Enter The Floorwalker

With Newt now six to eight weeks away from really declaring whether he will run for the nomination, Mitt Romney has now raised his head. Yesterday the Los Angeles Times had a piece about the many faces of Romney and whether we can choose one that is winning. The New York Times today obligingly reported that Romney feels his ticket to ride is on "Job creation". Worth some $140 million, Mitt Romney has had to overcome his usual wooden personality and appearance. His new strategy is an old one in Republican circles--create the New Romney. Like Nixon appearing on Laugh-In and saying "Sock It To Me", Romney has appeared on all the talk shows and comedy venues with his own lines and jokes to appear more human at the age of 65.

His latest gambit is to refer to Obama's Misery Index. Remember that old game during the 1980 elections? Carter had a misery index around 20, combining inflation and unemployment. So I guess Obama's is 8.9 with little inflation. As unemployment goes down, the index should remain about the same with increases in inflation. An almost perfect misery index would be 7--4.5 unemployment and about 2.5% inflation. Somethng tells me that this campaign stunt by Romney won't last long because someone is going to get wise to the phoney nature of the enterprise. It was clever with about 15% inflation but it doesn't work otherwise.

The other hurdle, which remains hidden right now, for Romney is to demonstrate he actually created jobs. He attacks Obama as "not having a clue about creating job" and mocks his new Jobs Council, which he would not need because he "knows" how to create jobs. But how accurate is that? He's made his fortune as a partner of Bains Investment Funds. I recall his speciality was corporate takeovers, which always led to massive layoffs to increase the company's profitability. Perhaps I'm wrong but I've never heard of Romney as a great job creator.

I think Romney's big Achilles heel in the Midwest is his opposition to bailing out the auto industry. When it comes time for the general election, I hope the Obama people run the videos of Romney denouncing the auto bailout night and day. People always say Romney has a lock on Michigan because his father was a well-liked Governor there but times may have changed.

Strangely enough, I think Romney will face today greater opposition because he is a Mormon. Polls still show Americans are less likely to vote for a Mormon than a black or a Jew as President. I happen to think anti-Mormon thinking is higher today than when his father ran for the Republican nomination in 1968. The reason for this is the rise of fundamentalist Christians after the Roe v. Wade case and their decades long quest to secure hegemony over the Republican Party. Mitt has established committees early on to act as liaison with evangelicals but given the teabaggers syndrome I still think this will be a huge hurdle to get over.

His advantage is that with his glossy black hair he doesn't look 65, unlike the grey visaged Newt. He also isn't unpleasant but when he tries to get tough it looks ugly.

What will be interesting is to see who Romney pretends he is. As a potential vice-president in 2008,suburban,college-educated Republicans began to lean toward McCain because they thought Romney knew about economics and was moderate. Once McCain went with Palin, these people were lost to the GOP. That can't fly with the Republicans today who have gone farther right than even Ronald Reagan. So what will be fascinating is to watch how Romney tries to defend his pro-choice position from his Senate campaign against Ted Kennedy and his Romneycare, which served as the model for the Obama Administration's healthcare reform. The problem with a Romney is that he is on video with positions that are diametrically opposed to each other. How does he square it? And does it matter when Republicans only want to win?

When your biggest financial backer is named Cock and your most visible leader is Boner, then why be surprise when someone is now named the Vibrator. George Will opened this can of worms by saying that the Republican candidates are vibrating weirdness and the biggest Vibrator was Mike Huckabee. Huckabee has tried to dig himself out of his week-long attacks on Obama's unAmericanness--first claiming he was raised in Kenya and had an anti-imperialist point of view, then saying he grew up near Madrassas and not Rotary Clubs. Huckabee's defense to O'Reilly was priceless--only the Left were interested in these statements. Obviously only the Left believe Obama was born in Hawaii and played on an all-state basketball team. Chris Matthews finally had enough of this by blasting Newt, Huckabee and Beck for being anti-American in their assertions. Matthews pointed out how typically American was Obama and noted he had most eloquent defense of American exceptionalism--"Only in America could my story ever happen."

But if leading candidates for a once major party still are slinging birther nonsense,the case is lost with a significant portion of the population. The half-governor of Alaska denounced Obama this week as inexperienced. I guess compared to her deep experience. This will be the meme during the primary season. Romney has stated he personally likes Obama but that the President doesn't have a clue as to the economy.

Meanwhile, the recovery is the fastest since the days of----drumbeat--Ike. It's strange how almost all the statistics for the recovery, the percentage of government employees per GDP and tax rates all go back to Eisenhower. It's beginning to sound like Hilary Clinton's campaign which waxed nostalgic about the Eisenhower era.

This week Barack Obama revved up his money-raising machine, which declares as their goal some $1 billion. But more ominously there is another phenomenon--22 states are trying to pass stricter laws on so-called voter fraud. The whole Wisconsin disaster started with massive voter suppression campaigns that brought Walker to power. The aim of these states is to suppress the votes of the young, the black and the Hispanics. All of them are aimed at Obama and not any real problem. The problem in the voter area has to do with voter registration and not those who cast the votes. This is a struggle removed from center stage and why you see all the nonsense about the New Black Panthers and the drumbeat of stories on the Right about so-called voter fraud. The majority of teabaggers honestly believe that President Obama came to power because of ACORN's efforts at voter registration. The same group had no problem with the 2000 elections.

A better index of the political fate of the country may be the Gallup Poll printed in today' New York Times about where the happiest people are--those that smile the most. It is bummer city throughout the South and grim through the key swing states in the Midwest. Even in Maine, it's happy from Portland to Bath in the south coast but dark everywhere else. Organizing for America might be better off using the Gallup happiness map for their 2012 plans.