Candid Camera Feat. Mitt Romney!

As I'm new to blogging and this is only my second post, it could still be some time before I get into the real swing of things.  As I said, my two major interests when it comes to writing topics is the entertainment industry and politics.  Today, I have politics on the brain - generically speaking, that is.  On the radio, I heard the host of NPR's game show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me joke that for all our complaints about politicians not being honest, the new video of Mitt Romney seems to prove that being honest is not really a smart move in politics. There's been a lot of criticism of candidate Romney for what he says in the video, and rightly so, to some extent.  His comments about the 47% that don't pay income tax are insulting in that they lack context - context being WHY those people don't or no longer pay.  It's also off-putting to many voters, particularly the undecided, to hear that a particular politician just isn't going to bother trying to convince those outside of his own party.  Then again, as the game show host implied, isn't this just what we already knew or assumed about Romney and the Republicans in general?

I grant that I'm a conservative Republican, but I've never been a big fan of Mitt Romney.  To me, as to many others, he's just... boring... and though the economy may be the most important issue right now, I don't feel that he has much of substance to offer when it comes to other issues that Presidents have to deal with.  Specifically, the ease at which he seems to be when it comes to the prospect of war with a country such as Iran over nuclear capabilities is... disconcerting to me, especially given our lack of success with non-nuclear parts of that region.  All that aside, I think that the fuss over this video and his comments is mostly much ado about nothing, despite what the fervent news coverage would suggest.

Consider that when the video was recorded, Romney was unaware that he was still being taped, talking to people that probably wanted the answers he gave.  Call him naive for not just assuming that someone was watching (and, these days, recording), but even so, the whole thing could almost be a setup.  Per the comments, again, for better or worse, they're not really earth shattering considering conservatives' and Republicans' image in today's world. Looking closely, I think it's been at least 15 years or so since the GOP really made great strides by catering to the independents and swing voters.  In 2000, discounting the influence of the recount and the Florida Supreme Court, it could (arguably) be said that George W. Bush was elected president almost solely by the Evangelical Christian wing of the Republican Party.  It has even been documented that campaign leaders like Karl Rove set out from the beginning to take advantage of that part of the Republican base, which includes the very big and very wealthy Southern Baptist Convention.  His 2004 re-election was most likely the result of people being underwhelmed by John Kerry and feeling that whether or not it was a good idea in the first place, the only one that could even conceivably make something good come out of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts must be George W. Bush and the Republicans that had been into it from the beginning.  For their part, the Democrats acted like they just wanted out - win or lose - and I don't think that was very palatable to many Americans that felt like they'd already made so many sacrifices, especially so close to 9/11.

Ethical questions are almost moot points here.  Even if a candidate like Romney wants to eventually sway and represent independent and swing voters as president, he can't do that without first getting elected.  If that means appealing almost solely to the base, well... what's the problem? What, exactly, have Obama or the Democrats done to really sway or seduce right-wing conservatives?  More than that, what is anyone going to do about it?  He's the candidate - the choice is between he and his team.  Looking at his options, it seems to me as if many public universities won't even allow conservative speakers onto their campuses, let alone actual candidates and least of all the ones that are openly religious and/or Christian.  What's more, Romney has spoken to Latinos and to groups such as the NAACP during his campaign run, and not once do I remember anyone from those constituent groups coming out, eager to even give Romney the benefit of the doubt.  At best, they commend him for something trivial, like maybe making more eye contact than usual.  Yet in the end, no matter what is said, they cannot fathom that he or any Republican could represent their interests or do anything that would benefit them. 

To me, the controversy surrounding this really is petty, and that's not purely a partisan observation, either.  Those that would still jump on the "birther" bandwagon when it comes to Obama's origins are equally petty at this point considering that Obama has already been elected once and served four years - as are those that would still try in futility to overturn Roe V. Wade or oppose the legalization of gay marriage based almost solely on (allegedly) moral grounds.  Still, if this is going to have repercussions all the way through Election Day, then I think it will be the 47% comment that does the most damage.  Amongst that 47% are retirees and veterans that probably either worry about the impact of Obama's Affordable Care Act or are just inherently Republican because the party has a distinct image of strongly representing the interests of veterans and the military.  I do think it bears mentioning that not only was Romney unaware of the taping at the time - which was four months ago - but likely talking to people that, again, expected or wanted those very comments and/or answers to whatever questions they may have been posing. Whether or not more centrists or leftist news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC (as opposed to the EXTREMELY right-wing Fox News) have mentioned or will mention those things, I don't know.  It's a topic for a whole other post, but the increased partisanship of the increasingly commercialized television news outlets these days is made worse, I think, by the unbalanced, on-air ratio of loud-mouthed political pundits to those that actually report the news in as objective a manner as possible.  It's why, for better or worse, I've cut down on my watching of "the news" lately in favor of just reading AP articles online and taking in the occasional Time and/or Newsweek analyses.

This and the reaction to it just seems to enhance the feeling I've had of late that when push comes to shove, it's not going to matter all that much who wins the upcoming Presidential election.  Just as people put too much stock into things said on the campaign trail in relation to what a candidate might actually do in office (despite knowing better), there's also way too much blame and credit, alike, attributed to Presidents for both the good times and the bad, especially when it comes to the economy.  I'm not ashamed to say that while the Iraq war (and, arguably, the massive new Homeland Security Agency) represents a lack of fiscal responsibility on the part of former President George W. Bush, when it comes to the overall economic crisis in which we find ourselves now, Bush not only DIDN'T, but COULDN'T have singlehandedly caused it the way some would have us all believe. Trends in the economy often have far deeper roots, as this particular trend has roots going back to the mid-1990's, to banks wanting to lend more without taking on more risk, to a government under President Bill Clinton that made it easier for them by repealing the Glass Steagall Act (or some of it, anyway) in 1999, and to a private sector from Wall Street to Main Street that saw Bush's tax cuts across the board as an excuse to do stupid things, such lending to unqualified applicants, paying off credit card debt with credit cards, and putting down payments on old homes and trying to fix them up just enough to raise their value and make a profit on resale... before those homes had to be paid-off, in full.   

In conclusion,, I think the House (and Senate) races will be of much greater significance. Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the Obama Administration and the extremes of its first two years is that, inadvertently, it not only created, but helped grow the otherwise well-meaning Tea Party.  Now, a group that was never supposed to be an actual political party, and was ONLY supposed to be about responsible spending and spending cuts in government, has since filled the House of Representatives with right-wing ideologues that have big ambitions, but virtually no prior governing experience or political capital (to help pass their legislation) in DC.  They now make up most of what is being called the "do nothing Congress" and a House with one of if not the lowest approval rating(s) in history.  To me, it is a side-effect of the nation's blanket distrust of anyone and everyone that is in or has ever worked in Washington, DC, naively equating virtually all political savvy and lobbying to corruption... period.  Now, we've got a Presidential incumbent that went from having an almost savior-like image in the minds and hearts of his party and, indeed, of many independent voters upon election, to now being neck-and-neck with an opponent whose own party's support has rarely been more than lukewarm because of his religion and his record as a former governor.

It's fine if you don't agree with everything, of course, but given all of that, I'd bet that the only thing lending this candid video of Romney any real importance is the fact that I just wrote such a LONG blog about why it isn't that important! ;)