label something you said that you really meant or wanted to say, but don’t want to own up to. Regret a previous statement because the reaction is negative? Call it a joke and hide behind your quirky sense of humor.
Romney’s own allies were surprised that he would get birthery. (Isn’t that Donald Trump’s job?) For Romney even to refer to the fallacious charge that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. was surprising; the equivalent eight years ago would have been George W. Bush calling John Kerry’s Purple Heart into question. (That was the job of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.)
Even when genuine, humor is a ticking bomb that can grievously injure the person who deploys it. Mistaken attempts to tickle your own funny bone, or those of a few around you, are usually remembered far better than any speech. Yes, we remember Ronald Reagan saying “Tear down this wall,” but we also recall Reagan’s detour as he was about to give his weekly radio address, intoning into an open mic that he’d just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever: “We begin bombing in five minutes.”
Reagan’s blunder proves that even the most scripted pol longs to go natural once in a while. Voters like it, too. But when Romney goes spontaneous — excuse me, when he tells a joke — it usually reveals a tetchy, petulant personality under that eager-to-please boardroom facade.
It’s no wonder Romney has to reintroduce himself to the American people this week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. His attempts to connect have not been good, and his likeability is low. Last week the Gallup Organization found that Obama beat Romney by 23 points on likability, 54 percent to 31 percent.
This is a gap comparable to Romney’s deficits with women and Hispanics. We elect alderman we don’t like, and sometimes governors, but not presidents (with the huge exception of Richard Nixon). A presidential candidate is required to be carefully revealing, sometimes in his acceptance speech. Bob Dole eventually, if reluctantly, talked about his war injuries, just as John McCain referred to his years of imprisonment and Bill Clinton spoke of looking after his abused mother.
Al Gore, who had about as much trouble convincing voters he was an actual human being as Romney has, used his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech in 1996 to tell of his bedside moment with his dying sister fueling his (putative) crusade against Big Tobacco. Of course, he ended his presidential nomination acceptance speech four years later with the Big Kiss.
Still, this sob story couldn’t match George W. Bush’s tale of redemption — told in his autobiography — of how, after a drunken 40th birthday bash, he found God.
So why, just this week in an interview with USA Today, did Romney say he “won’t be talking about my life” in his acceptance speech? Because that’s a job for his wife. It’s the default position of every male politician — and we fall for it every time. We treat wives as if they are independent observers, as opposed to a wholly owned subsidiary whose fortunes are inextricably entwined with the principal.
Oh, never mind. The tableau works. On the final night of the convention, after his acceptance speech, the Mitt We Will Never Know will accept an embrace from his wife, who used her speech to extol the Mitt I Know. It will have to be enough.
Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist.
Even though this is under the Opinion heading, the headline says it all: Extreme and obvious partisan ramblings.
It comes from the BDN without a counterpoint at all. Thanks, Editors!
Any thinking Independent can see that and be revolted. There are enough misleading and negative ads on TV to read such one sided stuff without a balancing one from someone as vehemently partisan. I like to wade my way through a proper give and take. I’m learning to not look here!
Actually if you bothered to read the article… it comes from Bloomberg News Service. What counterpoint were you looking for ? Romney is out of sync with mainstream USA and lacks clarity even in his humor.
He lacks clarity only in your own mind. Romney is definately in sync with mainstream USA. It is okay for Obama to make jabs but not Romney? This will get get wild and Romney will win.
Bloomberg? That’s ok then!
The BDN editors pick and choose what to print, so don’t give me that.
Romney comes across as plastic and doesn’t have the gift of gab that Reagan, Clinton, and Obama has, but to immediately pock fun at something not clear to everyone is like the right slamming Biden for his ‘they’ll put y’all in chains’ comment to a black audience (possibly a worse one than ‘no one asked me for a birth certificate’ one).
If you don’t understand what counterpoint I was asking for, then you are clearly a blind and devoted partisan.
This somehow went under Guest when it was meant for chris reid from Escapee.
It has yet to be established that Mitt has a sense of humor. His idea of things that are funny are bullying a gay peer and cutting off his long hair. Also, impersonating a police officer and gangster when it was not even Halloween. Then of course is the “hilarious” way he took the family dog on vacation to New Hampshire. Romney is about as funny as a heart attack.
He said it because it is the truth. We have a president whose actions force people to question whether or not he is a real American. However, nobody has ever or will ever question whether Mitt is an American. He, unlike Obama, understands why America is a great nation and how to restore the exceptionalism of America. Obama and his ilk use “exceptionalism” as a punchline. That’s because Obama was raised, taught by and surrounds himself with people who do not think America is or should be any better than any other country.
Well said, thank you.
Having no sense of proportion, Progressives naturally have no sense of humor. So a mild dig at the silliness presidential politics can involve becomes, for them, an occasion for a great throwing up of the hands. Really, Ms.Carlson, Romney didn’t mean much of anything. (And now you can worry in print if someone who sometimes says trivial things should become President.)
Incidentally, if I ever told my wife she’s “a wholly owned subsidiary,” it wouldn’t be pretty.
Examples of Mitt’s humor:
In HS going after a boy with long hair. Along with his gang, pinned the boy down and cut his hair. It must have been so funny for the young man, seeing Mitt coming at him with a pair of scissors and that funny glint in his eye.
Still in HS, waving his near-blind English teacher into a glass door. The people observing said Mitt laughed and laughed as the man bounced off the door.
Writing ‘Help Me’ on the bottom of his friend’s wedding shoes so that a most important moment in t he man’s life everybody watching would laugh as he knelt at the altar.
Saying that the trees in Michigan were just the right height.
Saying to a group of fans who gave him cookies: “These aren’t homemade cookies. These are store-bought cookies aren’t they? You got these at 7-11. (and then laughed)
Telling a group of unemployed people “I’m unemployed, too!”.
Don’t know if Seamus on the car roof was supposed to be funny. Probably not so funny when the dog let loose of his bowels.
Oh, yeah, he’s a funny, funny guy.
The GOP is always talking about how character counts. It certainly does. Mitt Romney’s character is reason to be afraid, be very afraid. His sense of humor is more cruel than funny.