Anybody else think it's ironic – or at the very least slightly tone deaf – that, in an economy flooded with foreclosures, overrun with occupiers and drowning in debt, the Republican Party floats its richest front-runner ever?
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I couldn't agree with Mitt Romney more that he doesn't need to apologize for being a successful businessman. Or for taking advantage of our convoluted system to cut his tax burden – we all do it every year, or at least try. Like my closest Republican friend told me repeatedly, Romney's like a successful George W. (with the personality of Al Gore, I always add.)
But the reason he's struggling is because of the increasingly clear divide he represents between Wall Street and Main Street. He's repeatedly revealed his disconnect with regular folk throughout the campaign – from $10,000 bets to shrugging off six-figure speaker fees as "not much" to Cayman and Swiss offshore bank accounts. While Americans desperately want to send Mr. Smith to Washington, the GOP gives them Gordon Gecko.
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And, now we have Romney so desperate to get back on top that he's offering a million-dollar bounty for paperwork on Gingrich? Does he really have no idea how "make it rain" moments like these make him look? And I could care less about the tax returns, but the way he wavered on this issue for days made him look like he had something to hide. It took a primary beatdown in South Carolina for him to finally acquiece.
The Tea Party's battle cry might be "taxation without representation," but it sounds more like a party clinging to "representation without taxation."
And when Romney breaks out of his cigar store Indian mode, his self-righteous attacks on his rivals comes across as desperate and simply unpresidential.
On the other end of the central casting spectrum, we have Newt Gingrich, a brilliant politician with some character flaws. But, at a time when voters are much more concerned with jobs and Washington, morals – and social issues in general – hardly appear to be the issue Santorum still thinks they are.
The Republicans appear to have narrowed their choices to electable and relatable. And barring an economic collapse in the next nine months, I'm afraid Obama's all but assured another four years.
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