I'm writing this not so much as a diary but as a rant. I've wanted to write this letter since election night.
Does it hurt, Mitt? Does it fucking hurt?
I hope so. I hope it hurts bad. The kind of hurt that doesn't wash away in a week, a month, or years. I hope that it hurts. I hope that your wife turns to you months later, tells you she loves you, and tells you that you need to get over what happened. And then your stomach will curl with a little bit of anger but you'll hold your face steady, kiss her, and then turn away before she can see how you know deep down you'll never, ever, ever get over it.
I hope that for the next four years you can't watch the news, for thinking that it could have been you. I hope you recoil when your kids tell you how much they are proud of you, because deep in your heart, you know that when your Dad lost, you lost a little bit of respect for him. Your Dad didn't want your pity; you don't want the pity of your sons, either.
Yeah, I hope it hurts that bad. I hope you feel it. I hope you wake up at night for the next year, start awake, thinking that you'll need to go out on the campauign trail, and then realize that the campaign is over, that you lost, and that you could sleep in and no one cares. I hope that you ache, knowing that the crowds will never cheer your again. I hope that you now begin to doubt yourself, thinking that you actually believed all the bullship that you were going to win on November 6, that you really believed it, and now you realize that your talent for deception is matched by your talent for self-deception. I hope it fucking hurts.
You know why I hope it hurts? I hope it hurts because of the 972 different lies you told during the campaign. I hope it hurts because you won the first debate not because Obama treated you with disrespect (as is being spun by your aides) but instead, because you were willing to lie about your record and your positions. Blatantly lie, with a straight face and no trace of doubt, knowing that you'd get away with it. Yeah: you lied. You completely reversed what you had said before. You made shit up. You lied, and no one could actually refute all of the lies without getting down in the mud with you, and the President tried to avoid doing that, which allowed you to make up stories and get away with it, for a while.
Your whole campaign was built on lies. During the debate where you showed up Gov. Perry (Gov. Perry! Fer Christ Sakes), you fucking lied and flatly denied something you knew was true, and Perry, god bless him, didn't know how to handle it, either. This wasn't spin, or bullshit, or even blather -- you just lied about what happened, and knew that no one would ever be able to shut you down. You lied, made Perry look bad, and then swept up the pieces. But in the end, the whole world found out you were a liar, and that you were lying to yourself, and now you lost because of those lies, not in spite of them. Does it hurt? Does it hurt to know that you have such a problem with the truth that it cost you the election? Do you think about the lies you told about Chrysler, about the debt, about jobs, about abortion, about your taxes, about everything and wonder how much it cost you? I hope it hurts. I hope the pain never goes away. (More ranting after the squiggle)
But its not just the lies that you told in the campaign -- those brutal lies which had no connection with the truth, and which propped your campaign along. I mean, even with the lies, you never led the President. Think about that: all your lies ever did in this world was get you a couple of points closer to victory, and brought you nothing. Your position is exactly like a runner who takes steroids and goes from finishing ten lengths back in a two-man race to finishing three lenghts back in a two-man race. Does your loss of integrity bother you? Some will say no, you never had any integrity, but at 2:00 am, when you try to say it doesn't bother you, I suspect that it will.
No, its not just the lies, its the way that throughout your life you've gone out of your way to inflict pain on other people who were different, or not of your clan, or not very important to you. I hope your loss hurts you for life because it was a humiliation for you for so long as you live -- just like the long haired kid you fucking shaved back in school. Remeber that time? Remember the lies you had to tell yourself about that one? That one didn't hurt you too bad, did it? Ah, but losing the Presidency, that might leave a mark. I hope it hurts.
I also hope it hurts because of your cruelty to the children born in Massachusetts during your time in office, when you wouldn't let the Massachusetts department of health issue birth certificates to reflect the reality of same sex marriage. Nope, you decided you would make each partent apply to you personally to amend the birth certificate, which would be marked up by hand, so that each one of them for the rest of their lives would have a birth certificate that was utterly screwed up, so that they would have problems voting and proving citizenship throughout their lifetimes. Never mind how you felt about same sex marriage -- why punish the babies whose crime in your eyes was getting born? Fuck you for that. Thankfully, with so much time on your hands now, you'll have plenty of time to ponder your conduct. Me, personally? I hope it fucking hurts.
Oh, I'm jumping around a bit here, but I wonder how many votes it cost you when people found out that you put your dog on the roof of your car and drove the terrified animal up to Canada. I mean, the dog was terrified, and there you were, knowing of the dog's terror and driving along anyway. What do you think? 5,000 votes in Ohio? 10,000 in Florida? Enough to swing the election? Yeah, yeah, you lost a lot of ground because of it. I hope it fucking hurts.
And then there was the time you decided that a cop didn't have the right to tell you what to do with your boat and got arrested. You had the money to get out of that problem, didn't you? And you lied and covered it up pretty damn well. And, after all, laws are for little people, not VIPs like you. In the one unguarded moment you ever had in this campaign, you already admitted that you thought 47% of the people were moochers who wouldn't take responsibility for their life. Yeah, about that 47%, that would include old people who rely on Social Security for retirement, military pensions, soldiers wounded in battle, and people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own when Bain Capital came in and destroyed their companies. So, yeah, I hope losing this election hurts, hurts bad, hurts like an itch that will never go away, hurts in ways that you cannot imagine enduring.
Does it hurt? Does it hurt so much you have trouble sleeping? How do you sleep now, with the jobs you've destroyed, the families you've crippled, and the utter loss of integrity? Do you wonder at the fact that none of the other Republicans who have run against you will even speak your name? And, with this loss, I suspect that your membership in the club might be a bit in jeopardy. I mean, lets face it, they don't reward failure, your club-mates, do they? You had all that money and you couldn't fucking win. I wonder if you'll get cut in on all the "good deals" that you need for Bain to continue to prosper? I wonder if someone, somewhere, might just get a good amount of joy by stringing you along and shutting you down. You know, some pissed off hedge fund guy could probably make a killing off you if he decided to bid the right way on a LBO. Loss of staus hurts, doesn't it?
Your Dad lost. That hurt you, didn't it? I mean, when you were protesting in favor of the Viet nam war (where you would never serve), or riding around pretending to be a police officer in Michigan, it never occurred to you that you might not have what it took to make it in this country, did you? George Bush was born on third base and thoutght he hit a triple, but you, my friend, you were born in a luxury box and thought you build the stadium. No, you didn't build that, either. Whoops, sorry about the pun. Did that hurt? Good. I'm actually not sorry.
Well, enough. You've been consigned to the ash heap of history, and I suppose we shouldn't be kicking you any more when you're down. You have lots of money, after all, and you'll be able to escape from some of this. You can always go back to Utah and run for office there; I'm sure your Mormon friends will support you, once you explain to them that you really did actually tithe like you're supposed to. BTW, I've got some mormon friends, and they are actually pretty pissed, because there's a rumor floating that you in fact didn't tithe, and you've used a charitable deduction to get around your tithing. I don't know if its true, but you'll need to mend some fences there. Nothing like a loss of respect in your church, eh, Bishop? Yeah, yeah, I suspect that this hurts, too. The best part is that it'll hurt your kids and grandkids as well, which you caused, along with your wife. I hope that you feel some guilt over their hurt.
But like I say, enough is enough, I guess. And, in the quiet of night, while you sit along in your den and think about things, know that even in pain, there is hope, and life, and love. And if you listen very, very closely, you may just hear the sound of far-off laughter -- of light, of warmth, of joy.
That'd be us, Mitt, laughing at you. I hope it fucking hurts.