It appears Mitt Romney really isn't ready for prime-time after all. You would think with the recent assaults in Tucson and the deep trouble Sarah experienced afterwards, no pol would make "assassination" analogies during political speeches. Well, Romney went there.
It's also probably not a good idea to make jokes about "hanging" the first African-American president since the whole issue of hanging black men was unfortunately a serious reality in these "exceptional" United States.
There are several descriptions of his gaffe hitting the public over the past few hours like this one:
“Reagan came up with this great thing about the ‘misery index’ and he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck,” Romney said. “Well, we’re going to have to hang the ‘Obama Misery Index’ around his neck.”
“I’ll tell you, the fact that you’ve got people in this country really squeezed, with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard making ends meet. So we’re going to have to talk about that,” Romney said.
Romney continued, “We’re going to hang him — ” before stopping mid-sentence.
“So to speak — metaphorically,” he clarified. “You have to be careful.”
http://www.politico.com/...
Okay, okay--it was a slip, just a little slip of the tongue and not indicative of some larger racial issue. However, it does show that his team is definitely not ready to challenge Obama because at least one person should have realized that GOP assassination metaphors are no longer in style. Someone should have edited that entire paragraph out.
I'm also amazed that good ole Mitt told a "birther joke during the little GOP gathering. Um, it seems to me that he should have learned a thing or two from Trump and stayed completely clear of anything birther related. Look at how National Journal described that disaster:
"Romney either chose to wing it or is simply rusty from not having been on the campaign trail. Though practically alone among the GOP candidates in not pandering to the fringes by questioning Obama's citizenship, he made the strange choice to open with a birther joke about how, when Obama released his birth certificate last week, "there was no one more disappointed than that amiable, know-it-all windbag--Joe Biden."
Romney didn't have a bullet-point fantasy list of tax cuts to abolish, so instead he parceled out bits of his old stump speech with charges that Obama had no private-sector experience and is trying to "Europeanize" America. http://nationaljournal.com/...
I'm simply arguing that yes Romney is leading Obama in Florida, New Hampshire and Nevada. And yes he appears like a reasonable opponent compared to the others. But folks he has not been in the bright lights and he's definitely not a gifted pol. He stammers, stutters and seems uncomfortable in most of his environments which might be why he's so reluctant to completely go national.
I seriously doubt he's strong enough to defeat the current crop of flame-throwers in the GOP. I'll close with a quote from the NJ article above that sums his issues up well:
"Romney, sans necktie, looked a little older, a bit whiter in the temples, tanned and rested. Whatever product he once used in his hair he now seems to be using less of. His expensive sports coat and patrician mien gave him a country club aspect that probably wasn't quite what he was aiming for, but then Romney was off in just about every facet of his performance."
That's really good news.