http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Massachusetts
Rebecca Knight of FT.com just copied and pasted an amazingly un-intelligent story from David A. Fahrenthold. Both stories say exactly the same thing, and I’m sick and tired of it.
While Mr. Romney succeeds at portraying himself as a "solid, good guy", Prof Stewart said he loses points with professionals for the way he has treated Massachusetts "as a political whipping boy". In various out-of-town speeches, Mr Romney has portrayed the state's liberalism as a foil to cast himself as a conservative fighting blue-state waste, according to Prof Stewart.
"He is running against Massachusetts by playing to his conservative base at the expense of the state where he is governor," he said.
These stories quote a “Prof Stewart” and a “Yanek Mieczkowski”. I do not think that either of these people exist, because no professor would actually say something so stupid. I believe that Rebecca night, David A. Fehrenthold, Prof Steward, and Yanek Mieczkowski are all one person trying to pull off some weird scheme (or all of them are very stupid real people).
All of these people (this one person) need to relax, or try harder to find an issue to attack Romney on. Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.”
Mitt Romney did not make his state the butt of his Jokes. He did not even make Massachusetts liberals the Butt of his Jokes.
Romney said, "Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention."
Did he say that liberals are bad? Did he say that people in Massachusetts are bad? No. He pointed out a fact: that there are not very many republicans in Massachusetts. If the main stream media keeps portraying this as an attack on Massachusetts, I am going to get angry, and then, be very sad, after 5 stages including denial.
Massachusetts is the most democratic state in the union, and pointing this out is not attacking the state, and it is not something that reflects poorly on Romney. Professionals will not think Romney is acting unprofessional by saying that "there are not very many republicans in Massachusetts".
It doesn’t even make sense, and only the stupidest of reader would read this as objective reporting, or would come to the conclusion that Romney is in trouble for making fun of his state, simply by pointing out that as a republican he is in a minority.
I am glad that I live in the internet age, were I can respond to this article, but it is not very satisfying. I would rather go back before the days of the newspapers, back to the days when you had to talk to people.
I believe that when people ran the risk of having to defend their assertions, fewer stupid things were said. Before newspapers, if you said something stupid, the people listening to you could call you on it. But today I hear the same thing over and over again: “Mitt Romney attacks his home state”.
This type of thing makes me dislike the world I live in. I’m not meaning to go over board or try to make a bigger issue out of this than it really is, but the world is so stupid. It is frustrating when things don’t seem to be the way they should be. Moby has an album called “everything is wrong”. Well everything is wrong. This article should have a place for people to respond. It should have two columns, were people can post reasons to agree with the conclusion (Romney is using Massachusetts as a whipping boy) and a column for reasons to disagree. And when you click on each reason you should be able to submit reasons to agree or disagree with those reasons. But no one is interested in finding the truth. No one cares.
People don’t really believe Romney hates the state that he lived his whole life in and raised his children in. People don’t really believe that Romney makes fun of his home state, when all he said was there are not very many republicans in Massachusetts. They just think it will hurt Romney to say that he is making fun of his home state, and so they say it, because there is negative consequence for saying stupid things. There is a vast army of people that want to believe negative things about Romney, who will believe, and repeat the assertion without spending ½ of a Watt of brain power, thinking about it.
You don’t have to make any logical sense. If you Google “Mitt Romney Massachusetts whipping boy” you will find thousands of pages asserting the stupid conclusion that because Romney said there are not very many republicans in Massachusetts, that he is guilty of making fun of his home state. And what can you do? How can you fight so much idiocy? And am I harming Mitt Romney by calling these things idiotic? Am I supposed to play nice? Mitt Romney doesn’t fight back. He just keeps on smiling. Some times I look at Mitt Romney’s smile, and think he has an idiotic smile on his face. He must be deaf. How can he suffer so many stupid things being said about him? If I was him, I would be angry all the time…Is he deaf? Why doesn’t he get mad?
So I just try to point out things that don’t make any sense, but in a crazy world, the sane are insane.
I would like to speak to the author of this story. I would like to hear an apology. I would like to understand how he could accuse mitt Romney of attacking Massachusetts. I would like to know the rest of the story. Who is this guy? What are his interests? What made him want to write this story? Does he believe what he wrote?
* "There's no question I do love jokes," Romney answered when queried on this point. "Indicating that there are very few conservative Republicans in Massachusetts, I do not think is a surprise to anyone inside or outside of Massachusetts and is in no way an indictment of the state. If anything, it's a recognition that I have to do a better job of recruiting Republicans."
** Governor Mitt Romney, Mighty Mitt Romney, By Shawn Macomber, The American Spectato, [04-21-2006]
As for Democrats' complaints about the amount of out-of-state traveling he's done, Romney refuses to repent. "My guess is my travel outside of the state has been far less than either Michael Dukakis or Senator Kerry," he said, adding, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and I would encourage my Democratic friends to remember that."
So, to be clear, did Romney -- who came here in 1975 to seek degrees from both Harvard Business and Law schools -- pursue the governorship out of some Machiavellian plan to attain higher office, or does he love the state he leads?
* "We've lived here now 34 years, raised all five of our sons here, and paid a mountain of taxes here," Romney noted. "You don't do that unless you enjoy the state and the economic, social, and cultural opportunities which it provides."
** Governor Mitt Romney, Mighty Mitt Romney, By Shawn Macomber, The American Spectato, [04-21-2006]
Links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501146_pf.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15817005/
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/humor
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Massachusetts
~~~Mike