Oh, there is such hand-wringing in Republican circles today that America isn’t warming up to their messenger, Mitt Romney. They’re trying to blame his campaign manager and lack of enthusiasm from top allies and the mean Democrats.
Here’s an idea: It’s not just the messenger that isn’t resonating; it’s the message.
The Republican Party has two problems: First, it has lost touch with middle-class America; it wants budget cuts and burn-down-the-barn policies that will hurt the middle class forever. This isn’t a party that recognizes the haves and have-nots; it’s a party that wants to cater to the haves and have-mores. It is a party at war with American women, proposing backward, sexist attitudes about women’s health; that doesn’t support equal pay for equal work–and some Republican governors have already tried to overturn those laws in their states. It’s a party that offers nothing to youth–as one pundit put it, for young people to vote Republican this year is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders. Gays–forget it;it’s a party openly hostile to gays. Immigration–Republicans have blocked any comprehensive immigration reform for years and tout Arizona’s awful immigration laws, some of which have been declared unconstitutional.
So I’m wondering how they think this message will get them votes.
They could have had Jesus Christ as their candidate and if He had touted these things–and by the way, He wouldn’t have–Jesus would be lagging in the polls.
But they don’t have Jesus. They have Mitt Romney, a man who’s always been rich; always been a devote to only the bottom line–think of all the American jobs he destroyed–a man who is so out of touch with America that his idea of a casual bet is $1,000, and his definition of the “Middle class” is $250,000-$300,000 income a year. Hey, somebody tell the guy that the median income in America is only $50,000 a year because he obviously doesn’t know! They’ve got a guy who will say and do anything–including totally reversing himself. He passed health care reform in Massachusettes–a plan virtually IDENTICAL to what he now decries as Obamacare, but now he says the president’s health plan is wrong and he’ll repeal it immediately. But then he says he won’t repeal everything–oh, nobody knows WHAT this guy would do. Last week, as the crisis in the Middle East saw four Americans murdered, including an ambassador, Romney was so factually wrong and so reckless that he proved he is in no way ready to be commander in chief. In a volitile world, the last thing we need is someone who, as Obama chided “Shoots first and then aims.”
So Republicans have a lousy message and the guy delivering it isn’t a piece of cake, either. If you want to know why the Republican party of today–the one held hostage by the extreme right wing and the Tea Party–is in trouble, the answer is simple: Mitt Romney is the best they have to offer the American people. Yikes. How dismal is that!!