The Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman provides our political Quote of the Day. Fineman seems dismayed by ormer Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s seemingly pro forma Presidential candidacy announcement — and the behavior of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:
In New Hampshire this week, somebody doesn’t get it — either Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin. Maybe neither one does.
Romney declared for president the old-fashioned way, with a picture-perfect, substantively vapid speech in front of a flag-draped barn and a chili-fed crowd of the usual political suspects.
Meanwhile, like a hurricane or a hitchhiker, Palin worked her way up the coast solo in her non-campaign bus, without bothering to tell the state chairman that she was coming, or telling the press — which was following her in an ever-lengthening convoy — where she is going to host a clambake (Seabrook, evidently).
The national press corps at the Romney event noted the respectful but hardly wild reception for the candidate, even as they spent most of their time trying to figure out where Palin was going — and whether they had the time to catch up with her.
“She’s a cultural figure, not a political one,” said a member of the Romney team, dismissively. But the opposite is true as well: Romney is a political figure, not a cultural one.
Even by the empty modern standards of announcement rituals, Romney’s speech was remarkable for its cursory, content-free nature.
Indeed, as I’ve noted HERE Mitt Romney seems like someone stuck in two time tunnels. Romney has become the equivalent of a short weather report about a nice day: he has become boring, even though he offers content. Meanwhile, Palin seems to be auditioning for a career on the stage as a scene stealer who needs, demands, craves attention — and it seems not strange at all that she seems to feel a kinship with Donald Trump.
In another time, Romney might be the perfect GOP candidate. In another time, Palin might be a smart choice for a party that wants to fire up part of its base.
But both provide big risks to the GOP om 2012 due to their opposing styles: Romney who has offered mroe flip flops than a shoe catalogue and Sarah Palin who seems to want to rewrite American history and could be mercilessly lampooned by comedians and in Democratic party commercials.
Romney seems to lack the courage to stick with his positions; Palin strangely seems to lack the willingness do to the hard work many candidates do in preparing to discuss issues in detail or even talk d with accuracy when she cites history that generations of Americans have learned and known.
The tragedy: both in varying ways are extremely talented politicians who have “the makings” but can’t overcome their hubris.
That doesn’t mean neither can defeat Barack Obama if the economy continues to tank or if Obama has to make some compromises that upset his own party’s liberal base (which several times in American history has forgotten about tiny things such as Supreme Court appointments as they stayed home to punish their own party and lose elections). But Romney’s by the numbers without passion and Palin’s show biz pizazz without solid content will make any win tougher for the GOP.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.