You sound like a Republican. Let’s look at the quote in context, shall we?
[QUOTE=Ann Romney]
You know, I think my biggest concern, obviously, would just be for his mental well-being. I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness and his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy, in his understanding of what’s missing right now in the economy - you know, pieces that are missing to get this jumpstarted. So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it.
[/QUOTE]
She’s not saying “he might go crazy,” she’s saying “I’m worried the job would take its toll on him.”
Let me ask this; is Michelle Obama concerned about the toll the job takes on Barack Obama? I sure as hell hope so. She’s his wife. If he doesn’t notice that his hair is greying at an alarming rate, she’s either blind or a sociopath. Why is Ann Romney wrong to say she cares about her husband?
Eh, you read her comment and you know what she meant. I read her comment and I knew what she meant. So I question that the phrasing was poor. Any reasonable person would understand her meaning.
Partisans might try to take her words and pretend they meant something else, that she was questioning her husbands mental health. But its pretty much impossible to speak at any length and avoid any construction that someone significantly malicious won’t be able to pretend to read in a manner that makes you look bad.
The Romney’s have said plenty of attackable things that they actually meant. I don’t see any value in hunting through their every public statement to try and twist their words into something they don’t mean in the desperate search for “gaffes”.
Because the way she expressed her concern has a negative connotation if you choose to interpret it that way. When I first saw the story and posted it here, the story had only a few hits. Now there are over 300,000: Google search
The story is now prominently featured on the front page cnn.com as “Ann Romney’s big concern.” Whether you agree or not, it is a newsworthy gaffe.
I agree it was poorly phrased, but it’d be incredibly scummy to use a technique patented by Lee Atwater against Tom Turnipseed. For instance, I think Stephen Fry, judging from the positions he’s made public, would make a fantastic head of state (there’s no chance he’d be elected one after what he said about Catholics though). However, he has bipolar disorder and that could be used against him very effectively by his political opponents.
There are six million hits for 'obama “didn’t build that” '. The list of things that have a negative conotation “if you chose to interpret it that way” is endless, and there’s no way for a candidate to avoid making any such statements. If your wiling to be obtuse enough, you can always find some fragment of a speech that “can be taken” to sound bad. Doesn’t mean the rest of us have to take such BS interpretations seriously.
The number of view hits doesn’t matter a whole lot. IMO what matters is the number of articles written about it by a press distracted from what otherwise might be articles about messages the campaign wanted to put out.
If you google Romney Mental Well Being you only find a hundred or so articles referencing the comment. In contrast, there were thousands of articles that referenced the “Stench” comments that Poliitico made up last week.
None of them are good for a campaign running out of time to get its message out, bu this last one is a very small drop in the bucket compared to so many others.
The republican national convention’s theme this year was based on a poor phrasing of something very un-controversial and factual to any reasonable person. It’s a mistake to leave yourself open to such soundbites.
That said I hope Obama takes the high road and does not touch this soundbite.