-The Huffington Post
But despite the fact that he constantly makes missteps, has an
image problem even with other Republicans, including the folks at Politico, and can’t seem to make up his mind up about
where he stands on any issue, he is still riding high just behind the President
in opinion polls.
So the contender is feckless, undisciplined with his mouth
while appearing to also be physically cut from a sheet of starch, and he
casually dismisses almost half the American electorate as dependent
victims. His disdain for voters could
have been guessed from all of the above, but it was cathartic to
hear it from his own mouth, unvarnished by the need to pander to the
group sitting in front of him.
It might have seemed risky, dismissing tens of millions of
potential votes out of hand, but Mitt knew that none of those in front of him
would say anything. They are elite
enough to buy a $50,000 plate. If people
who can afford to spend that much for dinner and some live entertainment think
about social issues or society at all, they only do it in an abstract way
related to how much slower the money pile will grow if the government appears
to replace economic growth with concerns not directly related to making money.
I know there are many wealthy philanthropists. Those people are almost universally NOT in
the business of making money with money.
The group Mitt spoke to was primarily made up of men from the financial
industry. People at the C-level in the
financial world don’t suffer fools lightly, unless he happens to be running for
an important political office.
And yes, I just called Mitt Romney a fool. You can stop reading here if you like, but
this isn’t actually about him. It’s
about the motivation of wealthy financiers to inject as much money as fast as
possible into Mitt Romney’s campaign, even though he appears to be a lame horse
in this race because of his many proven failings.
Mitt Romney brought his little dog and pony show (the live
entertainment) to this group of men, and talked about voters, his beliefs, how
dependency on government was a bad thing, yadda yadda yadda. He trotted out all his talking points and
played the part of social conservative.
I submit that the listeners didn’t care. They saw his mouth move and sound come out of
it. But that wasn’t what they were
evaluating.
The real test for them was, given the money they had just
spent, was whether or not Mitt Romney was their
man. Picture if you will a couple of
C-levels at the Country Club discussing the upcoming election.
“But can we trust him?”
“Of course we can trust him.”
“There was that thing in Massachusetts. How do we know he won’t try the same thing in
the Big Chair?”
“Oh, that. It’s
nothing. State politics is
different. Besides, we own him. He’s our
man. He can do whatever he likes, as
long as he leaves our interests alone.”
“Did we have any luck choosing his running mate for him?”
“We’re working on getting the name to float to the top, but
there’s still time.”
“It worked pretty well last time didn’t it?”
“Yes, Cheney kept our boy in line for 6 years. We started to lose him near the end, but it
didn’t matter by then.”
“Those folks down at Bear and Lehman got hit hard though.”
“I told them, but they didn’t get out in time. We took care of the ones that mattered.”
Fiction? Of
course. There is no way a group of
financiers would conspire to put someone in the White House. It would be almost impossible even for them
to hide machinations involving thousands of people in hundreds of locations. They are happy to support efforts that chip
away at the edges, such as voter ID laws, voting times, voting methods,
But they don’t have to buy the election. They just have to buy the fiction that there
is a battle between two opposing points of view, and keep Mitt Romney front and
centre as long as possible. It's icing on the cake that the dialogue that started 20 years ago with the Neocons has progressed to the point where without any convincing whatsoever, millions of poor Americans will continue to vote against their own interests.
The Romney campaign has been raising incredible amounts of money, beating President Obama four months in a row, although August numbers put the President on top.
Mitt Romney doesn't need to win for the financiers to be successful, because they have paid for people on both sides of the aisle. All they need to do is convince enough people that there is a solid division in American politics.
The Romney campaign has been raising incredible amounts of money, beating President Obama four months in a row, although August numbers put the President on top.
Mitt Romney doesn't need to win for the financiers to be successful, because they have paid for people on both sides of the aisle. All they need to do is convince enough people that there is a solid division in American politics.
