Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Voters Might Appreciate the Serious Romney


wall street journal ^ | 5/2/2012 | DOROTHY RABINOWITZ



From all corners of the commentariat, advisers friendly and unfriendly have declared it time for Mitt Romney to reveal himself—to let go at last and show the real Mitt he's allegedly been keeping secret. A fetching notion, but not the kind that wins elections. Forget the real Romney.

Voters looking for a victory over Barack Obama would settle for the Romney on hand—the only real one, and unlikely to get any more so—as long as he's equipped for the requirements of the battle ahead.

It would help if he showed, first of all, a capacity to run a campaign not obviously dependent on the latest polls, or the fears of consultants. He could begin by ignoring the chorus of hysterics agonizing over the gender gap, then proceed to comport himself like a presidential candidate who grasps that women see themselves as citizens like any other—not as a separate group assigned victim status, to be favored with special tenderness.

He could see to it that the women of America aren't favored by any more shout-outs from Ann Romney during his campaign appearances. The Romney campaign has had some famous streaks of tone deafness but nothing quite as strange as Mrs. Romney's congratulations to women on Super Tuesday night, with arm-waving and huzzahs, cheerleader-style. Women were concerned with things like the economy, with jobs, Mrs. Romney joyfully announced. A testimonial that suggested, unmistakably, that this interest in jobs and the state of the economy was—in the view of the Romney campaign—a new and wondrous achievement for the gender that had had, until now, hardly a thought about such matters.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...

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