Mitt goes for gold in the under-estimation race
Four years ago I was in Berlin with Barack Obama when he drew a crowd of 200,000 swooning supporters on a sweltering day in the Tiergarten. Obamamania was rife. The tabloid Bildzeitung showed a front page montage of the German cabinet suffering from Obama fever.
This basically involved photo-shopping dark skin and curly hair on Angela Merkel and her cabinet. It was tasteless but it made the point of blind adoration for a man who was, at that stage, still a candidate but who gave the world what it desperately wanted to hear: a wholesale rejection of the years of George W Bush.
That was then, of course. The fever has subsided. Reality has had three-and-a-half years to put its feet up and throw popcorn at the telly. At the time the Republicans complained that Obama was engaged in a premature victory lap, which displayed all the hubris of the candidate Oprah had anointed as “the one”. Fair enough.
But fast forward four years and enter “Mitt the twit”, as the irreverent British tabloids dubbed the bloke who dared to criticise his host’s Games before the Queen had even put on her parachute. Mitt Romney is still clocking up air-miles on his pre-election world tour. It was never going to be a grandiose affair. Mitt did not expect to make anyone swoon.
His main purpose has been to throw red meat to his supporters at home: on Iran (let the bombs fall if they must): on Israel (he controversially called Jerusalem “the capital” while the city served as his backdrop); on China (a trade war? Bring it on!) This may or may not embolden Jewish American voters in the active adult retirement communities of Florida. It may stiffen the jaw muscles of blue collar workers in rust belt Ohio. But such foreign policy bluster is more likely to frighten voters at home who are in no mood for any kind of foreign adventure.
Furthermore whenever Mitt goes muscular on a global issue he almost inevitably meanders back to milk-toast. This reflects his wobble on domestic matters where Americans have come to grasp that the only thing about Mitt that doesn’t blow with the wind is his helmet-hair.
Romney may be fabulous at fixing the economy –the issue he is running on. He may be awesome at rising early, thinking clearly and making lists. I would expect nothing less from a man who has never had a pint of beer let alone a coffee in his life (Mormonism forbids both). But he is an awkward candidate who has so far failed to find a recognisable voice.
As a fabulously wealthy creature of the corporate world and a Mormon he is used to living behind high hedges. Reaching out and chatting to the neighbours just isn’t in his DNA. His blunt political antennae, the dogged obfuscation around his past tax returns and his almost extra terrestrial gaucheness on stage are all part of the same problem. And when he becomes the butt of jokes told by one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson Americans take note and cringe. Obama’s big problem was over-estimation. Romney seems to be going for gold in the under-estimation stakes.
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