Mitt Romney has run for president twice. He has lost twice. But he doesn’t want the chief executive of the Federal government reminding anyone — especially Congressional Republicans in attendance for President Obama’s penultimate State of the Union address — of that fact. At least that’s the sense one might get from reading his Facebook post after Obama had finished his address.
Romney recently has said that despite spending three years telling the whole country he was done trying to purchase a ride in the Oval Office. His exact words have been that he is “considering” a run. If the Facebook post below is any indication, he fully intends to run. Because these are the kinds of Facebook posts one makes when they are trying to position themselves as superior to the one currently in office.
You can almost taste the bitterness in the grapes that Romney is eating. In case you missed it last night, here’s the moment that Romney refers to when he says that Obama “is more interested in politics than in leadership,” and according to Mittens why Obama is, “More intent on winning elections than on winning progress.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk2SLMp2PjQ
One has to wonder if Mitt started paying attention to the exchange between President Obama and members of Romney’s own party only when Obama scored the knockout blow of “I know, cuz I won both ’em” or if he had heard the assembled Republicans in the room clapping sarcastically when Obama said he had no more campaigns to run. It would appear to the casual observer at least, that the Republicans attempted to “troll” Obama, and Obama just sat back, waited for the right time, and turned their trolling right around onto the Republicans.
Obama’s line was very likely what set Mitt off to post his retort on Facebook. But Romney didn’t let a moment to remind his followers that the GOP won big gains in Congress go by either when he claims that Obama “ignores the fact that the country has elected a Congress that favors smaller government and lower taxes.” To some, that line is playing politics and would make Romney appear to be quite hypocritical. But the country hasn’t seen Romney spin on a dime that fast since he pivoted to the center after saying some of the most staunchly conservative, anti-immigrant, anti-gay statements in the Republican Primary, so it’s quite possible Romney just wanted to remind the country what he’s like.
Romney closes his Facebook rebuttal of Obama’s State of the Union address by criticizing Obama’s plan to lower taxes on the middle class by raising taxes on the richest people in the country both in terms of their income taxes, and by raising capital gains taxes to what they were in the Regan era. “His tax proposal is a maze of new taxes and complexities. The best way to lower the tax burden on all American families is straightforward: lower rates and simplify the tax code,” wrote Romney. To be fair to Romney, commentary on taxes is probably where he is strongest; after all it takes an artful knowledge of tax law to dodge the living hell out of it, does it not?
Maybe what’s really setting Mr. Romney off is the fact that Obama got to give his address from the floor of the House of Representatives, to an audience of millions of people all over the world, and he had to give his rebuttal to his Facebook fans. The Republican Party — the party that he tried to guide into the White House as their de facto leader — didn’t even give him a few minutes of air time to rebut the State of the Union. His party chose the pig castration queen, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) to deliver their official response. In other words, they’d rather send someone with shopping bags on their shoes out to deliver an official response on behalf of their party than the man who lost so soundly.
The only real surprise in Mitt’s sour grapes swipe at Obama is that he didn’t mention Benghazi, Hillary Clinton, or socialism. Maybe that’s the biggest sign one needs that he won’t get the party’s nomination. Some would argue that the GOP needs a moderate candidate; one that will speak to the groups of voters in blue states they absolutely need to capture to have a snowball’s chance in a very hot place of winning, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the lack of an incumbent on both sides will bring out the fringes of each party; and if Mitt thinks he can win his party’s nomination without learning the Republican Mantra of “Benghazi, Free Markets, Abortion is Murder, Amen” he has another heart break coming his way.
Then again, losing elections is the one thing Mitt Romney does in politics almost better than anyone else. So there’s that, at least..
