Boss Romney

In my prior life as a news anchor, on one of the group of radio stations I worked for (the politically left-leaning talk station), I used nicknames for a lot of the people in the news.  I clearly labeled the 5-minute news breaks “news and comment”, just in case some dweeb with a room-temperature IQ couldn’t figure out that opinion was involved.

I called Juan Jose Lopez “double-J-Lo” in his role as a Madison School Board member.  Juan and I are friends and he actually enjoyed the nickname, and understood that the ribbing I’d often give him on the air was not mean-spirited.  Once, while on the air, Juan called me “a fellow big-and-tall customer”, which was not only true, but funny.  I called Madison state senator Fred Risser, the longest-serving member of a state legislature in the US, “Great-Grandpa Risser”.  I called Madison School Board member Carol Carstenson “Grandma Carstenson” – which a lot of hard lefties thought was a slam, but as I often explained, it was because of Carol’s deep concern for all the school children of Madison, like a surrogate grandmother to them all.

There were a score of other nicknames I used, so many that a former columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal once published a list of them.

My favorite, I think, was “Boss Bruer”, my nickname for south-side Madison alderman and long-time city council member Tim Bruer.  For several years, I owned a home in his council district, and even put up yard signs for Tim when he campaigned for re-election.  I called him “Boss” in the political sense, for many reasons: his long tenure as the voice of the south side of the city; his personal attention to any municipal issue you brought to his attention; his relentless fight against the city constantly siting low-income facilities on the south side; his championing of the renovation of the Park Street corridor; and many others.  If you had a problem, you talked to Tim, and he’d shoot straight with you.  Boss Bruer.

I’ve decided to call Mitt Romney “Boss Romney” for different reasons.  Knowing Romney’s history and watching his performance in the debates during the Republican Primary and now in the Presidential race, he appears to me as a man who is used to being “the Boss” in the sense that he RUNS things.  He’s used to being in charge.  He’s not used to being disagreed with and obviously dislikes it.

This is a guy who, representing huge sums of other people’s money (Bain Capital was not Mitt’s money, sports fans, it was other people’s money), would stride into corporate board rooms and tell CEO’s and COO’s and CFO’s what they should be doing.  Giving orders.  Issuing commands. 

He is not accustomed to being disagreed with, and it shows, when another candidate calls him on a point of difference, whether it be a difference in opinion or a difference about what’s factual and what isn’t.

Mitt is used to being THE BOSS.

In a few weeks, we’ll know how that image has played out with the American people.  Because, let’s face it: unfortunately, this whole thing is more about style than substance.

How People Like George W. Bush Get Elected

The short answer, and the obvious one, is that people liked W.  He was more likeable than his opponent.  He was the guy you wanted to sit down with and have a beer.  He had no credentials for the job he sought, leading the free world.  But people ‘liked’ him, kind of like “liking” a friend’s post or picture on Facebook.

That’s how Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to get a bunch of votes.  They’re handsome.  They smile a lot.  And, should they get elected, it will be due in no small part to people “liking” them.

 Mitt made his choice for VP official this weekend, standing in front of the U.S. S. Wisconsin (BB-64) at its permanent berth in Norfolk.  (Sidebar: I’ve been aboard the Wisconsin, and it’s an impressive ship, like all the WW2 battlewagons.  The Wisconsin was being refurbished at the Avondale Shipyards in New Orleans when I lived in the big easy in 1986, and I managed to snag an “invite” to board and tour the ship through my part-time job at WWL-AM.  The folks at Avondale couldn’t say no to a Wisconsin boy, I guess.)

Saturday afternoon, I was somewhat surprised by the Facebook posts concerning Paul Ryan.  One in particular stood out.  It was a post about how this woman, who lived for many years in Janesville, knew Paul Ryan, knew his family, and proclaimed that he always seemed like an honest and sincere person, and she had now decided that she’d vote for Romney/Ryan.

The irony is so abundant in her post I don’t know where to begin.  Like many of my social media friends, this woman is a broadcaster.  She lost her job at a Clear Channel station when the huge purges began in earnest in 2009.  For those who don’t follow the game too closely, shortly after Bain Capital took the helm at Clear Channel, the world’s largest broadcast group began shedding personnel like crazy, to make the impossible cash flow requirements of their new loan package.  She was one of the thousands of victims of the second round of Clear Channel personnel cuts.

This woman was fortunate to land another broadcasting job, but it’s part-time, and she augments her income by bartending.  She has no benefits at either job, and is on Badger Care for her “health insurance”.

That this woman has now decided to vote for Romney/Ryan because Paul Ryan seems like such a nice guy perfectly illustrates the theme of this blog-post.  Bain Capital put her out of work, and Ryan’s budget plan would make it even more difficult for her to get health care at an age when she’ll begin to need it the most.

She will be voting against her own personal best interests, and not even with the “higher motive” of philosophically agreeing with the Romney/Ryan platform - at least, that part of the platform which is self-evident at this point.

But she likes Paul Ryan.  He’s always seemed like such a nice guy. 

The Insanity of Politics

So, Mitt Romney pushed down some boy and cut some of his hair off.  And this happened 47 years ago.  And this “proves” that he’s a bully?

