Hello, human diary. It is I again, Mitt Romney, your better.
Since I have been feeling somewhat down of late, Mr. Diary, I decided to take the day to take stock of things and be thankful for all that I have accomplished. While there were some mutterings from the press about gaffes during my recent foreign adventures, I never once got drunk and removed my clothing during any of those trip activities. I have not recently opined that women have the physiological ability to reject pregnancy in the case of rape, but only if the rape was a legitimate rape. I am sure there are other things I have accomplished of late, but those two are the ones that I am most satisfied with at the moment.
I spent most of my time today, therefore, condemning various other Republicans for their imprudent behaviors. I must say it was quite refreshing. There was no need to speak about tax returns and how we were not going to discuss them, or to explain why we would not be divulging our budgetary plans except to assure the public of their exceeding correctness. My vice presidential unit did not have to bring his own mother with him on campaign appearances in order to prove that he had one, or to assure audiences that he would of course not be cutting his mother's Medicare, but only those of other people's mothers.
Inspired by this pleasant turn of events, I have been exploring how best to incentivize such helpful behaviors. I have queried my staff as to the possibility of offering monetary compensation for any party member willing to do something so extraordinarily stupid that the press coverage of the event overshadows coverage of my own campaign. I am well aware of the general willingness of most politicians to assert stupid things in exchange for money; could we not be more proactive in soliciting such statements? Given the current state of our campaign finances, I calculate that we could easily pay one million dollars per day to any politician willing to dominate the day's news cycle via acts of unique idiocy. We could pay two million for particularly inspired episodes, and perhaps even three million if the event included photographs or similarly press-friendly documentation.
These recent events have also, however, caused my staff to express the importance of keeping my own vice presidential Mini-Mitt on a short leash in the next few months. He is himself a bit prone to unusual theories and pronouncements, usually dealing with the elderly, poor, females, sick persons, immigrants, persons of certain religions, gingers, children, and a great many other groups. I do not entirely blame him for this, as not all individuals can be as politically skilled as I myself am, but today has been a good opportunity to remind the fellow that he in general ought to speak as little as possible. We selected him for the campaign because of his opinions as to what my personal tax rate should be, and not because we wanted to hear his opinions on any of these other matters.