Political Column

by CASEY J. LABRACK

Part one of a series on why each of the major candidates for president in ’08 is unelectable in his or her own special way. The column will alternate between Republicans and Democrats, starting with Mitt Romney.

Can it be true that the unelectability column’s first article is on Mitt Romney? Why, he was genetically engineered, jaw line and all, for electoral success—a strain of Republican bred so resilient that it could be elected even in the hostile environment of liberal Massachusetts. The firm handshake, the sand-blasted smile, the sterile humor—it’s like he’s campaigning for your daughter’s hand in marriage. From what I understand, that’s still how it’s done where he’s from.

Oh, that’s right, he’s a Mormon. In some polls, 50 percent of Americans have expressed reluctance to vote for a Mormon candidate. Another 30 percent find the idea unbearably quaint.

Much has been made of Mitt’s flip-flops as well. Particularly jarring is Romney’s promise to “keep abortion safe and legal” during his Massachussetts gubernatorial campaign though he now claims to abhor abortion when speaking on the national circuit. It leaves a lot of people wondering who Mitt Romney really is. The short answer: a foppish, charming corporate executive with multiple identities. Like Christian Bale in “American Psycho.” The upside of this is that even with Romney we might move incrementally toward a more sane presidency.

And while I don’t doubt that he’d promise that the South will rise again to the right crowd, in the YouTube era Mitt’s fly-by-night statements tend to get around. Things were different when George W. Romney, Mitt’s dad, ran for president in 1968. Journalists were much easier to spot in those days, and if you were careful, then you could tell your conservative base that the anti-Vietnam movement was caused by gypsies and get away with it. Nowadays, if a candidate screws up and says something stupid, he or she better hope a video of a dog riding a skateboard hits the Internet at the same time.

Sure enough, it’s in one of these YouTube videos that I have found the seeds of Mitt Romney’s destruction. Just as his father’s presidential campaign was felled by his statement that he had been “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam War, military misstatements haunt Mitt. The clip in question comes from a forum called “Ask Mitt Anything” hosted by the campaign last month. A woman asked Mitt: “How many of your five sons are currently serving in Iraq, and if none of them are, how do they plan to support this war on terror?” First, Mitt makes the faux paus of comparing his sons’ campaign work to service for one’s country, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Taken in totality, the question is a potential landmine for Mitt’s campaign.

First of all, I completely agree with what the questioner is implying: appeasement of voters requires no less than the sacrifice of your first born. But the question also calls attention to Mitt Romney’s own lack of military service. Romney got two draft deferments, one of which was the type 4-D, reserved for missionaries. Romney has downplayed his religion for obvious reasons, but sooner or later the mainstream media should pick up on this. Then the question the media must ask is, “Are you a draft dodger or a Mormon missionary?”

Oh, and his missionary work? It was in France.

Campaign News:

Barack Obama raised eyebrows recently for swearing off flag pins—a silly thing for you or me, but a bold move if you’re a presidential candidate. There was remarkably little backlash for this move, despite the fact that it seemed calculated to draw controversy and, hence, attention—the mainstream media equivalent of Internet forum trolling. Many supporters applauded Obama’s choice as a symbolic blow to the bandwagon usage of patriotic symbols following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The response from Obama’s fellow running mates was swift. A Washington Post report on campaign financial disclosures last week reveals that Joe Biden has paid $14,324 to “All-ways Advertising” for lapel pins. As I understand, it was fear of a lapel pin arms race that drove Sam Brownback out of the running.

Obama says that he retired the lapel pin because he wants to show his patriotism with public statements instead. I think he was inspired to do this by Rudy Giuliani’s performance in a recent Republican debate. Ron Paul argued in the discussion that America’s military presence in the Middle East had provoked the Sept. 11 attacks. Immediately, Giuliani began to show his patriotism, insisting on the conventional wisdom that terrorists hate our freedom and demanding that Paul retract his remarks. It’s truly impressive when a candidate is so vigorous in his defense of freedom that he demands the censorship of his political rivals.