Mitt Romney, the human being?

Mitt Romney speaking. By Austen Hufford [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Ralph Blackburn at the Democratic National Convention, Charlotte, NC – When you study Mitt Romney, ascetically, he comes across as factory made President, sleeves pre-rolled, chin chiseled especially for the memorial made centuries in the future. For the electorate it is still hard to look past this, to find out how human he is? Where is the warm, kind hearted man that his family and friends talk about? Romney, coming from his incredibly wealthy childhood, has always found being relatable to the public his hardest task. The Republican National Convention was set up entirely to parade Romney as a human being, a man of the people who could also be President. Ann Romney’s speech was very effective, Marco Rubio, easily the best speaker at the Convention, immediately vaulted into a story about Romney’s parents, however it was derailed slightly by Chris Christie, who appeared to be making a case to be the Republican Nominee in 2016 and Clint Eastwood’s, now iconic, bizarre skit involving a chair. However the most important point of the convention was Romney’s speech, and never a particularly charismatic orator, he had a tough act to follow in Rubio.

Romney went down the route, as taken by many of the Republicans at the Convention, to talk about his background, family life and the ‘American Dream’. The main issue here, on top of the fact the Romney family have a car lift in their house and lived a very wealthy childhood, was that Romney came on after Marco Rubio, who spoke passionately and emotionally about his upbringing in Cuba and then America. He offered the brilliant line, “my father stood behind a bar at the back of a room, so I could stand behind this podium,” which raised the roof in Tampa. Romney who had a far more privileged and far less extraordinary upbringing, sounded very forced. He would randomly slip in personal anecdotes, about how he grew up in Detroit and loves cars, and the scrapes his five boys got into, and it sounded as if the speech had been written by a unsuccessful screenwriter of poorly made Hollywood rom-coms.

Prior to the speech Romney’s campaign managers stated that he was going to tackle his faith, Mormonism, which is thought to be an issue with many evangelical voters. This naturally provoked excitement. The true Mitt Romney was about to appear, even if it was one that believed in golden plates found in the ground. Romney, very cleverly, sidestepped the issue really, saying, “my friends cared much more about what sports team we supported than what church we went to.” The only other mentions were that, Romney made a large amount of friends through church and pointedly, that America’s greatest freedom was the freedom of religion. Romney also rather liberally described Bain Capital as “a business in the business of helping other businesses.” It will not help him that today Bain has been subpoenaed by the New York police following possible tax evasion.

Before Clint Eastwood’s horrific gaffe and Rubio’s moving speech there was possibly the most powerful story which humanised Mitt Romney, at the Convention. It was a video clip of himself and his wife discussing their reactions to Ann Romney being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It really gripped the viewer and pulled them into the situation, and for that moment you forgot about the car lift and the golden plates and empathised and understood the Romneys. Rather sadly that was shown prior to the prime time television coverage. The Republicans could have really done with that replacing Clint Eastwood attacking Barack Obama for not asking the Russians what happened to them in Afghanistan. However despite Romney’s poor oratory skills, and detail free speech, I could feel the pressure Romney was under, and how much he wanted to be liked and understood. As opposed to Chris Christie, who just appeared to be an angry, sweaty orange, Romney genuinely wanted people to know him. Despite the plastic and contrived way that he was constructed, the pressure pulled real emotions out of him, and in the opposite way intended I began to see him not as a shiny, corporate robot, but a rather strange yet well meaning human. Even if his policies are completely ludicrous and borderline non existent, he came across as a fairly nice guy.