Paul McGeough, veteran journalist, author and political commentator, writes for the Sydney Morning Herald by way of a post-script about the US presidential election and how the world ought to be grateful that it hasn't woken up to find him readying himself to occupy the White House....
"Mitt Romney's bid for the US presidency failed because voters saw through him – as a candidate the man was a political chameleon.
On his second bid for the White House, Romney held nothing back – last week, a flip-flop; yesterday, a backtrack; today, a retreat; and tomorrow, a sidestep of what he had said last week or last year.
He needed to put Americans at ease about his vast wealth, but whenever he did his foot usually ended up in his mouth.
A sharply worded editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday argued that the only consistency in the Romney campaign had been the candidate's contempt for the electorate.
But that he went so close to becoming president reveals more than we might have expected about the people and politics of the global superpower.
When one of his competitors for the Republican nomination had damned him as "a Massachusetts moderate", Romney had defended himself as "severely conservative". But across the life of this campaign he left a trail of confusion as to who was the real Romney – the arch-conservative trying to win over the party base and the Tea Party crazies during the Republican primaries or the laid-back Massachusetts moderate who reached out to independent voters in the closing weeks.
Had Romney won the election, Americans seriously would be waking up tomorrow not having a clue about what to expect from their new leader."
"Mitt Romney's bid for the US presidency failed because voters saw through him – as a candidate the man was a political chameleon.
On his second bid for the White House, Romney held nothing back – last week, a flip-flop; yesterday, a backtrack; today, a retreat; and tomorrow, a sidestep of what he had said last week or last year.
He needed to put Americans at ease about his vast wealth, but whenever he did his foot usually ended up in his mouth.
A sharply worded editorial in The Washington Post on Sunday argued that the only consistency in the Romney campaign had been the candidate's contempt for the electorate.
But that he went so close to becoming president reveals more than we might have expected about the people and politics of the global superpower.
When one of his competitors for the Republican nomination had damned him as "a Massachusetts moderate", Romney had defended himself as "severely conservative". But across the life of this campaign he left a trail of confusion as to who was the real Romney – the arch-conservative trying to win over the party base and the Tea Party crazies during the Republican primaries or the laid-back Massachusetts moderate who reached out to independent voters in the closing weeks.
Had Romney won the election, Americans seriously would be waking up tomorrow not having a clue about what to expect from their new leader."
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