I don’t know what it’s going to take to change this cycle of charge and response regarding ludicrous minutiae, but this latest “gotcha” about Romney is ample evidence, as if more were needed, that our political system is doomed unless it changes radically.  Radical, as in “from the roots”.

To me, it is absurd that this item is even carried by “mainstream media”; that it is constantly repeated and expanded upon; that it persists (lead story on at least two national TV news shows this morning); that anyone even CARES about this; and that some of the less intellectually endowed among us seem to think this “proves” that Romney is a bully.

It wasn’t that long ago that dreck like this was fodder only for the tabloids.  But, as has been demonstrated time and again, TV news isn’t news; it’s entertainment.

I don’t give two hoots in hell for Mitch Romney (around the house, I call him “Mike Rummy” to my wife) and have, as a parent, learned first-hand that bullying is not to be trivialized.  I’ll say this for Romney’s handlers: they have learned that the only way to deal with this crap is to acknowledge it without admitting to it (“I don’t remember the incident”), apologize, and then move on.

There will be the pundits who will say Romney’s apology was not sincere (Rachel Maddow and CNBC); the left will act as though this is the most offensive act ever perpetrated by one human being on another, and will theorize that this schoolyard scuffle set the pattern for a man who loves to fire (bully) people.  I’m waiting for somebody in Wisconsin to find someone to come forward and say Scott Walker bullied him in school, setting the pattern for Walker’s bullying of the public employee unions.

It’s been a great week in politics.  A man who’s now on his fourth wife, preaching to his national radio audience about the sanctity of marriage; the voters of the Badger state disrespecting women by electing a man to run against Walker (“it was Kathleen’s turn; she deserved to win”); and another GOTCHA moment regarding a candidate for national office.

Next thing you know, they’ll be telling us our city council members are TEXTING each other during those marathon council meetings, and we’ll have to get all riled up about “secret closed meetings” and whether those texts are different from a couple council members talking quietly to each other in the hallway outside the council meeting.

We are fiddling insanely while Rome burns.

Going Down the Drain

Whether you care to acknowledge it or not, the three men pictured above are losers, each in their own way; collectively, they are the beginning of the end of the Republican Party.

Ronald Reagan – former union head – would not recognize them as Republicans.  The Tommy Thompson we knew as Governor of Wisconsin has nothing in common ideologically with these three, yet he now panders to the tea people and tries his best to distance the “new Tommy” from the record of the man who was the most popular governor in state history.

Mitt just can’t close the deal, because he can’t relate to regular folks.  Reagan could and did.  Carter couldn’t.  Clinton could do it in spades.  George Bush (dubya) was often described as a guy you’d like to sit down and have a beer with. His dad – not so much.  Obama is….well, I’m not sure.  But Mitt keeps putting his foot in his mouth talking about the “right height” of trees in Michigan, and how his wife drives a couple Caddies.

Newt is – I don’t know.  Not a factor right now.  He’s damn smart; thinks well on his feet and knows how to play to an audience, but – he’s just not “it”.  He can be and say very nasty things, and people just don’t like that.

The trio above represent an epic fail on the part of the Republican Party, akin to the sort of fail the Wisconsin Democrats have going for them in the inevitable Walker recall election.

And Santorini – well, he’s just plain bat-shit crazy, living in a 12^th-Century world of hatred, fear, ignorance, and superstition.  Says Obama is a snob for wanting every kid to have a chance to go to college, a place Santorini calls –and this is a direct quote – “indoctrination mills” that “harm” the country.  He and that Nass asswipe from Whitewater ought to get along really well.  Yet all seven, or eight, or however many kids Santorini has, have gone or will go to college.

Santorini said John Kennedy’s 1960 speech about separation of church and state made him want to puke.  That’s the thing with a lot of these tea people: they only like the parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights they agree with.  Sorta like the 60’s candidate for Dane County DA, Eddie Ben Elsen, who ran on a platform which said we should “obey only the good laws”.

Santorini’s “position” on women and gays is straight out of the small-town south of the 1930’s.  That crack his patron made about women in his day using an aspirin for birth control (holding it between their knees) was clearly indicative of the mindset of someone who has no understanding of the world we live in.  Alan Simpson calls Santorini “rigid and homophobic”; Arlen Specter says “it is not realistic for Rick Santorum to represent America”.

Santorini’s understanding of Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma is a world removed from the small Catholic Church I knew as a young man growing up in Hortonville; it was during the era of Vatican II and it was a tough time for the Polish Pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Rev. Leo Przybylski, who replaced the Hungarian pastor of my earliest years, Fr. Jaraslov Pulc.  Both men were more comfortable in their native tongue than English; refugees of the big war, I’m guessing; and Rev. Przybylski (pronounced “sha-BIL-skee”) struggled to adapt to the myriad changes brought about by his leader in Rome, but firmly believed that the church had to change with and adapt to the times to be relevant.  That’s something (change) Santorini is definitely not comfortable with, which to me makes his theology irrelevant – which is as it should be for a candidate for President, but since Santorini insists that religion is government, is more than a bit troubling.

But Santorini’s wife suggests her husband’s success is “God’s will”, and if so, we’d best set our clocks back about a thousand years.