The Real Mitt Romney, Inside the Actor’s Studio
James Lipton offers some good, though likely impossible, advice to Mitt Romney (via The Dish.)
Politics is performance. This has never been more true than now.
Why is Romney so uncomfortable in his own skin? What’s under there that he’s so afraid we might see?
All politicians wear masks. Some wear more convincing masks than others. Lipton is right about Reagan. He was comfortable as an actor, comfortable as an orator. Despite his power and wealth, he could speak directly to people. Bill Clinton is another good example of a man at home in his various masks. His wife, not so much.
But whereas Hillary inevitably comes across as too cold, Romney comes across as almost desperate for our affection. It’s a bit painful at times. There are moments where I really want the veneer to come off. There are moments when I wonder if he’s always like this, even off-camera, even around his family.
Maybe this fake Romney is in fact the real Romney.
There are many things I like about this Real Mitt Romney video you posted. But none more than the momentary having Mitt’s voice come from Guy Smiley.Report
Having just re-watched the Lipton vid, here’s the thing. I get that this is tongue in cheek and meant for laughs. But if you take out all the little edits of Mitt played for yuks, this all seems right on target. Like, I think Mitt’s people would actually benefit from it. Like, I think if you hired someone to help Mitt with his general election campaign image rather than have an opposition piece, I think having this advise delivered would actually be money well spent.
How crazy is that?Report
No, I totally agree. It also makes me wonder (and suspect) whether they already have – and Romney is actually trying (again, too hard) to follow advice similar to this.Report
apparently the mormons have more scruples than the evangelicals. or maybe the “intensive training” didn’t take. at all.Report
I think the problem is the ‘real’ Mitt Romney is simply one that’s not appealing to voters. You can’t let the ‘real’ Mitt out if it does more damage than good.
The real Mitt? I’m afraid that’s the guy that likes to fire people. Who happily made his fortune grow by pillaging companies and destroying jobs, and probably never spared a thought for the lives he was overturning or the companies he ruined for his investors. The one whose job was the unpleasant, destructive side of capitalism.
That liking to fire people line? Nobody wants that guy for President, because while firing people is an unavoidable act of management — someone who enjoys it has got to be a bit wrong, by American standards. (Then again, I’ve come to firmly believe that modern companies require upper management to be hyper-competitive people with no sense of empathy or ethics, and thus we’re looking at a world of sociopathic companies – -because sociopaths will do best, the way things are going).
So the only question is if you think that guy, that liking to fire people guy — is Mitt or not. He goes out of his way to hide who he is. Maybe it’s all because of consultants and image counseling and PR.
Not that it helps – -the most likely case is Mitt is exactly what he looks like. A really, really, REALLY rich guy who wouldn’t know the average American’s life if it ran up and mugged him, and who will happily govern that way.
Which would have been a bit of an uphill campaign even before our Galtian Overlords melted down the world’s financial system.Report
There was this guy who was even less comfortable in his own skin than Romney. The harder he tried to be sincere, the more obviously he was phony, and the only emotions he could portray convincingly were annoyance, anger, and hatred. He was a congressman at 33, a senator at 35, vice-president at 40, damned near president at 48, and president for real at 56.
So, don’t overestimate how important this stuff is.Report
You forgot that he quit politics when he was 49.Report
It didn’t last.Report
Sure it did. They replaced him with a Skrull.Report
Was that before or after people got to see politicians on TV?
We’re a visual people, by and large, and when we see someone who isn’t ‘comfortable in his own skin’ we tend to translate that as “phony”, “liar”, or — at best — “not self confidant”.
All three of which a turn offs, electorally speaking.Report
In the beginning of TV in politics, before he’d really figured out how to use it. In the guy’s defense, politics was new to TV at the time and pretty much no one had figured it out. He figured it out later; someone else demonstrated the power of a well-written negative commercial. (Something about daisies…)Report
At 39 he used TV quite effectively to get himself out of a jam, even though when watching it now the phoniness makes you want to rip your eyeballs out.Report
What ever happened to him? I miss kicking him around.Report
Contra Lipton, Romney’s much better on the stump now that he’s bagged the nomination. I think a lot of leftpersons are getting their Romney in 20-second news gulps or from hostile clips from the usual left suspects, and have not updated their mental files.
I agree Romney’s laugh is clueless, the Boy Scout who hasn’t been around. Me, I think Obama’s laugh is mirthless, and kinda creepy. “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”
That kind of edge [edginess?] isn’t Romney, admittedly.
BTW, I think these postmortems are like, way premature. Romney has edged ahead in many or most polls. Yes, there’s a Prom King dimension to politics and that’s Obama. But Romney is definitely the type we elect Class President.Report
Actually, we treated Class Presidents as a joke. One time, in tenth grade I think, the exchange student from Germany came in second.Report
But the winner later appointed him school principal?Report
Ah, so the real power was held by the Prom King. I get it. Good retort as always, Jesse.Report
No doubtReport