Rational Actor

The Republican National Convention has come and gone, taking with it a visibly plastered Reince Priebus, Clint Eastwood’s sanity, and (hopefully) Mitt Romney’s shot at the White House. I realize political conventions and honesty typically go together like oil and water, but the GOP this year seems to have been bent on setting a new standard for lies-per-minute, particularly VP candidate Paul Ryan.

Aside from the lying, one of the major themes of the convention was trying to humanize Mitt Romney to the American public, which worked out like an alchemist attempting to transmute lead into gold.

There were several reasons for this, not all of them tied to Romney’s being a soulless, private-equity golem powered by tax fraud, diet Coke, and skinless turkey.

While Hurricane Issac reduced the number of opportunities to show Romney is a real boy by an entire day – proving that even GOD HIMSELF opposes his candidacy – the failure to make that message stick last night can probably be more blamed on Hurricane Clint. That’s what Mitt’s wife Ann basically said this morning, in comments echoing President Merkin Muffley’s description of General Jack D. Ripper’s madness to Premier Kisov in Doctor Strangelove.

Another big part of this year’s convention was pandering to minorities. This fared a little better. Donald Trump had originally been scheduled as the featured “celebrity” guest, and rumor had it that he was going to “fire” an Obama impersonator in the 21st century equivalent of a minstrel show, until the event planners wisely decided that having an old man argue with an empty chair would be slightly more dignified.

But, while blacks and latinos made up a fair number of the speakers, non-white faces in the audience were so few and far between that Fox had to resort to repeatedly training the camera on the same guy. Romney’s support among blacks remains at a steady 0%, which is hardly surprising, since he’s done quite a bit of dogwhistling on the campaign trail, lately, and even went out of his way to insult the NAACP to their faces in a craven gambit for increased donations from wealthy, racist honkies.

3 Responses to “Rational Actor”

By » Jonathan (September 4th, 2012 at 9:48 am)

Do you mean “caffeine-free coke”? I’m pretty sure Mormons can consume high-fructose corn syrup; it’s the caffeine that’s not allowed.

By » Deep Hurting (September 5th, 2012 at 12:33 am)

Nope.

By » Jordan (September 8th, 2012 at 2:24 pm)

They can actually have caffiene, just not brewed drinks. And they can’t have caffeine enough to get addicted to it. It’s this whole big free-will thing. It’s kinda screwy.