Approximately 8 million Americans have lost their jobs since 2008.
The United States poverty rate hit a 15-year high in 2009.
A million people lost their homes in 2010, and economists predict that the 5 million homeowners who are already months behind in their mortgage payments will make the 2011 foreclosure numbers even bleaker.
Here’s to hopin’ they don’t vote!
One has to wonder what was going through Mitt Romney’s head when he decided to bulldoze his 3,000-square-foot seaside luxury home to make room for an 11,000-square-foot mansion.
So far his only explanation of why, during a presidential election, an already controversial Republican candidate would “give the media and political foes raw meat…by filing for permits to tear down a La Jolla, Calif., beach house and quadruple its size” was to tell the publisher of the (New Hampshire) Union Leader, It’s not accurate.
“The application he made, two years ago, was to double the living space by turning one story into two,” Joseph W. McQuaid wrote, paraphrasing Romney. “The ‘quadrupling’ was a measurement of added nonliving space, including a basement and garage.”
First of all, Romney has known since Feb. 7, 2008, that he’d be running for president in 2012, so the fact that he applied for said permits two years ago is an irrelevant detail in a lame excuse.
Secondly, as The Washington Monthly’s Steven Benen pointed out, parsing words over the use of “quadruple” (“I’m only doubling the size, damnit – basements don’t count!”) is not going to jive with his campaign strategy of criticizing President Obama for being out of touch with the American people.
If this were pre-1850s America and only white land owners were eligible to vote, razing a $12-million beach house and building something bigger wouldn’t be problematic. The other 15 percent of wealthy Americans would probably have a jolly ol’ time throwing around design and decoration ideas – “White, with colonial-style pillars, and a boatload (literally) of free labor.”
In case Romney hasn’t noticed, this isn’t pre-1850s America – although the distribution of wealth today probably isn’t significantly different from what it was then.
Romney’s existing oceanfront property indeed may be “inadequate for their needs,” as a campaign official told the press, but it’s difficult to say whether or not Romney’s plans for another mansion will be worse for his campaign than his statement that “corporations are people”; or the pitiful, self-pitying gaffe he made to a group of unemployed Floridians when he said, “I’m also unemployed”; or his statement to Tim Russert in 2008 – “I’m not concerned about the voters” – when Russert asked that Romney reveal to the American electorate how much of his own wealth he’d contributed to his campaign; or the announcement, also in 2008, that Romney was “downsizing and simplifying” by selling off two of his four multi-million-dollar homes.
The list goes on.
One would think a two-time presidential candidate would see how building a quarter-acre mansion might negatively affect his already slippery standing with voters on the relatable index.
With an electorate that decides the presidency based on which candidate they would rather have a beer with, socially awkward millionaires are in trouble – especially when their religious faith prevents them from drinking! (History tells us that, unless they’ve battled alcoholism, teetotalers can’t be trusted.)
There are only so many explanations for Romney’s actions.
Perhaps the former governor is preparing to embrace one of the more fundamentalist practices within the Mormon church: polygamy. Additional wives would require additional space. That’s very practical, although, if true, it probably won’t help his election odds.
Or maybe Romney is hoping that being a rich, handsome, white male will affect voters in the same way high school students elect class presidents. He may be unfit for the job, but if everyone wants to be him, they’ll vote for him anyway and hope he invites them over to play Xbox on the 500-square-inch plasma flat screen TV.
Or perhaps Romney is trying to cast himself as the job-creation candidate as a way to offset the negative media coverage of his embarrassing job creation record as Massachusetts governor (the state ranked among the last in the nation on job growth during his single term), and hopefully to distract the public’s attention away from the news reports explaining how Romney made his millions via “leveraged buyouts” – essentially purchasing companies with borrowed money (junk bonds), then selling them off, usually resulting in the termination of the company’s employees.
By building a mansion on the beach, Romney can say, “Look at all those construction workers I hired!” and the nation will applaud. (Or not.)
Having already lost his frontrunner status to a Texan tea partier, Romney may think changing his campaign strategy – and touting rather than running from his affluence – might not hurt his chances. (It probably will.)
The “downsizing” approach backfired in 2008. Rather than appearing frugal, the media attention accentuated his affluence and further isolated him from middle America.
Perhaps he thinks “Biggie-sizing” will have the opposite effect. (It probably won’t.)
My guess is Romney knows he’ll lose this presidential primary to yet another unelectable Republican, and in anticipation of that defeat he has decided to build a Sulking Temple to take his mind off things after he drops out of the race in early 2012.
Most men deal with midlife crises by buying a motorcycle or a corvette. Millionaires apparently deal with mass public rejection by building beachfront mansions, because a corvette just isn’t enough.
If an unemployed evictee living in poverty can’t understand that a mere luxury home is “inadequate for (a millionaire’s) needs,” then oh well.
Romney will have the Xbox all to himself!