The Romney Apocalypse

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

H. L. Mencken

It has been two days since the debacle call the first presidential debate of 2012 and I am still fighting a strong urge to get very drunk. This is not some tepid suburban male idea where I go out, buy a six-pack of some chic beer, and sit on my backyard deck with a bottle in hand while I grill up chicken and hamburgers enjoying a very civilized buzz. This is a full-fledged, crack open a new bottle of tequila and gulp it down attitude in a deep desire to forget what happened type of thing while saying to Hell with the hangover anguish the next morning.

For the most part my grief comes from the already well-documented ideas spouted by professional pundits that Willard Mittens Romney came in with a facts-be-damned, metaphorical guns blazing attitude and that President Obama at best seemed distracted bordering on being comatose. Giving the devil his due in this, Mittens did his homework and actually seemed lifelike, a huge departure from his usual manner of being a flesh and blood version of the  mechanical, air-driven automatons people see at Disney World’s Hall of Presidents. I even picked up on the very bad sign early in the debate when Mitten actually seemed a warm human capable of empathy when he humorously quipped back at Obama about him having to spend part of his anniversary with him on the stage instead of being with his wife, Michelle.

President Obama on the other hand seemed to have fallen under some sort of evil Republican spell after that and decided to give up on the debate. Because Mittens went into overdrive and took control being both the frantic candidate out to prove his point and the moderator. I swear to God in heaven Jim Lehrer did nothing to take control and actually moderate the train wreck happening on stage. The only thing worse that Lehrer’s occasional mumbling to show he was actually still in the room was Obama’s complete lack of challenge to the half-truths, lies, and utter fantasy spun by Romney.

My possible, but highly unlikely, one or two conservative readers might me angrily wondering what in the Hell am I talking about. Well for one, let us touch base with Debate Romney’s (to distinguish that version from others) insistence that his tax plan to cut rates twenty-percent across the board will not cause a five-trillion dollar deficit in its own right. Now Debate Romney claims he will close loopholes and end tax deductions to pay for his tax cut but other than putting Big Bird on the fiscal chopping block, along with Jim Lehrer, which given his performance I might actually go along with, he still gave no details. Now under a President Romney (Damn, where is that tequila bottle?) this will all go along with an INCREASE in defense spending. I guess to pay for his war with Iran that he seems so eager on starting.

Debate Romney had some strange bouts with both aspects of Obamacare and financial regulation. The most astonishing to me was Debate Romney’s insistence that the president’s health care reform was NOT modeled on his plan enacted in Massachusetts, strange, since even his knuckle-dragging  republican primary opponents pegged him with that one. I even distinctly remember Mittens saying on Fox News once early in the Obama Administration that the president should model any possible plan he came up with on his.

On financial regulations, all of a sudden Debate Romney has some vague-ill defined notions that restraining the worst behavior of various financial institutions is a good idea. Of course, he included an exception saying regulations are a good idea until they become too burdensome and slow down the “Job Creators”, those mystical and very skittish creatures who flee to overseas havens when predatory liberals are looking to hunt them down. The dividing line between good and bad regulations is all in Mitten’s head subject to sudden shifts when Debate Romney goes back on the campaign trail to become Right-wing Candidate Romney again and gets out around his big money donors.

What was even more astounding was how President Obama just stood there and let Debate Romney define what was going on the stage without offering up slightest challenge. Lest anyone forget all forms of Romney proudly proclaimed the American automobile industry should been allowed to go bankrupt, and that any government bailout would somehow condemn it to utter failure. Now Romney never explained how private capital was suppose to come up the multiple billions required for the free enterprise restructuring of the automobile industry.

President Obama for the most part singlehandedly save millions of jobs, not just in the automobile manufacturing but those that branch out like parts suppliers and other support businesses. After all the hard work was done I remember Mittens on some news feed, once again probably Fox, cravingly taking credit for the rescue saying what the president did was his idea all along.

I for one have to defend Obamacare because while my son is still a minor the clause that medical insurance cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions will allow my wife and I to keep him on our insurance until his is twenty-six and permit him to purchase his own when he needs. Just recently Candidate Romney said on Sixty Minutes that it was cool for those “living in apartments” just to go to the emergency room for medical care.

When you boil away all the bullshit for me, the biggest reason I detest Mittens is that he has no core beliefs. Time and time again Mittens has changed his views on a whim when the winds of opinion suggested he should. That in itself is no crime, changing opinions and beliefs is actually a sign of intelligence since new information could disprove old facts. However, Mittens has flip-flopped continuously all through his political career whenever the scenario requires and then claimed nothing of the sort ever happened. From being a “liberal” republican running for Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat and later governor to claiming during this presidential cycle, he was a “severely conservative” governor.

Have to give the old boy credit, to loosely paraphrase Bill Clinton, its takes balls to change so radically in a so short of time in the age of easily assemble video archives available on You Tube. Anyway, in the aftermath the televised debacle Obama will desperately need to up his game in the later debates. Anyone with an IQ over fifty can realize September was a terrible month for Romney with many political pundits, including a few republicans, writing his political obituary. That slate has been wiped clean and Romney version 9.0 is out for blood with his minions ever so eager to kick the uppity black guy out of the White House. 

Call me a bad liberal but I wish I could find some aspect to like about Romney. I am very tired of the incessant partisan bickering and wish I could point to a member of the other party that I believe gives a damn about middle and working class folks. But with Romney's attitudes about "the 47%" along with his delusions of aristocratic privilege turn my stomach. While Obama is far from perfect Romney’s political shape shifting and craven behavior enthusiastic to take credit for everything good does not make him presidential material. I just hope Obama can ultimately prove that point. However, no one has ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.