It’s not just women who think Mitt Romney is a jerk, but I like Amy Sullivan’s female perspective on his personality. He’s a very pushy, arrogant man. Personally, when he does these debates, I think he makes everyone tense because he’s so prone to creating conflict. He won’t listen to the moderator. He won’t shut up. He doesn’t show any respect for anyone. He’s incredibly disagreeable. I don’t know anyone who is willing to say they like the guy. Have any of you met anyone who actually had nice things to say about the man?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
For anyone committed to voting for him I’d just ask the question, please convince me you’re right, without using Obama’s name or critiqueing Obama’s policies.
In other words, purely on the basis of what specific positive policies that Romney would bring to the nation is it right to vote for him?
When you take Obama out of the equation of conversation, where rebuttal is irrelevant, Mitt’s personality is a refection of his shallow waters policies.
Romney is the adult in the room. He’s a leader, and his five-point plan will work. That’s why women are increasingly likely to vote for him–they finally had an opportunity to hear the man speak directly to them without media filter or negative ads. Even Obama’s “win” on Tuesday seems to have done little to stem the tide, and perhaps even accelerated it–Romney gained in all three national tracking polls today, the first polls to include at least one day’s post debate responses (gained one point each in Gallup and Rasmussen, and two points in IBD/TIPP).
You are commenting as a new user but I’m pretty sure we’ve all met you before…
yes,
Oh my, do you have an attention deficit disorder? I’m so sorry to see you struggle. I know it’s difficult to follow along, but the point of the Reply button is to help you reply.
If Romney wins it will be solely based on Anti-Obama sentiment. Romney is who he has always been, an entitled, amoral, son of privilege. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is excited to vote ‘for’ him, not even my family members who are life-long Republicans. They just want the usurper out, period.
As a radical right wingnut, far to the right of Romney, I used to think that way, but I’m feeling good about Romney. I actually think his center-right philosophy might just work. No wishing on my part is going to bring about the right-wing utopia of my fantasies…Romney has the strength to keep the far right in line while working with centrist Dems to solve serious problems.
Maybe.
Romney changes his positions more often than …
I could do a lot of analogies, but the best I’ve heard is:
Romney changes his positions more often than a porn star.
The right-wing utopia of your fantasies is just that … a fantasy.
It is based not on how real people act and react in the real world but as some Victorian Austrian academic thought they behaved.
I grant you one mistake that Hayek and Keynes both shared, namely the rational man. Numerous recent and not so recent studies show that real humans do not behave in the rational logical manner that say a computer program or mathematical calculation do. People are irrational and make decisions based on hunches and recent history magnified out of proportion.
Trickle-down deregulatory neo-liberal economics doesn’t work. Period.
Hayek and Keynes never really believed the Rational Man, at least not at the micro level. They assumed that to make the analysis flow correctly.
Economics is full of stuff like that. You assume away what cannot be quantified, and then say it will work. Sometimes they are right.
And Einstein didn’t believe that God played dice with the Universe. He was right of course. We now know that the Universe plays dice with itself.
Nick/Sam/Drew has now crossed the threshold to certifiably insane. Only disruption with no attempt at dialogue. I’ll provide donuts to any comment he makes that I see.
It’s going to be very interesting at the next debate, sitting relatively close together at a table, not trying to please an audience, and having Obama lecture Romney on his many foreign policy faux pas.
Romney is a complete aristocrat and bully from birth, guaranteed (based on his record of hiring) to harbor strong feelings of racial and gender superiority, and in particular despises Obama. The last point would be true even if Romney hadn’t received a steady diet of wingnut propoganda via Fox for the last 4 years – but I’m sure he really believes the apology tour shit.
The odds that Romney erupts are pretty high, and I’m betting that his handlers are going to coach him to play it passive and not try to “win” the debate to avoid that.
I’ve been saying what you’re saying to my husband. I hope Obama can push him to erupt. Romney got right up to the edge at the town hall debate.
But Mitt NEVER loses! He can’t lose. It’s HIS game and he always wins. Just ask anyone close to him. He probably even thinks his Perry Mason impersonation won the night Tuesday when he so totally destroyed that President guy. Don’t believe the polls! They’re all rigged!
Mitt’s got issues…
That’s exactly why he’ll make a great President–the Will to Win is one of the most essential qualities needed for a strong leader.
If elected, Romney will WILL a prosperous America.
He also has the pragmatism to work with Dems…
We shall see…this election is truly a coin toss…
Ah! Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. I see.
If Romney/Ryan’s tax and cut plan is implemented, the fragile recovery will double dip into Great Depression II on steroids.
Romney will never stand up to the Tea Party. Don’t you see him belly-crawling and walking back all the time? McConnell and Cantor will push through their racist sexist religious agenda. Romney won’t care as long as his family has no taxes. Expect to see his “blind” trust moving into Swiss Francs as the sea of red ink overwhelms Bernanke’s stimulus efforts into raging inflation and unemployment. That’s what we will get, Great Depression unemployment with 1970’s inflation.
