Reason 7--Itching Ears and Teeth on Edge

One of my biggest concerns about the challenger in this year's Presidential race is that I believe his ideological house is built upon sand:  the shifting sand of saying whatever it is that the demographic or slice of the electorate he is courting wants to hear.  If he was still the moderate Republican who ran for Senate in 1994, or for Governor in 2002, I could seriously consider him.  But since he began his Ahab-like pursuit of the Presidency, he has steadily and consistently steered himself toward the libertarian reactionary extreme of his party.  The party that used to be mine until those people drove me out of it.  So he has embraced the wingnut migration of the GOP, even while I have turned away from it. 

On a host of issues, since 2007, he has moved steadily towards the Fox News crowd and away from what he once stood for.  In some cases he claims an epiphany, but one suspects that the only epiphany Mitt Romney has had on these issues is that he won't get the votes of his party's aptly-named "base" unless he shifts to at least appear to agree with them.  They have been taught by Roger Ailes (i.e. Fox News) and his friends that one's "competence" and "character" mean nothing, that what counts is ideological purity.  And that, Mitt has given them.  I believe he is a competent leader, at least when things go his way.  (Don't forget that when he was "working with Democrats" in Massachusetts, he vetoed hundreds of bills, many of which were made law by overriding his veto--hence his single term.)  I believe he has personal character, keeps the standards of the LDS Church, and believes in the Gospel of Christ.  But I think politically he is like the false prophets Isaiah decries as saying what their listeners want to hear, rather than what is true--he gives soothing words to itching ears.  He may do this because he honestly thinks the hard right of his party is correct and he was wrong for most of his life and political career, but one suspects that there are other forces at play.  One suspects he has changed almost everything he ever stood for because he really has only one thing on his agenda--being elected.  Heaven and his polling team only know which Mitt we will get from day to day.  

The interesting thing to me is that his much-touted first debate performance was the Etch-A-Sketch moment his advisers had promised back at the time of the Republican Convention in August.  Having tacked his yacht far to the right to gain the nomination, in the general election (they said) he would tack back towards the center to appeal to moderates.  And so he did.   I made the observation that he had fulfilled this prophecy right after the debate, and some were roundly critical of me for doing so.  At least a couple of them thought I was complaining from the right that he had forsaken his new ideological purity.  No, no, folks, I was noting his latest morph in the quest for electability.  But I digress.

A few months ago, Romney was proclaiming the libertarian reactionary notion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is unneeded, that the states can and should lead natural disaster recovery.  After Hurricane Sandy he sings a different tune, because the need for FEMA to take the lead and respond vigorously, as opposed to making block grants to states and leaving them on their own, is palpable--so obvious as to be unmistakable.  Here is another of what I think of as Mitt's "Odo Moments"--referencing the shape-shifting character on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.  I offer this as the latest example, and perhaps one of the least, of Mr. Romney speaking to the itching ears of the electorate.  His words do not soothe my ears; to borrow another Biblical metaphor, they set my teeth on edge.  

The President is not perfect.  He has done a number of things I don't like.  He seems to care way more about making the homosexual rights advocates happy than I think he ought.  He should have concentrated on economic recovery and left health insurance reform on the back burner until the nation was more fully out of the abyss that supply side economics and deregulation put it into.  He favors certain economic interests in the City of Chicago over keeping Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.  But even in these things, he has at least been consistent.  I can accept a leader who consistently does a few things I don't like, way more than a would-be leader who will say anything to get the vote count he needs.  Hence, I will vote the same as I did in 2008--with less enthusiasm, but no less conviction that my choice is the correct one.