Now, in the ever-shortening
days of late summer, polls are showing the odds he'll beat Obama to be growing
longer. At this point, perhaps Romney
has come to realize that he's finally found his fate. Perhaps he has come to know that either his
competitive drive for the Oval office wasn't deep enough or, as the gaffes
unfolded, that he was in too deep.
What with the persistent media
focus on his tax returns; the jaw-dropping nature of his gaffes; and the
possibility that some deaths in this country may be related -- directly or
indirectly -- to the peculiar way Bain Capital practices capitalism; if you're
Mitt, at some point you're probably saying to yourself: "Hell, I'm too rich for
this crap. Driver: To the Hamptons!"
But after it's all over Mitt's
mark on politics is likely to take the form of a bumbling footnote -- little more
than a reference marker for similar political fiascos like Bob Dole's 1994
campaign (where, at one point the 72-year-old candidate toppled head first off a
stage ) or the entire 2012 GOP nomination
process. But he'll likely still rest
easy knowing there's one factor he can parlay into some suitably self-redeeming
spin -- his father. The old man never even
made it to the presidential starting gate back in 1968 ironically, for reasons that
mirror issues dogging Mitt's candidacy today:
no love from the hard-right and a penchant for
gaffes .
So okay, maybe Mitt doesn't become president; at least he
can boast of having achieved a political goal his father was unable to attain --
the GOP presidential nomination. That's his fallback. At least he made it to
the starting line.
At this stage, Mitt's probably
thinking: "That's good enough for me."
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