Who will you blame then?
Or…
Romney doesn’t have to pander…he’s the President…
Works with Dems to give them something, gets his tax cuts passed…
Economic growth takes off, just like Kennedy, Reagan and Bush…
Increased growth leads to increased revenues…
Once the economy jump starts, by 2014 he can tackle serious entitlement reform, again, giving the left some of what they want…
We begin to close the deficit…incomes begin rising…creating Reagan-era job growth…
We shall see…
Cutting spending doesn’t jump start the economy it stalls it. Did Reagan’s tax cuts spur the economy? NO! The economy revived because of his massive defense spending. Spending creates jobs and profits.
I always love it when the cons mention Kennedy’s tax cut.
Another way of saying what Kennedy did is “he set the top marginal rate to 50%.”
Still want to try it?
Oh, sorry. Top marginal rate was cut to 70%.
Let’s cut the current rate to 70% again, and I bet it’ll spice things up plenty.
Romney is going to WILL a prosperous America? Does he have to put on his magic underpants before he does that?
People either say he;s a creep, or (if Republicans) they just want to talk about how evil, stupid, insididious or (and this bit is mostly by inference though I have come across the occasional n word user) how black he is.
So Romney supporters don’t really talk about him much. Their votes are all based on their hatred of Obama not anything they tell me positive about his personality.
If Obama’s father had been anglo-saxon, we’d all be talking about baseball, or maybe halloween.
So there’s that to overcome, along with the reinvention of the candidate with the personality that maps into revulsion (link below) into the Big Man On Campus, the can-do guy who will save all our butts, based upon a single television performance.
Previously he was considered a pushy dork.
And what does that say about what is going on here?
Looks to me like all he has to do is gesture hypnotically, and a big chunk of the electorate enters a trance. Does anybody measure the idiot vote? Why bother discussing anything at all, if idiots decide the election? Just run ads with images of hamburgers and french fries under the candidate’s name.
The way racists think, they wouldn’t hate him so much if his father was Anglo-Saxon and his mother was Kenyan. But he is the offspring of the horrible violation of a Kansas schoolgirl by a violent black brute, a freak that cannot be allowed to survive. That’s how they think.
Yeah, his mother actually WAS Anglo-Saxon. I mean it’s the distaff side, but hey. Of course on that side he’s part Irish too (O’Bama of County Offaly), so maybe that screws it up.
A few decades ago would have referred to him as a dweeb. Now know how dweebs age. Not well.
No.
Nobody has anything to say nice about Willard – unless they get a paycheck from him.
And, I always include his family in that.
Hilarious. And true. Remember when Obama was first running, and all these people came out of the woodwork who knew him when he was younger – high school, college, organizing, Harvard, UChicago, State Senate, etc? Together, they provided a very interesting, multidimensional perspective on Obama, who for a long time was a cipher. It took a long time for the country to get to know him (we know him pretty damn well now) and all those old friends and acquaintances were key part of that process.
Has anything comparable happened with Mitt? I’ve been hearing about the guy for years and still I don’t have a sense of who he really is. Where are his old friends and acquaintances who would give us a background on the “real” Mitt? Does he have any friends? That’s a serious question. Does Mitt Romney have any close, personal friends at all?
he couldn’t find anyone from HIGH SCHOOL who had good things to say about him when the bullying story came out.
WHO THE HELL can’t find someone from HIGH SCHOOL to vouch for them?
Willard Romney
So true and then there is his home state (well, one of them) where people who knew him when he governed there are polling with over a 20 pt spread for Obama.
I’ll bet that includes trolls too.
trolls certainly
From the Debate Thread. I noticed something and elaborated on it.
Booman answered
And I answered:
I think this is important. We are all theorizing about his upbringing, about his wealth and entitlement, about his Mormonism, etc. RFK was wealthy too, but was he Romneyesque? No. I know people very much Like Romney who came up from the bottom. All races, all religions, including a couple of quite dangerous gangster types. It’s a mis-wiring, and not an uncommon one. Not uncommon and actually a marker of the possibility of a certain kind of success. If one has no real understanding of what is going on and also a great deal of animal energy then a certain pyschopathy can easily arise. These people use whatever weapons are at hand in their own perceived self-interest. Romney’s weapon? Money.
Bet on it.
AG
You’re right. AG. If you’re willing to step on people, have no conscience and are intelligent enough to get the education required in today’s society … you got it made.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the psycopathic types are usually not disciplined enough to make the sacrifices necessary (finishing college, not being distracted by the shiny stuff along the way …). Romney’s Mormonism and his wife kept his feet on the straight and narrow long enough to release his inner demon.
Nice Psychology…
Let’s talk human nature…every single human being on this planet, with VERY few exceptions (Buddha? Jesus? Lao Tzu?)) is identified by their minds and ruled by their ego…including every single person on this blog, and every right wing blog. And Me!
