One of the biggest challenges for the Romney campaign will be humanizing him, and his down-to-earth wife is clearly the most powerful weapon it can deploy on this front. The campaign released a sentimental video today of Ann Romney discussing the ups and downs of raising their five sons together, as old home movie footage and pictures play in the background.
The pictures and stories paint an image of a family that – even with its “practical jokes” and “mischievousness,” as Ann Romney puts it – seems too perfect for this world. And not because Ann Romney’s portrait of her family life is unrealistic or unusual. Just because that concept of a “normal” family is no longer an ideal we’re used to seeing on screen.
President Obama’s broken family, George W. Bush’s mid-life struggle with alcohol abuse, and Bill Clinton’s public and private infidelity all seem more fitting with modern society, not only because these lifestyles are more in-tune with the average family, but because we’ve become accustomed to the idea that dysfunction is normal.
Ann Romney’s video is a good start at softening her husband’s image and making him appear more like a person – a kind, considerate and caring person, judging from the video – and less of a two-dimensional cutout. If the campaign can keep this up, they will succeed at humanizing Romney. But helping him resonate with Americans whose visions of home life are currently being shaped by the Kardashians, the “Jersey Shore” and “Glee,” might prove more difficult.
Eh. I don't think most Americans think the Jersey Shore or the Kardashians represents reality. If they did, they won't watch it.
…. Mr Bush’s "mid-life struggle" with "alcohol abuse" ….. n nYou construed that from a decision taken to not use alcohol? n nAnd then dared compare your construction with the very real aberrant behavior of the impeached/disbarred one? n nAnd just what is, "alcohol abuse?" Does it involve speaking to it roughly? Employing bad language? "You bloody alcohol! You!" – Something like that? n n
I think Romney's bigger challenge is to both reign in "Team Mitt" and to mend fences with all the people whom his supporters stomped on in his race to the nomination — actually whom his supporters have been stomping on for the past 3-4 years now. I am not sure if he can, nor if he wants to, but he is going into a general election with a party that is dispirited and disillusioned, and it isn't even the social issues as much as the personal attacks and a mosaic of personal things on the "boots & ground" level of the GOP. n nI can go to a campaign rally, or I can clean out my garage. If you are not a political activist, if you aren't in this 24/7, it is really easy to just not care this year and that is Romney's real risk. n nIf SCOTUS dumps the Obamacare mandate, and I think they will, a lot of people are going to think Clinton '94 and that Paul Ryan is a lot more stable than Newt Gingrich, and Obama is thus neutered if not impeached — and some of us would really LOVE to see that, and it well could happen. Obama then shifts from being the AntiChrist to just a neutered windbag and the Romney "I am better than the AntiChrist" campaign implodes. Implodes…. n n(This is essentially what he ran, by proxy, against Deval Patrick in '06 and the only people whom he could get to help were those who "had to" and did so reluctantly and everyone else stayed home.) n nWe all know the Convention is going to be a MESS… Every one of the trust fund occupy schmucks is going to be there, defecating everywhere (and probably throwing it), the Ron Paul brigade as well, probably both sides of the gay marriage issue, and likely the Westboro Baptists (!) as well. (They are *not* Christians!) I am thinking Chicago 1968 and much as that gave the election to Nixon (who actually won in 1960 — Chicago vote fraud threw that one), a good 3 days of rioting in Miami will give Obama a victory. Even without this, Romney is going into a convention not unlike Gerry Ford did in 1976 — it is one thing to be the nominee, it is another thing to get the party to actually vote for you. Let alone stand out all day with your sign… n n(Do not forget that Ron Paul is the Gene McCarthy cult hero of the new millennium.) n nRomney has maybe 2-3 months to re-invent himself, not as the family guy but as the forgiving guy, to invite everyone who didn't support him back into the tent. I don't think he will, I don't think he *can* (I don't think he really has control over some of his more ruthless supporters) and that will be his mistake. n nHe doesn't have the base of his own party, he just has the activists and leadership. n(The folks who would have to support him anyway…) nThe people whom he needs are mad at him, personally, for thousands of different little things that his people have done and that is going to be the horseshoe nail that looses the battle.