Mitt Romney in Retroperspective

I'm currently reading Stephen Fry in America.  My British and British-Light friends obviously know who Stephen Fry is (here he is with House) and this book's purpose, but for my American and American-Light friends, Stephen Fry is an erudite gentleman-comic, and in America is about his travels in a black London taxicab through all fifty U.S. States.  Despite Mr. Fry's handicap, he's incredibly perceptive and honest about life and culture in each American state.  During Fry's titular 2008 travels in America, he followed around Mitt Romney and his team as they prepared to do battle at the New Hampshire primary.  The long version:

With a great flurry of handshakes and smiles, Mitt is suddenly in the house, marching straight to the space in front of the fireplace where a mike on a stand awaits him, as for a stand-up comedian.  He is wearing a smart suit, the purpose of which, it seems, is to allow him to whip off the jacket in a moment of wild unscripted anarchy, so as to demonstrate his informality and desire to get right down to business and to hell with the outrage and horror this will cause in his minders.  British MPs and candidates of all stripes now do the same thing.  The world over, male politicians have trousers that wear out three times more quickly than their coats.  And who would vote for a man who kept his jacket on?  Why, it is tantamount to broadcasting your contempt for the masses.  Politicians who wear jackets might as well eat the common people's children and have done with it.

Romney is impressive in a rather ghastly kind of way, which is not really his fault.  He has already gone over so many of his arguments and rehearsed so many of his cunningly wrought lines that, try as he might, the techniques he employs to inject a little life and freshness into them are identical to those used by game show hosts, the class of person Governor Romney most resembles; lots of little chuckled-in phrases like 'am I right?' and 'gosh, I don't know but it seems to me that', 'heck, maybe it's time' and so on.  In fact he is so like an American version of Bob Monkhouse in his verbal and physical mannerisms that I become quite distracted.  Rod and Patricia beam so hard and so shiningly they begin to look like the swollen pumpkins that surround them.

'Hey, you know, I don't live or die just for Republicans or just for whacking down Democrats, I wanna get America right," says Mitt when invited to blame the opposition.

A minder makes an almost indiscernible gesture from the back, which Mitt picks up on right away.  Time to leave.

'Holy cow, I have just loved talking to you folks,' he says, pausing on his way out to be photographed. 'this is what democracy means.'

'I told you he was awesome,' says Deirdra.

In the afternoon we move on to Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the most famous, exclusive and prestigious private schools in the land, the "Eton of America' that educated Daniel Webster, Gore Vidal, John Irving, and numerous other Americans all the way up to Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook as well as half the lineup of indie rockers Arcade Fire.  The school has an endowment of one billion dollars.

In this heady atmosphere of privilege, wealth, tradition and youthful glamour Mitt is given a harder time.  The students question the honesty of his newly acquired anti-gay, anti-abortion 'values'.  It seems he was a liberal as Governor of Massachusetts and has now had to add a little red meat and iron to his politics in order to placate the more right-wing members of his party.  The girls and boys of the school (whose Democratic Club is more than twice the size of its Republican, I am told) are unconvinced by the Governor's wriggling and squirming on this issue and he only manages, in the opinion of this observer at least, to get away with not being jeered.  I could quite understand his shouting out, 'What the hell you rich kids think you know about families beats the crap out of me', but he did not, which is good for his campaign but a pity for those of us who like a little theatre in our politics.  

By the time he appeared on the steps outside the school hall to answer some press questions I was tired, even if he was not.  The scene could not have been more delightful, a late-afternoon sun setting the bright autumnal leaves on fire; smooth, noble, and well-maintained collegiate architecture and lawns and American politics alive and in fine health.  I came away admiring Governor Romney's stamina, calm and good humour.  If every candidate has to go through such slog and grind day after day after day, merely to win the right finally to move forward and really campaign, then one can at least guarantee that the Leader of the Free World, whoever he or she may be, has energy, an even temper and great stores of endurance.  I noticed that the Governor's jacket had somehow magically been placed in the back of his SUV.  Ready to be put on in order to be taken off again next time.

Recent polls show Romney set to beat Obama in 2012.  I can sympathize - I guess - with Fry's silver-lining praise of the tall Republican's powers of endurance, but I'll assuredly be paying too much attention to where Romney's jacket is to notice his politics. 

Comments

[Eye-Rish]

British, British-light, and Irish

[Sean]

"And who would vote for a man who kept his jacket on? Why, it is tantamount to broadcasting your contempt for the masses. Politicians who wear jackets might as well eat the common people's children and have done with it."

haha priceless!