Why do you look at the splinter in your Brother’s eye, yet ignore the log in your own?
Of course Romney has a big ego with both light and dark…as does Obama…neither of these Alpha males will give up easily…
Stop the personal assault, and stick to what’s best for the country…
Figure out a way to let producers produce enough to pay for the safety net so we’re all happy.
“…stick to what’s best for the country…???!!!”
What’s “best for the country” would be having president who is capable of using both sides of his brain.
This is not a personal assault, it is simply an observation. A series of observations.
#1-That’s strange. Romney looks zombified from the right side and very lively from the left.
Think, think, think…
#2-Left brain/right brain.
Oh.
Now I understand why his manner is so…disturbing. Not because he’s rich or privileged or a Republican but because his brain is not wired well.
Oh.
You Drew…or at least your webname…appear to be new to this site. I am not pro-Obama or Romney. I wanted to see Ron Paul in there, tearing things up. Didn’t happen. But Romney and many of his co-Republicans simply appear to me to be extraordinarily stupid. Victims of evolution, an old species ready to die out. I just don’t want them to take us into the tarpits along with them.
Obama? A higher life form. At least he offers the possibility of further evolution, no matter how much he indulges in prevarication and compromise.
Got it?
Betcha you don’t.
Betcha.
AG
I like Ron Paul, too.
What about intuition? Do you believe in it? It is not of left brain or right…
If your intuition was working, you would have intuited that I am not new to the site…
I was highly skeptical of Romney from the “get go”…
After the the first debate, my “gut” (I.e intuition) tells me he is the man for the job.
Intuition?
I recognize you by your syntax. And by your content as well.
We all have some manner of intuition. It’s not necessarily correct, though.
Sigh…
AG
P.S. It’s a right-brain function, DrewM. When the left brain is barely functioning you get people like the Colorado Batman murderer.
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His “intuition” told him to dress up as The Joker and go kill a bunch of people.
Romney is not that far gone.
Yet.
But soon enough he could go the way of Reagan…another left-brain dead Republican, especially after Alzheimers got him. (He didn’t have that much left brain to lose, actually.) And then? Watch out!!!
The Joker with nuclear weapons?
Watch out!!!
You don’t see this?
Your intuition is on the fritz, bubba.
Bet on it.
You need another intutor.
Yes you do.
What about Obama’s narcissism?
He is highly logical. He is gifted on many levels. He is astoundingly successful. Narcissism is often part of that kind of gift package. So it goes. Would I rather have Gandhi? Yes. But I don’t see him…or anyone like him…on the menu.
So it goes.
AG
What about being a grown-up?
Maturity?
Obama is childish…people are sensing that…
Look…I actually like the guy…I am narcissistic and childish and “very successful” too…High I.Q., too, just like Obama…
But I sure as hell ain’t cut out to be President!!!
AG…any role for God?
Just Sayin’
A role for God?
Yes.
He’s playing God in this production. It’s only role for which he is fit.
Typecasting, don’tcha know…
AG
Who’s “He”?
Romney, or God?
You seem to think that you have a high IQ, but you exhibit very low reading comprehension abilities and your writing is quite confused. Sorry, bubba…somebody been lying to you ’bout that.
Sorry…
AG
AG…did you notice how my comments get deleted?
You manage to post here at least as long as I have…
I’m respectful of others…try to find common ground…I even donate to the site!
I would like the Frog Pond to go to the next level…
Booman has raw talent!! He can do more…don’t hold him back…
He’s hot and cold…good combination!…on the one hand, he’s passionate enough to call us right-wingers ass holes…
On the other hand, I see through the veneer to see a man who, if motivated, sees the art of compromise…
It could start here… Who knows…
AG…did you notice how my comments get deleted?
You manage to post here at least as long as I have…
I’m respectful of others…try to find common ground…I even donate to the site!
I would like the Frog Pond to go to the next level…
Booman has raw talent!! He can do more…don’t hold him back…
He’s hot and cold…good combination!…on the one hand, he’s passionate enough to call us right-wingers ass holes…
On the other hand, I see through the veneer to see a man who, if motivated, sees the art of compromise…
It could start here… Who knows…
Or maybe he’s just had more applications of wrinkle reduction/minimization cosmetic work done on the right side of his face. Considering that Botox injections not only smooth out an aging face but also seems to interrupt the normal facial to brain feedback loop for mirroring and connecting with others, use of such substances by politicians should be of concern to voters.
It does seem like Romney thinks he’s the moderator of these debates. From lecturing Jim Lehrer about when he should get the last word to telling the sitting president when he would get to speak. I just wonder why it took this long for people to notice it when it was fully on display in the first debate as well.
I’m so old, I remember when “Who would you most like to have a beer with?” was the Village’s way of gauging fitness to be President.
By that standard, since Mitt doesn’t drink beer…..