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The Empty Suit

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Is it possible that these quirks are manifestations of extreme inner uncertainty?   Perhaps they reflect a yawning discomfort; a sense of ill at ease about one's political and/or philosophical core values and thusly, ambivalence about how one can define him/herself.   Does any of this apply to Mitt Romney?   Well, if it looks like a duck"

Just saying.  

In any event, there's little likelihood that his supporters would contest the premise that Mitt carries an air of anxiety which creates an edgy persona that's never more apparent than during extemporaneous moments with "Joe Public'.   But it's not anything like the cool edginess Nicholas Cage used to exude, or that Samuel L. Jackson can flip on at the drop of a dime.   Instead, it's more a wavering, inelegant discomfiture that -- like the character trait that permits him to flip-flop without guilt -- is distinctly Mitt Romney.   It's something you see in the behavior of the small woodland "varmits" like the squirrels and rabbits Mitt says he likes to hunt. Or, perhaps analogous to the unease displayed by a clumsy con artist trying to quickly seal the deal and haul ass before the suckers wise up to the grift.

The comparison to a con artist -- as has been witnessed throughout the campaign leading up to and beyond Super Tuesday -- may be most fitting.   It seems to describe in a nutshell, Romney's overall approach to securing the Republican nomination -- that is, to grossly embellish his political and professional record; distort or lie about those of his opponents and endlessly chant the false mantra of his "severely conservative" core values.   But most importantly, to pull all this off before the GOP base and the broader electorate wises up.  

To a degree, so far that apparent strategy has worked.   Thus far, Mitt's managed to outlast a doltish field of chronically under-funded and comically underwhelming opponents in the slog through a ribald series of Republican debates that seemed the exemplification of an Ayn Rand/American Gothic-type war of attrition for the crown of America's Most Ruthlessly Heartless Politician.  

But this success, however, has come at great cost to Romney -- literally.  According to a Gallop poll of registered Republicans, in mid-February Mitt's favorability rating sat at 32 percent.   Not bad, I guess, considering that he'd only pulled in on average about a quarter of all the votes cast by Republicans in primaries leading into Super Tuesday.   On the other hand, 32 percent seems rather anemic considering that in January alone, Romney spent a staggering $37 million campaigning, or, over a million dollars per favorability rating point.   Meanwhile, it's been reported that -- including money spent by his Super Pac -- Romney has thus far run through upwards of $100 million fighting off his GOP challengers .

Yet despite blowing through them ducats like a drunken tycoon, a somewhat unexpected barrier remains between Mitt and the GOP nomination.   Forget about Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul, this final stage has Romney, the vast, politically pointless, and perversely overblown empty suit squaring off against Santorum, a full metal jacket of true social conservative credibility of the type Mitt would love to plausibly claim as his own.  

Santorum, as we know, has rocketed to the top of several national GOP polls, which of course means that in terms of the former Pennsylvania Senator's presidential aspirations, he's rocketing nowhere fast.   Meanwhile, Gingrich, like Paul -- also going nowhere -- has stubbornly continued to hang around; having relegated himself to the role of vindictive GOP spoiler against Romney's bid after having had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him by Mitt in Florida.  

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Anthony Barnes, of Boston, Massachusetts, is a left-handed leftist. "When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the (more...)
 

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