Let it not be said that Anne Romney is not a supportive political wife. Never has she a hair out of place; never speaks she a gaffe; no 'open mic' moments for HER; never during the campaign does blue so much as twinkle on finger, neck, or ear. In Tampa, during her spotlight solo moment, tastefully drenched in red Oscar de la Renta from nave to knees, she had to do something she seemed to find somewhat difficult and a bit distasteful to do.
She had to make shit up. And not only make shit up, but, as a braggart and a snob, she had to lie about how good she's got it and how well-off the Romneys are and always have been. But she did it. Breathlessly, lip-smacklingly badly, with the greased-up showgirl smile and the vacant over-your-left-shoulder gaze of an HR drone who would just as soon fire you as look at you; literally. But she did the job in what could be most kindly described as a workmanlike manner. Perhaps even soldierly, it could be said.
But I mustn't offend a wanna-be Empress.
I don't think lying comes naturally to her. She has nothing to lie about, after all, especially now that their kids are grown. People lie for a number of different reasons, but isn't one of the most common to KEEP UP WITH THE JONESES? Of course it is! Well, who's more Jones than Mitt and Anne Romney? They ARE THE JONESES! Not very many people can keep up with them, and in that position they are perfectly comfortable.
There is nothing wrong with that, until they try to be something they're not; i.e. less rich, which is to them as alien as being poor. Oddly, they think that in order to RELATE to those less well off, they have to pretend to BE less well off. Persons with a more developed sense of empathy do not have to pretend to be an 'other' to in order to understand a little of what it is like to be an other, to get a sense of someone else's lot in life.
This is a fence the Romneys haven't been able to climb, But someone in their campaign has told them they must try. And that is when when the hilarity ensues, if Mitt does it, or speeches are spoken that are squirmingly uncomfortable and it is obvious that neither of them understands that
1)there are gradients, levels of poorness, and
2)laughing about a group's difficulties when you, yourself do not share that group's difficulties comes across as cruel mockery. You are not 'in on the joke'. If you are not black, you don't get to make n****r references, regardless of how many black pals you think you have. If you aren't Polish, you don't get to make Polish jokes. If you are wearing a $2000. car coat (or someone is holding it for you), you don't get to make fun of people who bought their rain gear at a Dollar store. If you have not been raped, rape jokes are not and never will be funny. In other words, you mustn't sneer at the people who are coming to listen to you tell them why they should vote for you.
Dealing with people of whose wealth is on a scale anything less than Croesus-or-Midas-rich seems to have Mitt and Anne utterly baffled. Mitt shows his bafflement by his blatant contempt and impatience, and Anne by her scornful blowing off of questions she disapproves of, or insistence on 'women's issues', but only those gleaned from back issues of Woman's Day from 1957 and earlier, quaint powderpuffs from imaginary bygone days, in that imaginary newlyweds' basement. But she can talk parenting, by Golly. And she will.
SHE'S always been the one, you see, parenting her dainty, flawlessly manicured fingers to absolute NUBS, while Mitt, although a paragon of husbands and a standout among men, has been away doing important business-y 'things' that mere womenfolk are not given to know. Because it's NOT THEIR PLACE, you see. They like being the power BEHIND the throne, tee hee. They are supposed to, at least. So it has been decreed.
While Anne Davies became a dedicated mother, wife, decorator, home and hearth and horse buyer, servant hirer and firer (she might leave that up to Mitt, but I don't get that vibe, I think she'd do it, and like it), chosen partner, ultimately and happily having sold herself to the up-and-coming, no, high-and-mighty Willard Mitt Romney, made the best of a really good situation, for wealthy girls of that generation who had minimal ambitions for themselves OUTSIDE the home.
She nabbed a live one, in other words. Daddy probably wasn't happy, because his generation probably remembered hearing about a time when the scandalous behavior of the Mormons who wandered the Plains was in all the papers. It's hard to understand just how shocking it was, but at the time, in the mid 1880s or so, it was scandalous. So he might have had something to do with one or two of those five refusals, but we'll never know, will we? Unless those Mormon elders actually resurrect him as well as posthumously baptize him so we can ask. Ehhh, probably won't happen.
Picture, mortals, as has been breathlessly recounted at the RNC, the humble marital beginnings, the log basement, the cracks in the walls caulked with coin of the realm mixed with the human blood of those who dared try to brainwash Mitt's dad. True story. The poor man was so maligned. (That is true enough. George Romney would be drummed out of today's Republican Party, by his own son, without a doubt. But Mitt would take him back if he ever became politically expedient again, so, no harm no foul, right Dad?)
The ironing, the ironing of the clothes, the jaw, the hair, the cover letters to Harvard Business School reminding it yet again of WHO and HOW VERY IMPORTANT the sender is. I can picture such letters; missives of passive-aggressive plaintive hostility, tear-smudged (his) catalogs of proud spin on tepid accomplishments, and, if the RNC speech was present evidence of past interference, some, maybe a lot of breathless wifely flim-flam.
Such humble beginnings, such a tragic comedown from the early childhood years of notDetroit Bloomington Hills and its gates, oh, those lovely, lovely GATES!!
I suspect that if elected (and if he can't get elected, the SCOTUS will attempt another Bush v Gore smackdown on the land), upon their slumming, er, I mean, taking up residence in the White House, the Emperor Mitt and his Lady Anne will demand GATES.
The ones now around the White House, while middling ok for that distressing mediocracy in residence before, will be deemed as much too porous for the Emperor and his Lady, as shown by the vast numbers of hoi polloi who on a daily basis are permitted to enter through them. That will stop.
Those in Salt Lake City, now there's some good gateage. If fact, the whole Deseret system, yeah, that's looking like something that might work...