It's a question that gets asked a lot, because if there's been one constant about this campaign, it's been that Mitt Romney is a mendacious, frequent, and worst of all lousy liar. It's the "lousy" part that makes it such a topic of conversation, because everyone notices it. Mitt lies like he's already been caught in the act; his forced laughter, stammering, fake "casual" tone of voice, and shifting eyes give him away like the guys on 'COPS' who insist that someone handed them the bag full of drugs to hold right before the officer walked up.
Even if he didn't continue to lie about things already proven to be false, even if he wasn't on video offering mutually exclusive statements, and even if his campaign
staff didn't blatantly admit that they refused to let the facts get in the way of a good talking point, we'd know Mitt Romney was a liar because he sounds like one. So the question that everyone's asking is, Which lies are the real lies? When is Mitt Romney telling the truth? Is he lying to the moderates or the conservatives? The 1% or the 99%? When are we seeing the true Mitt Romney?
The answer is simple: Never. We have never seen the real Mitt Romney, because Mitt Romney knows that if he ever reveals the absolute truth, he'd never get elected.
The truth is that Mitt Romney has no vision for America. Not a conservative vision, and certainly not a liberal one. He's not in it for the poor or the middle class, obviously, but he's not really even in it for the richest Americans. Mitt Romney wants to be President for one reason, and one reason alone--as a status symbol. The Presidency is an undeniable mark of wealth and power that only forty-four men have ever owned, and he wants it for himself. And he will say anything to get it.
He needed money to run a campaign (if there's one thing we know about Mitt Romney, it's that he knows how to pay for things with other people's cash), so he told his rich backers, "If I'm elected, I'll lower your taxes, gut regulations, and stick the moochers with the bill." He decided that Republicans ran tougher campaigns, so he changed parties. He told the religious right, "Vote for me and I'll punish the sluts and the gays and the godless just like you want," and then, because he knew the votes of the base wouldn't be enough on their own, he spun around and told the moderates, "Don't worry, I didn't really mean that." He says whatever he thinks the other person wants to hear, not because he's secretly lying about his ideals, but because he has none to lie about.
Most of the people who have debated Mitt's endless stream of lies have missed this, because they've fallen into a trap of believing that somewhere in there, deep down, a truth exists to be found. Mitt might be lying to the moderates, but he's telling the truth to his secret constituency on the right. Mitt might be lying to the middle class, but he tells the truth to his rich friends. It's hard to accept the fact that the true constituency of Mitt Romney is nobody but Mitt Romney.
He doesn't care about any of his promises. He'll keep those he feels like he has to keep in order to gain a second term, which means he's more likely to appease his rich backers and his right-wing base, but he'd sell out the 1% just as fast as he'd sell out anyone else. Mitt Romney only cares about the people who can help him, and only as long as they can help him. The 47% video wasn't a man telling the truth, it was a man who was more confident about lying to people he understood.
Of course that doesn't mean that if Mitt gets elected, we will see a different Mitt Romney than we saw on the campaign trail. He already made a series of calculated decisions in the belief that this Mitt Romney is the Mitt Romney most likely to gain and keep the Presidency, and I don't think he'll govern any differently than he campaigned. He'd lower taxes and gut regulations because it's more likely to get
him funds for his re-election...and because it benefits him personally, and Mitt Romney is always there with an eye for increasing his personal wealth whenever he has an opportunity. But the people who believe he's only in this to rework the tax code for his own benefit miss the point. Guys like Mitt can always make more money, but there's only one White House. And he wants it.