Right now Mitt Romney is very well positioned to win the GOP presidential nomination. His main rival Tim Pawlenty had a terrible debate (and he’s still trying to recover). Mitt Romney, however, has been acting like a frontrunner and now he’s trying out his general election strategy:
For a guy whose awkward sense of humor keeps raising eyebrows, this incident in Florida this morning probably won’t help Mitt Romney’s reputation.
Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop [in Tampa] on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.
“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”
I’m sure you’re all crying copious tears for the plight of “unemployed” multimillionaire Mitt Romney.
But when an extremely wealthy person jokes to people who are actually struggling about being “unemployed,” it rankles. Indeed, Mitt Romney became extremely wealthy in a way that seems relevant to this discussion.
“You see, Romney made a Mittload of cash using what’s known as a leveraged buyout. He’d buy a company with ‘money borrowed against their assets, groomed them to be sold off and in the interim collect huge management fees.’ Once Mitt had control of the company, he’d cut frivolous spending like jobs, workers, employees, and jobs. […]
In case you’ve forgotten, Mitt became a millionaire by running a firm that made money by firing people. He also served one term as governor of Massachusetts because Massachusetts couldn’t wait to get rid of him. His one accomplishment is now considered something to be embarrassed about by his own party.
And when I say awkward sense of humor, I’m not kidding. This video of Romney pretending that a waitress grabbed his rear was making the rounds this week. You really have to see it to believe it.
Somewhere I saw Mitt Romney described as John Kerry, without the charisma. I’d say that was accurate.