I didn't used to be afraid of Mitt Romney. Now, I'm terrified.
In an article by the Broward Palm Beach New Times, Romney's time at Bain Capital is documented as an example of "everything you hate about capitalism." There is a consistent theme behind Romney's approach to making money that proves John McCain's famous quote to be merely a glib political jab rather than insightful commentary. Mitt Romney is chillingly consistent.
I was inclined to be generous to Mitt Romney. The narrative in a recent piece in the Washington Post implied a man misunderstood by the general public. A man who is stiff in front of the unfamiliar, yet eager to please and genuinely concerned with America and its people. Along with Jon Huntsman, he seemed to be the only contender in a GOP primary riddled with incompetence that could provide honest solutions to the nation's problems. This is a kaleidoscopic distortion of a cold reality: Mitt Romney has solutions, but only to the problems of the very, very wealthy.
I would have welcomed debates between Jon Huntsman and Barack Obama. While almost certainly not changing my vote, they would have intelligently advanced a dialogue about the welfare of our country's future. I held out no such hopes on debates involving Romney, given his record of pandering and vote grabbing, but still I believed a "self-made millionaire" would have something to offer should he overcome daunting odds to reach America's highest office.
You may call me naive, but I do think that politicians, like police officers, as a whole are trying to do good works. We are nearly always bombarded by extreme news reports of one side "blasting" the other, of "gaffes" and scandals and improprieties sufficient to make Larry Flynt grin and say to himself "And you guys get on MY case." But even a cursory evaluation or a modicum of media savvy is enough to realize these are ratings grabs, narratives created to entice us and make us doubt, or worse, afraid. FOX News does not have a monopoly on this kind of grandstanding; more recently, CNN has dabbled in the dark arts of suspect programming if not actual journalistic impropriety, and MSNBC has become the Yin to FOX's Yang, feeling that to legitimately counter an enemy you must use their tactics. All this reflects poorly on our information sources and negatively impacts perceptions of our institutions, but does not damn them in and of itself.
Thus it was that I attempted to find evidence of Mitt Romney's character beyond the various talking points espoused by either side. One of the great benefits of the primaries being essentially over is that during a general election, the vetting becomes more intimate. We learned of George W. Bush's great character flaws not during the primaries, but during the general election of 2000. We must remember it was his campaign, not he himself, that was responsible for the torpedoing of that year's voice of reason, John McCain, in South Carolina. No, Bush's character flaws - his incompetence, his poor means of expression, his lack of sophistication or understanding of world affairs, and his nepotism - were on display throughout the 2000 election, and made manifest in the eight years of his presidency. His tactics were attached to him through the appendages of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, but were seemingly not part of his core personality.
Romney is slightly more difficult to pin down only because he keeps himself so guarded emotionally. As attested to in more than one source, Romney's closest friends and colleagues don't recognize him on the campaign trail. He is wary of sharing personal stories and when he does, they are woefully inappropriate. Humorous anecdotes involving factory closings and incontinent pets may play well in a yacht club brunch, but serve as fodder for the opposition in an election year. This shows something insidious, referenced dismissively by the media-at-large as "unable to connect with average Americans," but when taken in the context of various portraits, reveals itself like the climax to an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
Romney can indeed connect to people, he can relate, he cares, he is generous and kind, humorous and I'm sure, loves his family to the core of his being. But he only does these things with his friends, all of which I'm sure he has reminded us time and again belong to the top 0.1% of the nations wealthiest citizens. Romney is not concerned with the very poor - they're on their own. He is not concerned with the very wealthy - not only are they doing fine, they're all for him and their lives and incomes will become significantly improved should he win in November. He is very concerned with the middle class, or rather those who consider themselves middle class, because that is where his votes must come from if he is to prevail.
Where George W. Bush was mocked for his incompetence, Mitt Romney should be feared for his consistent competence. As the New Times pointed out, he was very good at making a profit for himself, his company, his investors, and his friends. He was also very good at ignoring any whisper of conscience as he cut a Sherman-esque swath of destruction through productive businesses for the 15-odd years he was at Bain. Jobs lost, health care gone, pensions eradicated - an unending cacophony of middle class values screaming death knells as the "self-made millionaire" made use of federal, state, and local funding to give himself ludicrous consulting fees. Ironic is an insufficient term to describe the pathetic scenarios where men and women were taxed on shrinking paychecks, fired from their jobs, and saw their tax dollars pay the salary of the man who engineered their financial destruction.
The number of lives destroyed by Mitt Romney's intuitive sense of business was limited to his ability as the head of one corporation. Imagine what might be wrought by this man as he wields the tools available to the most powerful officeholder on the planet. George W. Bush was an embarrassment. Mitt Romney would be the harbinger of an economic and societal dark age.
As the United States goes, so goes the world. I admit that I am afraid of Mitt Romney.