Romney: What You See Is What You Get?

I have recently traded emails with a friend in the entertainment business, a fellow Republican, who has been a Gingrich supporter and, since Gingrich’s prospects have dimmed, has turned his support towards Santorum. He says he and his wife have felt like Mitt Romney comes across as too slick. He told me in the past that Gingrich and Santorum were more truly conservative than Romney. I have refuted that sentiment in the past, so I will argue the question of Mitt’s slickness here.


I think I understand their feelings, about Romney—and I do categorize them as feelings and not thoughts, because I do not think they have thought it out from my perspective as of yet. However, I do not see Romney as slick. I see Romney as somewhat awkward and uncomfortable, which might look like slickness to some who either don't know him personally or don't fully understand where he has come from in his life. If you are Romney, you know you have a portion of the voting public who –I am not suggesting that you, the reader, are in this group, because you know if you are—jealously think Romney is a spoiled rich kid who is trying to "buy" the presidency, some who bigotedly think he is a member of a satanic cult, and yet others who think he's a racist. Sadly, some are in the Republican Party. I think Romney consciously tries to be careful what he says, knowing there are plenty, including too many republicans, who are waiting to seize onto any unguarded statement out of context to try to prove their beliefs about him. As I see him, Romney is really not a politician in the sense that most in the public eye are. He seems ill at ease speaking about the things he truly believes in "political speech". I think it's difficult for him to blow his own horn about his success in business or what a good and decent and religious family man he really is. I think it goes without saying that you will not get far in politics if you are humble about your accomplishments. But, if you are a man of principle and faith and you love America and feel strongly about the importance of saving the America, and you believe in personal responsibility to your country beyond your own personal comfort zone, you step out of that comfort zone and do the uncomfortable.


As a business man and as a lay minister in his church, Romney would necessarily be more comfortable talking about numbers and economic theories and religious subjects, stressing Christian compassion, repentance and forgiveness. I have not been in the boardrooms of big financial concerns, but I have served as a Mormon missionary in a foreign land, so I can speak to what Romney has experienced, serving as a Mormon missionary for two-and-a-half years in France at the ages of 19, 20, and 21, and as a Mormon Bishop and Stake President for more than a dozen of his later years would be great in a one-on-one situation counseling in a business situation, discussing bottom lines and productivity and how to create and to succeed financially. He would also be great standing at a pulpit encouraging faith, repentance, morality and Christian compassion and charity to one’s fellow man. He would not have spoken bombastically with unbridled emotion, but in subdued and rationally expressed thoughts. If you are looking for an emotionally charged, fire and brimstone presentation from an ex-Mormon lay clergyman, you will always be disappointed. Those kinds of presentations are the ones which appear slick and rehearsed to me.


Romney has spent much more of his life filling the aforementioned rolls than as a politician. When we conservatives hear and see the things the Democrats say and espouse, we marvel at the ease at which they keep a straight face, or at least their gullibility in believing the crap they say they believe. They can seemingly look at the sun and declare that it is midnight. I think it is safe t say that when you have learned to fake sincerity well enough, you are ready to have a long career in politics, especially in the Democrat party.


So, my suggestion for those who might genuinely think Romney a slick politician, you are probably giving him too much credit as a politician—or, discredit, depending on your point of view. You might rethink that thought. What I see when I look at Mitt Romney is an extremely successful Mormon businessman who, unselfishly, did not shy away from serving his fellow believers for many, many, years (without pay) in the past, and now feels compelled to serve his fellow Americans by sharing his wealth of economic knowledge and experience in a great time of need. What you see with Romney may or may not be what you get. But then again, if you insist on seeing bad, slick, Mitt, you will likely “get” what you want no matter what he actually does. Some see the glass as half full…