Last updated on September 23rd, 2012 at 08:30 pm
One of the travails of adolescence is gaining access to the popular crowd that appears to be elite among their peers and seemingly unapproachable due to their status as exceptionally gifted, extraordinarily beautiful, or leaders of a circle of admirers. It is not uncommon, though, that after getting to know so-called special people, one experiences disappointment and disillusion because as the adage goes; familiarity breeds contempt. Americans have had an opportunity to become familiar with Willard and Ann Romney over the past couple of months, and despite their best efforts at portraying Willard as exceptionally gifted to be president, they have revealed themselves as arrogant contemptible elitists.
Romney’s remarks during a secret campaign dinner that 47% of Americans are parasites and dependent on the government certainly did nothing to endear him to the American people, and if it was an isolated incident it may have passed as an unfortunate slip-of-the-tongue, but coupled with his wife’s condescending attitude toward regular Americans and his inflammatory comments over the past three months, it is little wonder why Americans are not heaping adulation and electoral support for his candidacy. There are likely reasons for Romney’s attitude that he deserves to be president, and it is based on his wealth, experience, and religion. The truth is that Willard’s primary problem is he has no idea what it means to be president or what the job entails, and both he and Mrs. Willard have made that abundantly clear.
Romney has had three jobs and he struggles to cite any of them as reason he should be the president. His only executive experience in government was a one-term stint as Massachusetts’ governor where he used taxpayer dollars to wipe out computer records, and piled on more debt than any other state when he left office in 2007. Massachusetts ranked 47th in job growth while he was running Massachusetts and only Louisiana, decimated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, experienced a higher labor force decline. Massachusetts lost 14% of its manufacturing jobs (double the national rate) because he vetoed legislation that would have banned companies doing business with the state from outsourcing jobs to other countries. In fact, there was not one measure where Massachusetts did well while he was governor and the state was often near the bottom in the nation. The only decent thing Romney did was create near-universal health care, and he runs away from that accomplishment like it is plague.
Willard mentions that he ran the Olympics, but he is careful to avoid details because without $1.5 billion of taxpayer money, the games would have been a failure, and there are questions surrounding the cronyism in funneling taxpayer dollars to his Mormon friends. There are lingering questions about Romney accepting $1.5 million in campaign donations from two central figures in the Olympic bribery scandal, including one prominent Mormon who Romney helped acquire a key real estate deal.
However, Romney’s main claim to fame, and primary selling point, is that he earned millions while running Bain Capital, but that has not produced the results he counted on as Americans learned he earned millions eliminating jobs, shuttering companies, and raiding retirement accounts. In a Rolling Stone cover story, Matt Taibbi laid out the “creative destruction” method of leveraging companies with crushing debt with borrowed money, taking bonuses and huge management fees, and using a bankruptcy ring to pillage remaining assets with Bain Capital lawyers as debtors and creditors council. There is a questionable conflict of interest scenario in the Stage Stores bankruptcy because Romney failed to inform the court that he was sole owner of Sankaty Ltd. that petitioned the court for a payment from Stage Stores that he also owned controlling shares in leading any thinking human being to ponder why he is not facing a review of perjury for not disclosing conflict of interest.
Without a record to run on, what drives the Romneys to believe Willard is qualified to be the president of the United States? According to Mrs. Willard, “It’s Mitt’s time. It’s our turn now.” With those seven words, Mrs. Willard exhibited the arrogance that is the product of a lifetime of privilege and entitlement few people would have the temerity to say in private, much less in an interview on national television. During the same interview, Willard told President Barack Obama to “start packing” in a display of presumptuousness reserved for a despicable megalomaniac. Two days ago, Ann Romney lashed out at GOP critics and provided another example of why Romney or his wife do not understand the nature of being the president of the United States.
In a rant aimed at her husband’s detractors, Mrs. Romney said ”it is time for all Americans to realize… how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.” Run this country? What Mrs. Willard fails to comprehend is that a president does not “run” the United States of America, they lead the Executive Branch as part of a government with laws made by Congress. A president is a public servant; maybe the highest level public servant in the land, but a servant all the same and certainly not a CEO like Romney was at Bain Capital. However, Romney gave Americans a glimpse into how he views the United States of America and what kind of president he would be if he wins in November during a Romney-Ryan campaign rally in Lakeland, Florida where he said, “we’ll find good people who like us and want to make sure this “company” deals with its challenges, we’ll get America on track again.” During his time as CEO of Bain Capital, Willard found good people who liked him, and they ran businesses into the ground on the way to earning millions of dollars; is that his intention for America the “company?”
Is it any wonder the more familiar America becomes with Willard Romney the more they find him contemptible? Romney’s problem is that his entire life has been entitled and who can blame him. He was born into privilege in a religion that reveres males, and promises they will be gods of their own planet, and as long as they pay ten percent of their gross income, they get to enter the temple. However, Mormon rules are irrelevant to leading the executive branch of the United States government, and regardless which Latter Day Saint anointed him prince, king, or whatever secret title they bestow on wealthy members, Romney is not qualified to be president.
Willard Mitt Romney thinks he is entitled to be the president because he ran a profitable private equity firm and made millions of dollars. His wife believes it is their turn to occupy the White House because her husband knows how to “run” a company, and possibly because of a secret Mormon prophesy, but aside from that, Romney has no record of achievements the American people can look at to make an informed decision to vote for him. If voters strip away Romney’s arrogant, entitled veneer, he is little more than a spoiled rich kid who used taxpayer dollars to save the Olympics, ran Massachusetts into mediocrity, used other people’s money to run companies into bankruptcy, and because he is a rich Mormon, thinks he is entitled to run America.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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