January 19, 2011
My latest from the Guelph Mercury
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Ready, aim, misfire.
When asked by the moderators of the Fox News Republican debate in South Carolina on Monday whether he’s taken in any hunting since his last presidential bid, former Massachusetts governor and presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s gun fell silent.
“I went moose hunting – not moose hunting, I’m sorry, elk hunting – with friends in Montana,” he said. “I’ve been pheasant hunting. I enjoy the sport and when I get invited I’m delighted to be able to go hunting.”
This son of privilege, this northeastern pragmatist, this venture capitalist, is “delighted” to go hunting.
Of course, your average conservative Republican — especially when he’s on about his guns — doesn’t talk like that. Richard Nixon’s archetypal “Joe Six Pack” voter doesn’t talk like that. Feelings of unrestrained delight are for royals and dandies and the la-di-da crowd.
And rich guys.
Romney’s rich-guy persona continues to widen the cultural gap between himself and the folks doing the voting in November.
For example, only a rich guy cozies up to voters in the key primary state of New Hampshire by reminding folks he and his (perfect) family have a summer house — not a cottage, mind you, a summer house — in the Granite State.
Only a rich guy fluffs off his earnings from the speaker’s circuit — he typically pulled in about $40,000 per jibber-jabber — as “not much” when asked about his annual income.
Only a rich — or pampered, or timid or temperamental — guy would whine to debate moderators to intervene when his opponents land a rhetorical punch and follow it up with a little rough and tumble.
And only a rich guy would challenge a debate partner, on live cable news, to a $10,000 bet over competing versions of the truth.
Of course, Romney’s problem isn’t that he’s rich. Romney’s problem is that these missteps and many others signal a tin political ear and an inability to fit in with those “real” Americans that wealthy politicians often talk about but seldom understand.
Knowing that, one suspects that the Republican brain trust is earnestly searching out a running mate that can bring out the best and most personable in their candidate. Romney needs a vice-presidential sidekick that can help His Richness tone down the hoity-toity and connect with average Americans at the gut level.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, an early and energetic Romney supporter, probably and properly sits atop the shortlist. Christie is everything that Romney’s not, in the former’s ability to speak plain American English and engage voters in a remarkably authentic way.
Christie’s personality would not only balance against Romney’s, but may prove so infectious that it actually brings out the normal in the Massachusetts governor, helping prospects with middle class voters in the electorally rich regions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other competitive states.
If Romney’s personality wasn’t so impressively liable to turn off American voters, Christie might not be the right choice. Christie, like Romney, is a northeastern moderate; and Christie fails a key VP-candidate litmus test in that he can’t obviously deliver a major swing state like, for example, Republican Senator Marco Rubio might be able to deliver Florida.
But Christie might help Romney in a way that is more important, and more fundamental, than any other political calculation: he might help Mitt Romney become the kind of candidate you’d want to sit down and have a beer with.
And, hey, at least he’s buying.