Romney's main business experience is as a management consultant, a field in which smart, fast-moving specialists often advise corporations on how to reinvent themselves. His memoir is called Turnaround - the story of his successful rescue of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City - but the most stunning turnaround he has engineered is his own political career.
If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats. If you followed only his campaign for president, you'd swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you're left to wonder if there's anything at all at his core.
The editorial goes on to list Romney's most alarming flip-flops, with the devastating critique:
People can change, and intransigence is not necessarily a virtue. But Romney has yet to explain this particular set of turnarounds in a way that convinces voters they are based on anything other than his own ambition.
As my father occasionally reminded me, you have to be at least a little bit crazy to want to be President. That comes down to unbridled egoism and ambition. Maybe that goes with the territory, but if that's all you've got, then as the editors conclude:
When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it.
Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.
Regular readers of Nettertainment may recall that we've given our own tongue-in-cheek endorsements to both Mitt and Rudy, as early identified "fatally flawed" candidates (to use Karl Rove's term as he applies it to Hillary). You won't see endorsements for Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee or even John McCain herein, as each is a particular threat should they be nominated. And I've already forgotten that Fred Thompson is in the race. Haven't you?
But as Mitt is the anointed one, who's horrible Mormon explanation speech was attended by both George Bush Sr. and fiendish wife Barbara, and all I can ask the GOP gods is please, please, please nominate Mitt to run against Hillary, Obama, or John next November.
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