Mitt Romney is the zombie Ronald Reagan

Posted on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 10:06 AM

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Why is Mitt Romney the presumptive GOP presidential candidate?

It's a question we may think we know the answer to, which explains why so few are asking it.

It's a question the party itself probably doesn't want you to ask, because of what it reveals about its current internal state.

In the aftermath of trauma, individuals will often repeat familiar rituals that once provided them with reassurance, even though their new circumstances may have changed dramatically. They do they this to bring the reassuring past into the fearful present.

Even if its only pretend.

If you squint hard, and I mean hard, it's almost possible to see the outline of Ronald Reagan standing behind Mitt Romney. From a distance it's 1980 all over again.

A smiling throwback of a man who you underestimated at your peril, Reagan looked like 1950 in 1980, and that turned out to be exactly what the public wanted. They wanted rituals and figureheads that provided reassurance, they wanted yesterday, they wanted daddy. Baby boomers voted for Reagan in a landslide.

Romney's supporters, and will you be surprised to hear there aren't that many off them in the GOP, are going that a bit of the Gipper's charisma will animate their pick. But the desire is in itself a proof of their desperation, not their strength.

If you squint Romney has all the surface similarities, but it's as though all the juice has been squeezed out, all the charm, all the twinkle, all the wisdom and life experience of Ronald Reagan, seems missing. Romney is zombie Reagan. It's what the race has come to.

That's not enough to win. But goodness does it tell us a lot about the current condition of the party that reluctantly picked him.

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eiriamach | May 23, 2012, 02:33 PM EDT

What a weird argument, BrianO! To free up manufacturers, get the government out of the way so that factory owners can keep wages at near-slavery levels while not even paying taxes on their excessive profits? That scenario was the reason why America had a labor movement and developed strong unions, which corporate interests then used political power (wealth) to weaken and dismantle. It's possible to produce wealth for owners and fairness for workers-- both-- as well as taxes to pay the government watch dogs. It's possible, that is, if greed does not have absolute freedom.

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BrianO | May 23, 2012, 10:31 AM EDT

so you want capitalism without capitalist, I'm just asking you to be honest, to constrain free marketers is to retard production and manufacturing. Apple was run by a political liberal steve jobs, he had an idea produced it on a shoe string, competed against the odds almost went bankrupt, continued to improve and innovate and eventually took over market share. The manufacturing of his products however takes place in china, why? are Americans too stupid?, unwilling?,. The realty is china manufactures because it has slave labor or extremely cheap labor, to produce in china and distribute through a foreign country you avoid a 35% corporate tax, The infra structure of plants to produce in the U.S besides being expensive would require so much regulation and red tape as to be virtually impossible. Hell you can't even put a deck on the back of your house these days without three or four state and local bureaucrats involved. China has none. You want manufacturing then get the government out of the way.

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eiriamach | May 22, 2012, 05:07 PM EDT

My alternative is capitalism with close government regulation of the finance "industries." Until we resurrect real industries-- those that actually manufacture products or build things-- we need severe constraints on "free marketers" who make millions of dollars from selling worthless pieces of paper to organizations that invest our pension money, mortgages, savings, IRA's and 401k's. The "industry" called Finance became the major contributor to GDP in the 90s, created the economy-killing bubble, and continued unrestrained until its unethical risk-taking impoverished the middle class and depleted our national wealth. Chase Morgan's recent fiasco demonstrates that such problems are endemic to the finance "industry." Vulture capitalism that enriches the very few while impoverishing very, very many is not an ethical economic system.

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BrianO | May 22, 2012, 09:20 AM EDT

U.S economic system has been free market capitalism. So what is your alternative, socialism, marxism, communism ?

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eiriamach | May 19, 2012, 04:22 PM EDT

Romney is a Don Quixote who still thinks Russia is our "geopolitical foe," the enemy we should fear. In truth, the moral hazards of our own economic system have proven to be our worst enemy, and not only our enemy. When we looked strong economically, Europe emulated us and EU nations crashed along with us. If Reagan's defense spending had deterred attacks, as he envisioned, there would have been no Iraq or Afghan war. Reagan gave a classic defense of military spending in his "star wars" speech in 1983. Weapons systems become antiquated very quickly, so he called for investment in new weapons. What he did not foresee was that the enemies who struck on 9/11 had no fear of our sophisticated weapons systems; they were planning to die to defeat us with terror. Reagan asked, "Wouldn't it be better to save lives than to avenge them?" He didn't know an Al Quaeda ready to die for 'vengeance' on us. It's a new world: heavy defense spending is not the route to peace, nor will it yield security. It's forgivable that Reagan could not foresee the rise of terrorism; it's unforgivable that Romney encourages the delusion that military spending can buy security from it.

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Intercessor | May 18, 2012, 01:05 PM EDT

Ronald Reagan gave many people a sense of security, which after 9-11, we lack in this present day. He encouraged the development of a weapons systems that proved it's worth in the first Gulf War and shattered the power of Saddam Hussein in the Second Gulf War. Now, the States are still embroiled in the same Gulf War (which people are unafraid to call, "The Third Gulf War," for fear of being "politically incorrect!" Now. more than ever, the States are calling out for the kind of "Security" which we felt in the Reagan years, even when his wife, "Nancy," was our de facto president!

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BrianO | May 18, 2012, 10:13 AM EDT

Always nice to have someone who despises Reagan categorize another potential president he also despises, please just be honest. You despise much in this world, and think most need to be controlled and not worthy of personal freedom.

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eiriamach | May 16, 2012, 04:29 PM EDT

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "I don't believe in a political party that protects its members from themselves."

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