Thursday, September 20, 2012

There Are No Mulligans in Politics (A Cautionary Tale)

Mitt Romney’s bid for the White House took a turn for the worse this week, much like a golf shot that hooks into the woods out of sight. My guess is Romney wishes that politics would have the golf equivalent of a mulligan – a “do over” – but he has learned the hard way that once words come out of one’s mouth and are either heard by others, or worse yet RECORDED by others, they are impossible to take back. One would think he should have already learned this by now, but there we go thinking again.


A video of Romney secretly recorded at a fundraiser with wealthy donors recently went public. It didn’t take long for the information to blanket the Internet, TV, and print media. In this video, Romney took the stance that the bottom 47 percent of Americans are a bunch of useless, entitled people who see themselves as victims, and that he really can’t worry about them because people like that will vote for Obama no matter what. One can argue that Romney never expected someone to record his words at a private event. If he really expected his words would never be repeated, he was being either incredibly stupid or incredibly naïve (either trait is not good for a president). Americans should be thankful that Romney’s speech was exposed as now people can really see how he feels about 47 percent of the population.

Of course, this Romney flub is fodder for the Obama campaign and related backers, and I can’t say I blame them for jumping it quickly and getting TV ads out there that use the recordings. Yes, it’s rough here in Ohio being blasted with nasty ads from all sides, but I must admit that this time, I’m enjoying them. Two of the latest ads on this issue are below – sorry, no mulligans for Mitt.







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