Mitt Romney: a flash in the pan or serious contender?

by David Grand
June 6, 2007

Hard to tell which this early in the presidential campaign. But if his ability to raise more money than all the other Republican candidates is any indicator of his chances of becoming the party's standard bearer, then the race is all but over.

And that he has a commanding lead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire would tend to confirm that, albeit that nationwide polls show he'd be beaten handily by the three Democratic frontrunner's--Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

Now, what little I know about him is, that he got the unusual name of Mitt from a relative who played football for the Chicago Bears; that he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City from bankruptcy; that he's worth about a half a billion dollars as a co-owner of a private equity firm; that he was a one-term governor of Massachusetts; and that like me, he has five sons and 10 grandchildren.

I also know, that since he announced his candidacy, he's flip flopped more times on such hot button issues as abortion, gun control and civil unions than a mackerel on the deck of a fishing boat.

As columnist Chris Kelly put it, "Romney is the first candidate to take pandering so far beyond cynicism that it's not even cynicism anymore, but rather Romantic irony." And that "he understands that he's a character in a work of art and that his character's job is to say anything, to anybody, at any time to get elected."

And his two-facedness will, I believe, prove to be a bigger albatross around his neck that his being a practicing member of the unfairly, maligned Mormon Church.

So what does he have going for him? Well, for one thing he's articulate, has the solid backing of the rich and powerful and looks like a president should look. But good looks doesn't necessarily a good president make. For if that were so, then that handsome Warren G. Harding, the 19th president, would've been a great prez, instead of his administration being one of the most corrupt in history.

And a "chip off the old block" he isn't. For other than in physical appearance, he has little in common with his father, a moderate Republican and strong supporter of civil rights, who described himself as being a bit to the right of Nelson Rockefeller but well to the left of Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps the biggest difference between 'em is, that while the son is gung-ho for the war in Iraq and endorses employing "enhanced interrogation techniques" and for doubling the size of Guantanamo, his dad disavowed the Vietnam War he served in, saying that "I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody can get." And were he alive today, I'm sure he'd try to convince his son that he, too, has been led down the "primrose path" regarding the justification offered for the on-going war.

Not incidentally, that statement he made ruined his chances for getting his party's nomination for president in 1968, even though polls a year earlier showed him to be the frontrunner among rank and file Republicans, especially with "moderates." And his religion wasn't a factor, either.

The moral to be drawn from this father-son story is, that sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree and is left to rot.