LATEST UPDATE: The latest Massachusetts Presidential polls have Romney down 57-37% to the President. Anyone out there in the rest of the country notice that the only place where he has ever won an election wants no part of him again? If he votes in Belmont and turns it into a photo-op, it will be as phony as the one of him loading cans of spaghetti-o's that his own campaign bought and handed to folks in Ohio on their way to his rally to "prove" that he cares. Write a check and make it a big one, you phony.
UPDATE: It's another Massachusetts kiss off for Mittens, the man without a home. The full impact may have been diluted by Sandy's torrent, but The Boston Globe has endorsed President Obama for a second term over former Governor Mitt Romney. The endorsement, in addition those by The Detroit Free Press and Salt Lake Tribune, makes it a clean sweep for the President of the major newspapers in states where Romney claims to have roots, proving that those who have most carefully observed the way the Willow bends, elect to lean on Barack Obama.
FACT CHECK: When Mittens first ran for the Senate in 1994 a supposedly worn and weakened Ted Kennedy, whipped him by 58 - 41% of the vote. When The Willow won his only elective office as Governor of Massachusetts, he beat an obscure and weak candidate by a relatively narrow 49-45%. When he ran away from office four years later, his approval rating was 34%. which is just about where it remains today. Massachusetts Presidential polls show him behind by 15-20 points and he has made no effort to campaign here.
In other words, he is now persona non grata in the only state that has ever elected him to anything.
As for Michigan, where he was born and where his father, also a former Governor, was very popular, he cannot get beyond the low-40% threshold and he is going to lose his native state.
At last night's debate, Romney declared himself a "Son of Detroit". Actually, he grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 25 miles and millions of dollars away from Detroit. In fact, Bloomfield Hills is routinely listed among the 5 most affluent suburbs in the country, with an average income well in excess of $1 million dollars. Doesn't sound much like Detroit to me. But he's a Son-of-a-Something, alright.
UPDATE: The President is ahead of our former Governor by an average of 21% in all Massachusetts polls which is why I was so surprises when, At the First Debate, I was struck by the sudden and tender slender slice of revelation that Mittens is smitten with a sudden affection for Massachusetts when he espoused the following mealy mouthed gem:
"Jim, I had the great experience ... of being elected in a state where my legislature was 87%
Democrat. And that meant I figured out from day one I had to get along and I
had to work across the aisle to get anything done." (This ignores, of course, the more than 800 vetoes of Democratic legislative initiatives, astounding number, nearly all of which were overidden.)
After acting for years as if he had never crossed our borders, now, on stage and stump, he suddenly dips a golden tongue into crystal waters to distill and dispense all the many wonderful things he did for his loyal subjects during his single glorious term as Emperor Governor of his beloved Massachusetts - the last two years of which he spent running everywhere else while running we, his own people, down.
So, with all that he did, where's the love? Well folks, the truth is there is none. That's because what this self-aggrandizing, ever shifting mirage of a man did, how he did it and why, left most of us in the Bay State with a pretty bitter after taste. As he told the Boston Globe in 2006 after his abysmal failure to reshape the legislature by getting Republicans elected, "from now on, it's me, me, me". And that's the rub.
So what's the likely result in Massachusetts for our champion four weeks before the election? According to recent polls, his favorability rating is in the low-30's and he is poised for a 20+ point drubbing come reckoning day.
And he has earned it all because, in the end, Mittens, the love you take is equal to the love you gave.
HL October 11, 2012
2 comments:
i dont think it strange MA doesn't want a part of him, while at the same time wanted him as governor. correct me if i'm wrong, but he's a fiscal conservative with no interest in social issues, hence the perfect candidate for MA's socially liberal state and for USA's slightly socially conservative nation. does this make him a phony? or maybe more honest that even obama. with romney you know what you're gonna get: appealing to interests and public opinion. with obama, what was a vote in 2008 for? to be a placeholder for 4 years until "he can show his true colors after the election"?
Hi Clay: Hope this finds you well and thank you for your comment which I will try to respond to.
First, I don't think it is accurate to state that MA doesn't want him while "at the same time wanted him as governor". He had enough support to be elected Governor. It was what he did and did not do during and after his tenure that turned public opinion away from him. Part of the confusion surrounding Romney's policy positions has always the shifting of those positions. If you want to dub him a fiscal conservative, let's assume that to be the case. And, as such, he claims to have lowered taxes 19 times and balanced the state budget all 4 years he was in office. First, he was not in a position to do very much (other than exercise a constant veto - that was overridden nearly as frequently as it was wielded) without the assent and approval of the almost overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. But, to keep it simple, let's say he cut taxes and balanced the budget. As I wrote, balancing the MA budget is a constitutional requirement, not something he decided would be a worthwhile goal. He did it by two routes - raising fees on virtually everything from marriage to fishing licenses and by cutting aid to towns and localities which he did ruthlessly. In 2006, we had a large scale flooding, albeit not on the scale of what others have experienced elsewhere in the past several years. My own basement was flooded thigh high.In Lowell, the flood waters flowed down from the N.H. rivers and there were homes under water. At the time, MA had a discretionary budget surplus and a discretionary surplus in the disaster relief fund. Romney refused to release any of that money insisting instead that the Feds pay for it. However, the area had not been deemed a Federal disaster so Lowell was left under water while he wrangled with Washington. You might think this was prudent fiscal conservatism, but keep in mind the Federal money would have been used to reimburse the state but he refused do it, putting political gamesmanship above people. There was and remains a great deal of ill will engendered by his complete absence from the scene when the photo ops ended.
He expressed interest in social issues many times. When he ran against Ted Kennedy, he staked out positions to the left of Kennedy - all of which he later abandoned.
His single signature piece of legislation was the health care act. He was so proud of it that he insisted that it be pictured on the desk in his official portrait. No need to get into what his position(s) were on this during the campaign.
So, what to conclude? That he had no interest om social issues or that or that his positions were not genuine and that he will bend to whatever is politically expedient?
People here also resented his overall inaccessibility to them. Every MA governor before and since, leaves their door (actually it's an anteroom open as a symbolic gesture to mostly legislators. His was always closed as was the formerly open access elevator both of which were cordoned off with a velvet rope.
It's all moot now, but I could not disagree more that with Romney we knew what we could get. Appealing to which interests and what aspect of public opinion? Monied? Corporate? Latino? Women? Middle class? Working poor? That was a complete mystery and I would bet $10,000. that it he could do it over again, he would not have allowed himself to drift all over the map. I also bet he wishes he had moderated the tone of his campaign - a stridency that also found expression in the early Scott Brown attacks on "Crazy Al" Khazei. Same top campaign staffers, same crap only people were less interested in Elizbeth Warren's and Obama's heritage than in what they offered. Bad mistake.
As for the President, we disagree so thoroughly and, again, the issue is now moot that time and space preclude me for detailing the areas of disagreement here and now. Another time? You betcha!!! All the best, Clayman and thanks again for stopping by.
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