POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
A "new" Romney?
A "hesitant" Obama?
Yes, perhaps for one hour on a particular night in one year.
God knows Romney had nothing to lose: he could go for broke
- that is, "broke" for him, which isn't much.
And God knows what was running through Obama's mind - maybe,
a deeply concerning fact on national security or some other matter he had just
been advised of.
But we all know that performance is not Obama in full
campaign mode.
And we equally know that Romney offers no special promise of
performance: he's been running for president for at least five years (he spent
$20 million of his own money in a desperate dash for the nomination in 2008),
so we know Romney's attitudes and behaviors, and they are not attractive nor
are they even interesting.
Romney is a man who has never done anything but pursue
wealth, and he has done so ruthlessly and without principle (as in keeping
money offshore) - a mighty dull and unpromising individual to do anything else
and a man the majority of people can no more identify and sympathize with than
those in Canada can identify with that icy ideologue, Stephen Harper (whose
"majority" represents only 39% of voters and is only an artifact of
the democratic deficit in our voting system ).
Only a foolish person would draw definitive conclusions from
that brief time on the stage and assert that the campaign was
"beginning."
But, as readers know, Globe editorials under John Stackhouse
have reached an all-time record for juvenile, narrow thinking.
