Nicholas Lemann has a piece on Mitt Romney in the October 1, 2012 issue of The New Yorker. Sadly it is behind their paywall, but I recommend it to those of you who get the magazine or have access through a library.
It reinforces the notion I have of the candidate - that this is someone who is supremely overconfident. At Bain he was able to tell businessmen two times his age, people who had much more experience than him and a much deeper understanding of their businesses, what they were doing "wrong" and move their companies to a newer model that, in the end, wasn't really better - but brought enormous power and money to him. He was a middle level authority in an exceptionally hierarchical and patriarchical church and was in a position to dictate to those below him. He sees himself as the perfect problem solver.
Businessmen rarely make good political leaders in Democracies or Republics. Perhaps in very hierarchical schemes such as dictatorships and plutocracies (what the US may be headed for ...).
Mitt also can't display his inner person to those who aren't directly connected with him. Combine this with his need to always say something impressive - his overconfidence and enormously strong belief in himself - and you have a very weak combination. I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of Mitt's gaffe's.
It has been said that the stupid single things candidates say during campaigns are in the noise - that they really don't matter. But, on the other hand, a few latch to a person. Mitt, with his 47% remark, appears to have illuminated who he really is. Someone who believes in those with confidence who make a lot of money and prove themselves. It is too easy, given the fact that he has presented himself as a nebulous wishy-washy person who isn't truthful and has several positions on each topic, for the voting public to take that statement made to his own kind and assign it as a fundamental value.
I disagree on his fundamental political position(s), but even more I think that his belief in simple models that yield to the solutions by the right minds is very dangerous given the complexity of the country and the world. He has shown he can't handle a large class of problems as he can't deal with empirical information. He can't even manage a presidential campaign and his own party.
Given the terrible economic woes that the country has - some of them triggered by corporate greed - perhaps it will be healing if a hugely overconfident businessman goes to defeat.
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