Mitt Romney is making his move — literally
As of 3:12 yesterday afternoon, Willard Mitt Romney’s “geotag” on Twitter was “Massachusetts.”
By 5:45, it had been changed to “Holladay, Utah.”
It seems pretty clear where this is all headed, as only about a million people immediately noticed online. Dudley Do-Right is running for the US Senate, from Utah. So long, Orrin Hatch, you must be going. Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.
Mitt wanted to be president, but hey, so did his father. Now, what can say except, any port in a storm. And this time, the media will treat him with respect – at least as long as he comes across as the Mitt Romney of March 2016, when he tore into Donald Trump as “a phony, a fraud.”
If, on the other hand, he is the Mitt Romney of December 2016, making the pilgrimage to Trump Tower to kiss Trump’s ring (which was in his back pants pocket) in a groveling attempt to be appointed secretary of state – well, what was it that John Lakian called him in the 1994 Senate race?
“Mr. Mormon.”
Remember when Romney was running for president, twice? He was accused of not paying his taxes. Plus he murdered some woman in Indiana – fired her husband, she lost her insurance and then she got cancer, and all Mitt could say was, “Bah, humbug.” Ebenezer Scrooge had nothing on Mitt.
Mitt said something about “binders full of women” – misogynist! Worst human ever! Bill Clinton is credibly accused of rape – nothing to see here folks, move on.
Mitt Romney mentions tar baby – racist! John Kerry mentions tar baby – yawn, it’s just an old expression….
Then there was his dog, Seamus the Irish setter, whom Mitt put in a crate on the top of his car for a road trip from Massachusetts to Michigan. One day, at the Republican convention in Tampa in 2012, the sad fate of Seamus was mentioned in two separate columns on the op-ed page of the New York Times.
Obama used to eat dogs for lunch in Indonesia, and his acolytes never said ruff. I’ll bet if you’d given Seamus the option – crate or crock pot – he’d have – oh, never mind.
At age 70, Mitt has still only won one election – governor of Massachusetts in 2002. In a series tweets in 2016, Trump succinctly summed up Willard’s bust-out career in politics.
“I am not a Mitt Romney, who doesn’t know how to win… two-time failed candidate… ran one of the worst race in presidential history… Not a good messenger!”
There’s a saying in baseball about pitchers who fail to live up to their potential – “million-dollar arm, ten-cent head.” In a political sense, that’s Mitt Romney. When Trump was trolling him about becoming secretary of state, he said Romney looked like he was “right out of Central Casting.”
The problem with Mitt is, he’s afraid of his own shadow. The besotted Ted Kennedy bludgeoned him in the 1994 Senate debate at Faneuil Hall. In 2012, he went into the fetal position when Obama and the aptly named “Candy” Crowley ganged up on him. If only he’d left a trail of M&M’s leading out of the studio, Crowley might have wandered away and not been able to find her way back inside, and Mitt would have had Barry one-on-one.
He was thinking of running again in 2016, but Jeb Bush flew out to Utah and stared him down. Low-energy Jeb Bush! All it took was one tap on Mitt’s glass jaw and he was down for the count.
It was Juan’s one and only victory of his doomed campaign. Maybe that’s why Willard’s running – to make sure that’s not his epitaph, “Cowered by Juan Ellis Bush.”
But I think this comeback campaign is more about Donald Trump. There’s only nine months difference in age between them. And Trump accomplished something neither Mitt nor his father could ever do – he won the presidency. And, just to rub salt in the wound, he carried Michigan, one of Mitt’s five home states.
For the record, Willard’s hometown in Michigan is Bloomfield Hills. As opposed to his hometown in Massachusetts, which is Belmont, or in New Hampshire, Wolfeboro, or California, La Jolla, or in Utah, as of 5:45 last evening, Holladay.
The guy changes hometowns more often than he changes positions on issues, say, abortion, or illegal aliens, or the “47 percent.”
Right to the end in 2012, despite running a terrible campaign, Mitt thought he was going to win the election. Karl Rove told him so. So did Beth Lindstrom.
Now the Senate will have to be his consolation prize, just like it was, ironically enough, for his first foe, Teddy Kennedy. And then, after a term or two, probably two, Mitt can pass the seat down to someone in his family, just like the Conyers and the Dingells and the Kilpatricks – it’s a Detroit thing.
Did I mention, Mitt’s from Detroit? Or he used to be. He’s from Utah now, and has been since… 5:45 last night.
