I'm guessing everybody read this, but I'm posting it anyway.
Asked by reporters why he's struggling to win over his party's right wing in the state where he was born and raised, Romney said it's because he's not willing to say "outrageous things" like his opponents.
"It's very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We've seen throughout the campaign that if you're willing to say really outrageous things that are really accusative and attacking of President Obama, you're going to jump up in the polls," Romney said. Fielding questions from the national traveling press corps for the first time in nearly three weeks, he said: "I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am what I am."
You'll be surprised, but I have mixed emotions. He's right about his party base being too much foam-in-mouth rabid. Nobody will disagree with him.
On the other hand...he pretty much indirectly called his own party's base
stupid. I won't disagree with him on that diagnosis either, but I'm not the one desperately trying to win over their votes. Especially on
the day of a primary! Usually when you call voters fools
before they cast their ballots, they tend to get pissed off. (Just ask Jimmy Carter.) Rush Limbaugh certainly was pissed about that comment today. Yes he's a clown, but that clown has fans. Who vote.
But really gets me, really stuck in my teeth is him whining with "I am what I am." The message overall is find, but the
wrong messenger to play the righteous credible candidate. From pro-choice to pro-life (coincidentally timed with a presidential campaign), from greatest state policy achievement RomneyCare to disowning it to reowning it somewhat, from moderate GOP Governor of a blue state to wannabe Reagan/Dubya 2.0.
It's one thing to bullshit "evolve" on some issues out of political convenience, it's another when you change on so much that the new you may have the same name and looks as the "old" Mittens, that's where the similarities end.
You know what ironically this thick irony reminds me of? When back in the day, Newt Gingrinch lead the morality crusade against Bill Clinton's adultery.
The message isn't wrong, but it's the messenger.
