As I write this there is a front page diary that says the real Mitt Romney has finally stood up.
I'm not sure I agree.
I'll tell you why if you care to venture beyond the new Salt & Pepper ambigram logo.
We like to think the real Romney has finally surfaced. A cruel, arrogant, entitled aristocrat who sniffs at having to mingle with the hoi polloi. There's a great deal of truth to all that, but part of the reason we want to think so is that that description of Romney plays so well into our narrative of the GOP. Let's step back for a minute and look at the observed facts.
When Romney is speaking in front of a gathering of rich asshats, he talks like a rich asshat, disparaging the 47% Untermenschen class.
When he's in front of Latinos he talks about immigration reform.
When he was trying to persuade the voters of Massachusetts to vote him into office, he talked the talk of a liberal who could out-Kennedy Kennedy.
When he was in the primaries he was trying to out-Santorum Santorum and out-Gingrich Gingrich.
Do you begin to see a pattern here?
This clip of Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune is one of the most famous movie quotes ever:
but I was really hoping it would include a line that happens earlier in the scene, where Derschowitz tells Von Bulow, "I don't even know who you really are" and Von Bulow replies, "Who do you want me to be?"
The reason we are not seeing the real Romney is there is no real Romney. Romney is the Zelig of politics. He is whoever he thinks you want him to be when you're with him, and whoever he thinks the next person in line wants him to be when he moves on. He is the opposite of George Bush, of whom Colbert once said, "When George Bush believes something on Tuesday, he still believes it on Thursday, no matter what happened Wednesday." I think he says things like the lie about the $700 billion in Medicaid money, not because he really believes it, but because his handlers and advisers tell him that's what he needs to say to be elected.
Anyone who votes for Barack Obama knows what they will get. He has a record, for good or ill, and you can look it over to see what he supports. But anyone who votes for Mitt Romney doesn't know from one day to the next which Mitt Romney they are voting for.
And that's how we should present Romney to those who still support him. Ask if they are voting for the Mitt Romney who said he was going to stand up for women's rights in 2002 or the Mitt Romney who is an implacable foe of abortion in 2012. Are they voting for the Romney who thinks Americans are an important part of the American success story or the Romney who thinks undocumented workers should self-deport? Are they voting for the Romney who created the model for Obamacare or the Romney who wants to dismantle the national version?
They need to vote carefully because the Romney they vote for might not be the Romney who gets into office. And when he's sitting in the Oval Office surrounded by the same chickenhawks and neocons who pushed us into an illegal and unjustified war with Iraq, how will he act then?