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Opening Arguments

Regular Guy

Mitt Romney is working awfully hard to show us that, deep down, he's just a Regular Guy:

Like the stars in Us Weekly, Mitt Romney wants voters to know that he is just like them.

Mr. Romney has tried the new $4.39 Carl's Jr. jalapeño chicken sandwich (“delicious”), celebrated the Reagan Library debate with fast-food burgers and fries (again, Carl's Jr.), and dug into a Subway flatbread sandwich while sitting in an airport terminal (“better than the usual campaign diet of morning donuts”).

These are all moments that he and his campaign have made a point of sharing with the public over Twitter. He has also taken a lot of flights on Southwest, an airline known for its low fares and primary-color planes, and made sure to tweet about it and name-check Southwest at every opportunity.

The story is accompanied by a photo showing Mr. Romney at the Iowa State Fair chowing down on -- be still, my soaring heart -- a pork chop on a stick! Tell me he also craves elephant ears and chili dogs -- perhaps right after that critical bowling tournament and before the trip to the neighborhood garage sale -- and maybe I'll even go work for his campaign.

Apparently, I'm one of the few gullible ones out here, though -- Common Man Romney is a hard sell:

After all, what are the chances that the son of a governor with a strapping, all-American family and a net worth hovering around $200 million is really just an average working stiff?

Oh, slim to none? 

This is very silly, even a little sad. Yes, we would prefer likeable candidates over cold and aloof ones, but no politician -- especially one taken seriously as a presidential candidate -- is like us. They live in a whole different world cut off from ordinary America by the demands of their ambitions and the insulating qualities of their pursuits. Rick Perry does not really want to drop by my house for Sunday potluck, and Barack Obama does not want to have a beer with you.

And that's OK. I don't want the fate of the free world to be in the hands of the guy next door. I want my president to be exceptional, not ordinary. And with Romney, there is the additional problem of his shape-shifting reputation, the idea that he will say anything to anybody, be anything for anybody, to win the next primary or the next vote. This just seems to confirm his slippery nature. Of course, deep down we realize, whether we like it or not, that they're all like that.

Comments

littlejohn
Thu, 09/22/2011 - 9:51am

Well, he can't be an entirely regular guy, since his church forbids him from drinking a Coke (Horrors!) along with his junk food.

Leo Morris
Thu, 09/22/2011 - 10:05am

No Coke with the junk food -- hoestly, is such a life worth living?

Harl Delos
Thu, 09/22/2011 - 7:18pm
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