a Madison Avenue fable from Ben Wattenberg.
Seeking to produce a new dog food, a big corporation set market researchers, food chemists and advertising agencies to work. The experts came up with a new product they were proud of. The dog food sold well, for a while. Then it slumped. Puzzled, the corporate executives commissioned a public opinion firm to see what was wrong.
Soon, the answer came back: "The dogs don't like it."
This is a fair enough analysis of the Mitt Romney campaign.
I've been hard on the Mitt. I did not vote for him. Take Ron Paul out of the mix and he was, however, the least unsavory of the lot.
Policy wise, he was as bad as the rest. If you were looking for someone to just keep the trains running on time, He was your man.
One disagreement about the coverage of the man was that he was plastic. I'm not completely sure what people mean by this. Sure, when he was "jivin" on MLK day he looked like he was trying too hard. So what. That he could not overcome his natural reserve hardly means he was "plastic." Just the opposite. The plasticity of Hilary Clinton wherein she can mimic a black woman and then go teary eyed is the standard.
Plastic, whitebread, racist terms for not being a complete public jerk.
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3 comments:
Like most everybody else, I form my impressions of the candidates from scraps of commentary and political innuendo. This probably isn't very responsible of me, but why should I be any different.
In other words, I know very little of what Romney's policies are (were?). I tend not to pay too much attention because I know that a politican's policies are based upon his market-tested, poll-driven impression of what is likely ot get him elected, and therefore may have little bearing on what he actually does subsequent to the election. (They know that, on most issues, we don't pay any attention to what they do anyway.)
Having said all of this, I thought Romney was preferable to both Huckabee and McCain. In 1975, Romney got a joint degree in law and business from Harvard, graduating in the top 5% of his class. Intelligence in a president isn't everything, but it ain't nothing either.
Plus, he had a career in business, unlike most of our presidential candidates (a succesful career, that is), which would indicate that he does have the capacity to run something.
So, I suppose we could do worse, and apparently we are. I've been an American all my life and I still don't really understand how we wind up with the choices that we do.
They keep telling us that we're to blame, and to a large extent, I guess we are. But it does seem that the "will of the people" is just one of several factors involved.
One thing I can say about Romney, if you were not looking for it, you might not have known he was a Mormon. He never spoke about it or acted in its favor as governor.
In your last paragraph, I am reminded of Jim Hightower's book title,
If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They'd Have Given Us Candidates.
I do agree Romney was preferable to Huck and Mac. I am put off that he has no problem that in the war he likes, it's okay for proles to serve but his boys are too good.
Pretty cool site you've got here. Thanx for it. I like such themes and everything that is connected to them. I would like to read more soon.
Best wishes
Steave Markson
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