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Romney, The R’s Al Gore
I was at a gathering of journalist types Tuesday evening and remarked that I think of Mitt Romney as the GOP’s Al Gore. Let me count the ways.
- Voters aren’t very excited about his bid (he’s not the kind of guy that inspires passion).
- His stage presence is … to be kind … stilted.
- He has become a professional politician.
- They’re basically the same age (March 1947, Romney, and March 1948, Gore).
- They both went to Harvard (Romney as a grad student, Gore as an undergrad).
- Their fathers were career politicians.
How they are different:
- Gore went to Vietnam; Romney got a deferment (dove/hawk irony, yes?).
- Gore went to Divinity School at Vanderbilt and then law school; Romney went to France as a missionary and then to Harvard where he studied business and law.
- Gore began serving in Congress at age 28; Romney was still in college at that age.
- Gore only ran for president once.
I don’t remember any Al Gore missteps like the $10,000 bet, but the bet made me think of the John Edwards hair cut and how political reporters can elevate the trivial in their search for a click-on-it (and share!) headline.
Then that made me think about the dog kennel on top of the car, from the 2008 campaign. It’s pretty sad that this is what I remember about Romney from four years ago; it’s a testament to imagery.
And like John Kerry, Romney has been attacked as a waffler, flip-flopper, a “which way is the wind blowing?” kind of guy.
What do you think? Am I all wet?
6 Responses to “Romney, The R’s Al Gore”
Well we could also compare Ron Paul to Harold Stassen who ran for President 12 times, since they were both Republicans, then say they are not alike because Stassen was not an isolationist and Paul is.
If we try to tie one man’s background to how another man might govern I think we might get so far into the grasses we might get lost.
I commented on another thread that with the win in Florida it was only a matter of time before we started hearing about Romney strapping the dog on top of the car and the other little tidbits that are thrown out repeatedly by the media “so that we could get to know the candidates.”
And how appropriate that the very first one is in a post comparing Romney to Al Gore, the candidate whose campaign coverage was finally reduced to trivialities, four button brown suits, taking advise from, gasp, women, and outright lies, he said that he invented the internet, that Love Story was about him, that he discovered the pollution at Love Canal. The sum of it all destroying his credibility and paving the way for George W.Bush to become president.
How did that work out for the country? Well, thousands dead in the World Trade Centers and in a war started by mistake, trillions of dollars in added debt, the largest depression since the Great Depression, tying the good name of the country forever to torture, building the most pro-corporate majority on the Supreme Court in five generations, etc.
Our media must be very proud.
Al Gore ran for president twice: in 1988 and 2000.
Mitt Romney is like Al Gore in some respects, and not like him in others. So am I.
What does that mean? I agree with The Ohioan that it means pretty much nothing. It is a different time, with different people, with different problems. Instead of making such comparisons, why don’t we just ask the people who they like? Romney is running almost evenly with Obama, last I checked.
Sure, there are similarities, but the differences are even more significant. Gore has spent much time and energy advocating for causes greater than himself. Can Romney say that?
@Zephyr: A loaded question. Romney has been advocating for money–isn’t that greater than everything?