His Original Sin

National Journal:

If Mitt Romney loses in November, the primary cause won’t be the tactical missteps and backbiting that Politico chronicled, or even the past two weeks’ rapid-fire controversies. The much larger problem will be fundamental strategic choices the candidate made during the Republican primary, including several that placed him in conflict with long-term demographic trends reshaping the electorate.

Read the whole story at National Journal

Comments

[StopMakingSense2]

04:53 PM on 09/21/2012

Since he manifests all of the seven deadly sins decisions decisions! Typical of the religious hypocrites these days!

[Rubyfoo]

02:28 PM on 09/21/2012

Mitt Romney's original sin came when he went down to the crossroad at midnight to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for the nomination. But the devil, who's very clever, has put self-defeating words in the sinner's mouth.

I'm kidding, but it's metaphorically true, for sure.

[plzchuteme]

02:15 PM on 09/21/2012

Romney's original sin? That's easy...arrogance!

[wa0cal]

01:59 PM on 09/21/2012

It's the Republicans sin that they nominated him to run for president.

[jbro9]

01:47 PM on 09/21/2012

The point is, he did not become a desperate candidate last week; he was a desperate candidate in the primaries, and a desperate candidate in the gubernatorial and Senate campaigns he ran in Massachusetts. He is bereft of common compassion, cannot relate to ordinary people except insofar as it gets him a vote. He is a terrible politician, and that is not breaking news at all.

[Danilo-11]

01:30 PM on 09/21/2012

Why is the media afraid to call him what he is? A FLIP-FLOPPER

[christopherallenjoseph]

12:57 PM on 09/21/2012

His original sin was betraying his father's ideals.

[EqualTime]

12:25 PM on 09/21/2012

I've said the same thing many times. I think he had a game plan to not shift so far right, to permit him to come back to the center in the general, but he lost his nerve when confronted by the TOP's flavor of the month - Trump, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum. Huntsman was the only one they never gave a chance to, and Ron Paul was just in it for the platform.

Stll, the TOP will blame a loss, if it comes, on the candidate, not the rejection of their extreme right wing agenda by the general electorate.

[Chinawanderer]

12:20 AM on 09/22/2012

When Romney loses, the Reactionary Party will claim it was because they were not "conservative" enough and they will become even more extreme. It will never occur to them that the people are rejecting those right-wing ideas.

What they don't realize is that thanks to Romney's only honest comments during the campaign--at the Boca Raton fundraiser-- the people are onto them.

[thebigbike]

12:23 PM on 09/21/2012

There is no "there" there.

[bloglogger]

12:13 PM on 09/21/2012

We should always be wary of the offspring of politicians who want to fulfill or surpass their progenitor's ambitions. Willard seems to want to BE president but has no idea of what it means to SERVE as president.

[greytunes]

01:01 PM on 09/21/2012

GWB certainly gave that idea a serious black eye.

[Chinawanderer]

12:21 AM on 09/22/2012

I don't think Mr. Romney understands the concept of "to serve"; he is too used to being served.

[Chinawanderer]

11:54 AM on 09/21/2012

Mr. Romney's original sin is not the idea that he constantly changed his position based on who he was talking to in order to feed his overweaning ambition. His original sin is much older and much deeper and started to be part and parcel of the Reactionary Party sin Reagan.

The original sin is buying into the idea that life is essentially a social darwinist, hypercompetitive struggle for the survival of fittest where the determining factor is how much money you have regardless of how you made it. The corrolary of this is that if you do not become wealthy then you are unfit and therefore undeserving. We saw the beginnings of this line of thinking with Reagan's Trickle Down but Romney has brought it to full flower.

When he made his comments in Boca, he seemed to at his most honest.

[Gestas]

11:49 AM on 09/21/2012

Rick Perry showed us just how easy it is to get to Romney...Remember Willards "Melt Down" lets just call it a Mitt Fit...You think Iran having a Nuclear Weapon is dangerous..What about letting Willard have control of a Nuclear Weapon..

[MovieGuy2010]

11:46 AM on 09/21/2012

Fact is, Mitt is an awful messenger for a country that has seen the middle class get walloped for about 3 decades, while the patrician class has soared into the stratosphere.

Everyone that has had a job in corporate America in the last 3 decades recognizes Mitt, he’s the face of the guys that bought your company, came in and preached “the employees are our #1 asset," then started handing out pink slips the following Monday.

What was so revealing about the 47% tape was not the fact Romney says all those things the hard righties say on all the blogs….

It was how different he was in front of his peeps. Clearly, an entire sheltered life of wealth and privilege has made him very uncomfortable with ordinary folks, especially when he is not in a position of absolutely unquestioned authority.

It’s a cliché in politics that people want a president they feel they could have conservation with. Hence Bill Clinton’s empathy, George W. Bush’s the guy you want to have a beer with?

What could most of us talk to Mitt Romney about? Tax shelters in the Caymans? Car Elevators?

My dad also helped me with college, but I didn’t have any stock to sell, so I had a night time job while I went to school during the days.

My life and Mitts have almost no common elements, and that is true for about 99% of Americans.

[birddogs]

11:34 AM on 09/21/2012

mitt's biggest sin is wanting to be President for no other reason than to add it to his list of accomplishments. He brings nothing of value to the table. It's the ultimate prize to him.

[bloglogger]

12:24 PM on 09/21/2012

Well, he can't be actual royalty, so he wants the next best thing. (Love your microbio)

[PWM]

11:27 AM on 09/21/2012

“All we have to do is replace Obama. We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become President of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.”
~Grover Norquist, calling for conservatives to elect a weak President they can use as a puppet, CPAC, February 2012. NOTE: While Norquist did not specifically mention Romney, other Republicans on this list have noted Romney’s weak leadership skills and his lack of spine in standing for what he believes in. Bryan Fischer stated in an earlier quote that Romney would be a pushover as President, which is exactly the kind of President that Norquist wants