Why I Hate Mitt Romney

We’re just a few months into the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign and already a clear picture of the landscape is starting to emerge. More so than in previous primary seasons, this year’s crop of candidates is comprised almost exclusively of right-wing lunatics, and imposters pretending to be right-wing lunatics. This is thanks in no small part to the rising influence of the Tea Party, a group of racist social conservatives trying to pass themselves off as fiscal libertarians.

Given my own politics as a left-wing progressive (I hate the term liberal), one might assume that I would support someone like Mitt Romney as the lesser of the evils. But the opposite is true. My disdain for Romney far exceeds my ill-will for all the other candidates combined. The reason for this is simple. Romney is fake. He's a fraudulent, phony, opportunist. If duplicity were an undergraduate major, Romney would the dean of the department.

It's not just that Romney changes his positions on the issues to conform the political winds of the time. All politicians do this to some extent. Rather, it's the ease and brazenness with which he adjusts his position on character-defining issues in a way that indicates utter contempt for the intelligence of his audience.

It's difficult to think of a major issue on which Romney hasn't pulled a 180 at some point in the last decade. When he was pursuing his political ambitions in the perennially Democratic state of Massachusetts, Romney tailored his positions accordingly. He was pro-choice, he supported universal healthcare, he was in favour of allowing gays to serve openly in the military, and he was clear in his belief that climate change is real and caused by humans. Since then, he has undergone a political facelift that could only be described as spectacular in its completeness.

I got my first glimpse at Romney’s shamelessness during his failed 2008 presidential bid. While appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Romney, who is a devout Mormon, was asked by host Tim Russert how he felt about the fact that his church forbade blacks from becoming full members until 1978, when Romney was already 31 years of age. Never missing an opportunity to display his flair for fakery, Romney solemnly recounted a melodramatic fairytale about his reaction to the news that the Church had changed its policy. According to Romney, he was driving in his car when the news was announced over the radio. Upon hearing this, Romney wept tears of joy so uncontrollably that he was forced to pull over to the side of the road.

Yet when Russert asked Romney if the church had been wrong to deny Black men the priesthood (in Mormonism all full-fledged male members are considered priests), Romney obfuscated, equivocated, and ultimately refused to concede that the church had been wrong. This is partly because the Church of Latter Day Saints, like the Catholic church, has a grand wizard of sorts (the pope in Catholicism, the president in Mormonism), who, according to church doctrine, is never wrong. Therefore, for Romney to admit that successive presidents of the church had erred in not overturning this relic of pious racism, Romney would have been going against his faith.

It's interesting to contrast Romney with the only other so-called moderate in this year's field of candidates. Coincidentally, John Huntsman also happens to be a Mormon, although not in the same way as Romney. It has been reported that Huntsman and his children are nominal Mormons, who may enjoy the occasional alcoholic beverage, whereas Romney and his children practice a strict, literalist strain of the faith. Both men come from very prominent Mormon families, however Romney's roots are in the Midwest where his father served as the Michigan governor back in the early 70's. By contrast, Huntsman hails from the Mormon motherland of Utah, where he, like Romney, was a popular and successful governor. Although Romney cut his political teeth in one of the most liberal states in the Union and Huntsman comes from the undisputed reddest of red states, it is Huntsman who's held true to his more moderate stances, including his unequivocal acknowledgement of climate change as a man-made phenomenon, as well as his support for same-sex unions.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Huntsman’s chances of winning the GOP nomination are only slightly better than Lil Wayne's. But seriously... in the recent polls Huntsman is actually losing to the black candidate, Herman Cain, which should tell you something about his prospects.

I wish I could say the same thing for Romney. I fear that as the only legitimate contender with an IQ above the national average, Romney is the biggest threat to unseat Obama in 2012. And with his reputed business acumen, and occasionally sane views on social issues, Romney may be able to secure the independent votes required to pull it off. Fortunately, I think we can count on the stupidity of Republican primary voters to nominate Rick Perry, the C-student from Texas A&M.  He sometimes has trouble putting sentences together, and he’s been demolished by Romney in every debate so far.  But there’s a strong chance the Republicans will act in their usual, predicable manner of voting for the guy who speaks forcefully and sticks to his positions no matter how wacky they are.  And if that’s the case then Obama will make short work of Perry in the general election. On the other hand, if Romney wins the Republican nomination, Obama and his team better start preparing the attack ads. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with material for them.