You can also have a look at the earlier posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I didn't expect this series to be so long! But, if you watch the news at all, you'll see fallacy after fallacy attacking the straw man Mitt (a weak version that isn't accurate) rather than considering him on the merits of what he is. Here's the breakdown of the previous posts: 1 is an intro and is pretty short, 2 and 3 are on the flip-flop charge, 4 is on Mitt's supposedly unprincipled ambition, 5 is on Mitt's supposed "lies," and 6 is on Mitt as the negative campaigner. This post addresses the oft repeated character attack that Mitt can't relate to someone like you and me.
Some attack Mitt for being "out of touch" with normal everyday Americans. This line of thinking is supported only by stereotypes and pigeon holing the "rich" and the "poor," so I'm tempted to believe no reasonable person would require a response. But, in case there is someone who comes across this blog who genuinely believes that Romney's wealth will be a deterrent to his ability to lead this country, let me briefly comment
It's a political trick perfected by McCain and Huckabee to allude to Romney's wealth and success without directly criticizing it. Huckabee's populist rhetoric has included the idea that people want their president to remind them more of the guy they work with than the one who laid them off, and that for him "summer" was never a verb while growing up. He's also criticized people who are born on third base and think they hit a triple. In every instance he could deny that he was referring to Mitt Romney, and I might believe him if the context and message were not so consistently and overtly anti-Romney in tenor.
McCain pulled something similar in last night's CNN debate as he kept throwing in irrelevant jabs at Romney for laying off people at Bain, a charge that ignores Mitt's record of creating more jobs at Bain than were lost.
Well, I hate to use a phrase that has been dirtied up by McCain, but let's have some straight talk. Romney wasn't born with a quarter of a billion dollars, he earned it. He made it not by robbing poor people, wrecking companies, and playing market games, he made it by improving things, adding value, and fixing what was broken.
Does Romney understand the plight of an everyday guy like me? Absolutely. There's plenty of evidence for those who don't want to start the discussion with an angry bias. Take, for example, Romney's involvement in the Mormon church. I know a fair bit about Mormons, and the fact that they use a lay ministry and require members to spend untold hours serving one another means that Romney has been serving and rubbing shoulders with normal guys on a weekly basis as a matter of religious observance. Mormons don't have fancy churches for rich people. They pack the Huntsmans and the Marriotts right in there with the homeless member of the congregation and the skilled laborers. For a bit more of a vignette, you can read this.
Huckabee understands the common man, I agree. But his populist rhetoric on the subject is divisive and wrong. There is no "common man." There are just Americans, no need to put up walls by insisting on categories.
McCain doesn't get it either. He's happy to lob insults at Romney, but his relationship to the "common man" doesn't have an obstacle merely in his wealth (of which there is plenty) but in his arrogance. A friend of mine from medical school relays this story from his uncle's first-hand experience with McCain:
My uncle lives in Arizona. At a hotel a few years ago he personally saw McCain verbally abuse a staffer who forgot to bring McCain's "step-stool" to make him look taller behind the podium (Looks like McCain's a small man in more ways than one ). My uncle described the verbal lashing out as "way out of bounds" and "vociferous." After that he's joked that he "wouldn't vote for McCain for dog-catcher."
I've never heard anything like that kind of class-minded absurdity coming from Mitt. Rather, Mitt has taken time from his campaign to help ordinary people who need it. McCain can't even take time from his campaign to do his duty as a senator.
Mitt Romney is in this race because he wants to help other Americans. He doesn't need to be president to enjoy the rest of his life in comfort and ease. But he's not interested in that sort of privileged idleness, he wants to roll up his sleeves and make things better for us all--from the richest to the poorest and everyone in between. He's said multiple times that there's not really "two Americas" as John Edwards would have us believe, just one. And as much as his opponents or jealous bystanders might want to create divisions to push Romney into some outsider category, Romney has always been and continues to be just a normal guy. A guy who happens to be as idealistic as he is capable.
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