Political campaigns live in search of the perfect metaphor, the one defining (I almost said unshakeable) image that captures a candidate, or an opponent, in voters' minds. It seems that Mitt Romney has gone out his way to help us find the perfect metaphor, but none of them--his wife's couple of Cadillacs, his delight in firing people, his dog abuse, his 15% tax rate, his love of right-sized Michigan trees--quite captured the man. Until today, when one of the candidate's senior advisers--someone who knows the candidate better than almost anyone--managed to find exactly the right tool to describe Mitt Romney. For the rest of the campaign, it seems inevitable that at every Romney event, the candidate will be followed (I almost said dogged) by troublemakers bearing red plastic toys.
Sure Romney's defenders will try to argue this was no big deal. Every candidate, Democrat or Republican, tacks toward the center after the nomination contest is over, to try to win over the critical moderates and independents. But in Romney's case there was always something more than that going on. There was always the sense that you never knew where the guy really stood, that he would say anything to get elected, that he could turn himself into a blank slate at will on which to write something new for today's purpose, that he is making it all up as he goes along. Now, fair or not, we finally have the visual image we've been searching for to capture that uneasy sense in the minds of much of the electorate. And what could be even worse for Mitt Romney is that now he will have to spend the rest of the campaign trying to prove that he will stick to positions that are unpopular with large segments of the electorate. Otherwise, any deviations will prompt the derisive epithet. Sorry Mitt, you can run, but you can't hide from the barrage coming your way.
hopeandchange.net