But even as Romney, clad in blue jeans and rolled-up sleeves, hustled around his area of the gym, shaking hands, thanking supporters, and stacking cases of bottled water on top of each other, signs of stagecraft remained. As supporters lined up to greet the candidate, a young volunteer in a Romney/Ryan T-shirt stood near the tables, his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting, “You need a donation to get in line!”…. Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”…. The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said. Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to Romney. He took them, smiled, and offered an earnest “Thank you.”
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, politics- even with Election Day looming on Tuesday- seem something close to irrelevant. When you look at the devastation visited upon the Northeast and attempt to gauge and understand the unimaginable suffering created by the storm, how do you justify engaging in partisan politics? When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and President Barack Obama can pull together and recognize the need to bury the political hatchet for the common good, how can any politician rationalize diving back into the hyper-partisan atmosphere of a Presidential campaign?
And then there’s Mitt Romney….
I don’t have the answers to those questions, but someone really needs to press Romney on how he and his campaign can justify issuing a statement saying they wouldn’t be engaging in partisan campaigning…and then going ahead and diving headlong into partisan campaigning. At what was originally billed as a “victory rally” in Dayton, OH, the campaign decided to rebrand it as a “storm relief event” and score some cheap political points. It seemed so simple- have Romney give a somber speech extolling the need for donations, then the photo op featuring him accepting donations from beaming, worshipful supporters. Suddenly, Romney is rising above politics and doing the right thing while looking Presidential.
Easy, huh? Romney gets to display an abundance of compassion, and folks get badly needed items like canned food. Except that the whole thing was a cynical stage-managed exercise in hypocrisy.
The campaign’s first mistake was not consulting with the American Red Cross, who’s made it very clear that, while they need and appreciate financial donations, they’re in no position to accept canned food, clothing, and other items. The logistics of transportation and distribution are simply too costly and inefficient to be of value to their mission.
Then the campaign compounded their screw-up by putting their candidate in a situation where the “donations” he received from supporters had actually been purchased by staffers the night before. That Romney willingly participated in such a cynical and dishonest charade is hardly surprising. The foundation of his campaign for the past seven years has been lies, propaganda, and epic, almost unimaginable mendacity. Mitt Romney will literally say and/or do ANYTHING to be elected President. The fiasco in Dayton had nothing to do with compassion or trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. It had everything to do with a candidate primarily concerned with the appearance of compassion. It’s a lie…like virtually everything else in his campaign.
Not even perhaps the worst storm to ever hit the Northeast has been enough to keep Mitt Romney from his pattern of cynical dishonesty. I can’t even finds the words to accurately and adequately my disgust and disdain for a miserable excuse for a human being who’s repeatedly demonstrated he possesses no soul and even less compassion. I can only hope that Wednesday will dawn with him pondering his defeat and consignment to the remainder bin of history. Perhaps even more than that, I find myself hoping that karma will catch up and have its way with him.
