# Romney's biggest problem, IMO **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 23, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854 "2012-05-23T17:28:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/1 "2012-05-23T17:28:12Z")
While the polls are close now (even though the EC favors Obama far more), I see a big problem for Romney going forward, his personality. Romney’s awkward, somewhat robotic and unrelatable personality is not going to play well with the malleable middle. Of course he is from privilege, but that can be worked around, like Bush managed to do, if you can still come off as an “average Joe”. Romney’s problem,beside his blandness is in the fact that he cannot erase the veneer of privilege, from his offering to make $10,000 bets, to joking about being “unemployed”, to his school bullying, to his NASCAR friends, Romney is constantly reminding folks of how much he is not like them. That’s going to hurt. Bush was wealthy and privileged but he didn’t really flaunt it, he was folksy and generally pleasant, Romney simply is not. Bush seems far more Main Street than Wall Street in appearance, while Romney is the opposite. The contrast with Obama is going to be pretty stark once the campaign gets underway in full swing. Obama is charismatic, very smart and most importantly is a great campaigner. Romney is going to shrink next to Obama, IMO. It isn’t just about policy, but it is about who folks “like” and who inspires confidence in them. IN order to get that confidence you have to feel like the candidate relates in some way, this is something Obama will crush Romney on. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/2 "2012-05-23T18:40:03Z")
Watch for the Romney campaign to start negative ads that slag Obama for being from a privileged elite, and for being out of touch with the common man, and for being a bully. Watch also for ads that imply or even directly state that Obama was entirely responsible for the recession, and it was his policies that created it in the first place after GWB left the economy in a fantastic state. Watch for lies and fabrications so incredibly egregious that there will simply be no coherent response to them. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/3 "2012-05-23T18:45:19Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Watch for lies and fabrications so incredibly egregious that there will simply be no coherent response to them. I am sure the Obama campaign will come up with some incoherent responses. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/4 "2012-05-23T18:50:10Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I am sure the Obama campaign will come up with some incoherent responses. I’m hoping for something along the lines of: “What the hell is that unmitigated bullshit you’re trying to peddle?” They’ve already tried to tell us that Obama is a socialist Kenyan marxist ACORN funded muslim with an evil Christian pastor. I can’t wait to see how they can ramp this up. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/5 "2012-05-23T18:54:54Z")
I concur with the gist of the OP. Romney talks like a Conehead- “the trees are the right height… I read that book on the air craft…” He looks like he’s suppressing his gag reflex whenever he mixes with those with five digit incomes. Bush, perhaps because of his anti-intellectual demeanor, looks like someone you’d want on your bowling team. Romeny looks like the principal who’s kicking you out of school. Obama is someone who seems to genuinely like people and who people want to like- Rommey is the guy you’ll put up with when you have to. The Republicans settled on Romney because the alternatives were so embarrassingly inadequate. He won’t be so fortunate in November. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/6 "2012-05-23T21:02:50Z")
According to [_In These Times,_](http://inthesetimes.com/article/13219/the_gops_dukakis_problem) Romney has a “Dukakis problem.” Polls showed Dukakis leading GHWB through July 1988, but . . . > [@](#): > > It turned out that when voters actually learned more about Dukakis, they didn’t like him much. That was because the GOP succeeded in portraying him as an out-of-touch, weak-on-defense liberal. Dukakis responded by trying to remain true to his principles while recasting himself as a Cold War warrior, something he obviously wasn’t. Trying to be himself while also reinventing himself, he confused and alienated voters. > > Two major gaffes during the 1988 campaign reflected that tension. On the one hand, during a debate, Dukakis said that he would oppose the death penalty even for a person convicted of raping and murdering his wife. It was less the substance of his answer than the dispassionate delivery that damaged Dukakis. He came off as exactly what the Bush campaign had been saying he was: an out-of-touch bureaucrat. > > On the other hand, Dukakis strapped on a helmet and rode around in a tank, grinning, and gave the GOP a gift that kept on giving. The attempt at reinvention was too obvious and pandering, and the imagery was flat-out ridiculous.The Bush campaign used the footage in a commercial, playing it against a list of military spending and interventions that Dukakis had opposed. The ad closed by calling Dukakis a risk America couldn’t afford. > > That attack rang true for voters because Dukakis never found a way to present himself, or articulate his liberalism, in a way that didn’t come off as either bloodlessly bureaucratic or ludicrously out of character. > > It’s usually Democrats who struggle with this dilemma. Al Gore and John Kerry were poster children for it. But now, with Mitt Romney as their man, the GOP is saddled with the Michael Dukakis problem. Romney is torn between being himself – a man of extreme wealth and privilege – and being a reinvented version of himself who appeals to the average voter. So we have him, on one hand, saying that he won’t apologize for his father’s wealth and referring casually to “the couple of Cadillacs” that his wife drives. And then we have him telling a group of unemployed people who are struggling to find work that “I’m also unemployed.” ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/7 "2012-05-24T15:27:12Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > Bush was wealthy and privileged but he didn’t really flaunt it, he was folksy and generally pleasant. I have always wondered at the fact that while George W. Bush was one more generation removed than his father was from the need to earn a pay check George II had the common touch, while George I projected membership in an aristocracy. That was not necessarily a liability. John Kennedy made it work for him. Nevertheless, you knew that George I was to the manor born. It was easy to imagine that George II was the son of someone who worked in a post office and who was a successful football coach, or even a popular high school teacher. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romneys-biggest-problem-imo/622854/8 "2012-05-24T16:50:09Z")
And that was genius. Bush II managed to present a Washington outside narrative despite a campaign staff that read like a who’s who of past Republican presidential campaigns, a multi-million dollar trust fund, degrees from Harvard and Yale, and a dad who was a career Washington insider (not to mention POTUS and CIA director).