Romney: Rich Enough to Buy the Presidency?

Posted by The Crux | There's nothing wrong with wealth.  I, personally, think it's a good thing. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Mitt Romney feel likewise, having amassed between $190 and $250 million in assets (Houston Chronicle).

Wow.  Romney could, conceivably, fund his own campaign and still have a few-dozen million left over to live on. Good for him!  He's realized the American Dream.

At the same time, how can he honestly convince ordinary voters that he identifies with them?

Yes, Romney is human too, but even smaller amounts of wealth enable people to insulate themselves from inconvenient (even downright ugly) realities that ordinary people working 40+ hours a week and making five-figure salaries simply cannot avoid.

We saw clues of Romney's non-ordinariness two weeks ago: someone had publicly pointed out that while Romney supported sending more soldiers (ordinary folk) to Iraq, his five military-aged sons are at home working on his campaign.

Romney's extraordinary response: that his sons are serving the nation by helping their father's political career (Yahoo). Outside the Beltway said that it may have been "the dumbest answer ever by a presidential candidate."

After the press and blogosphere pounced on Romney, he went on Fox Not-news and back-pedaled about his sons' "service to the nation":

``I misspoke.... It's not service to the country, it's service for me, and there's just no comparison there.''

Comments

[jennifer hagstrom]

Just what we need -- another war-mongering Republican who never served in the armed services himself.