There were many times during the 2012 election when Romney appeared to have lost the election. One of the most significant was the 47% video:
So, from this, we learn that Mitt Romney believes that almost half the American people are unrealistic, selfish, and greedy. They can’t be enticed to vote for him, so he won’t bother talking to them.
Whether because of this video, or for many other reasons, he lost the election.
Most Presidential candidates shut up promptly after losing the election. The exceptions are interesting. Nixon complained in 1961 that Kennedy had stolen the election. Nixon then roared back in 1968 (and six years later resigned the Presidency in disgrace, having committed most or all of the crimes he’d accused Kennedy of in 1960). Al Gore didn’t shut up after 2000, with good reason; he’d won the popular vote, and the electoral vote depended on Florida, which was (effectively) decided by the right-leaning US Supreme Court.
But Mitt Romney won’t shut up.
He said, shortly after the election, that Obama won because he promised “gifts” to his followers. Please follow this link to hear that the Salt Lake Tribune had to say about that.
A MSNBC commentator made a very sensible point about this recently: of course Presidential candidates offer us “gifts”! They’re called campaign promises! If I’m presented with two candidates, and one of them promises to end legalized abortion, eliminate “unnecessary” programs in the arts and sciences and education, and opposes gay rights – I will tell him that these are not the “gifts” I require.
Most lately, Romney’s son Tagg (I love that name!) has stated that his father didn’t want to be President in any case. As follows:
“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” Tagg Romney told the (Boston) Globe. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside.”
The Globe article also noted that “Tagg … worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency.”
So what’s all this about? Did Mitt want the Presidency or not?
Perhaps, as the New Yorker recently remarked, the GOP really ought to have run someone for President who really wanted to be President.
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