EXTREME
MAKEOVER
“Extreme Makeover: Weight
Loss Edition is a unique undertaking that's unlike anything you've ever seen on
TV. The show documents the amazing makeover of eight courageous, obese
individuals who set out to safely lose half of their body weight over the
course of a year. The metamorphosis is truly amazing.”
This excerpt is directly from the
ABC website describing the network’s show broadcast Sunday evening in prime
time. I have never watched it. Just seeing
the trailers makes me feel sad and embarrassed for people so desperate to
change their looks in such a dramatic, pubic fashion. It appears so unseemly. Yet, apparently these people are so
desperate, they are willing to do whatever is necessary.
Which brings me to Mitt Romney. The “metamorphosis” he pulled off the other
night in Denver was “truly amazing.” It makes those folks on “Extreme Makeover”
look like pikers. I didn’t feel sad and
embarrassed by Romney’s extreme makeover.
I was alarmed.
I also was stunned by the President’s apparently
willingness to let “the severe conservative” – as Romney described himself in
the primaries -- get away with his disappearing act and reappear in the form of
a moderate Republican.
But, the more I think about it, the
more I can understand the President’s limp performance. He must have been flabbergasted. The person he had prepared to debate didn’t
show up. All the President’s talking
points, his zingers – they were useless.
Was this some kind of cruel joke?
In
retrospect, he could still have used them, of course, but his advisors had warned
him about being too aggressive and arrogant and dismissive. So apparently feeling stymied, he just
watched incredulously while Governor Romney jettisoned his conservative persona
and – presto! -- donned a new one. It
was a masterful, if unseemly performance.
To
be fair to Romney, running as a conservative or liberal in the primaries to
pander to the base and then racing towards the center once you have secured the
nomination of your party is not unusual among Presidential candidates. In fact, it’s fairly standard. But, dramatically changing one’s persona overnight
late in the general election campaign when you’re slipping in the polls is unprecedented,
at least in my memory.
And
it helps feed into the image many of us have of Romney, namely, that he wants
to be President so bad he is willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve
that goal. And to paraphrase the old
cliché, “anyone willing to do what he thinks it takes to get a job should not
be entrusted with it.” It also
resurrects the concern that has dogged Romney from the beginning of his
political career: Who is he? That’s pretty scary this late in a
politician’s career as lengthy and as public as Romney’s when even his
supporters can’t answer that question.
If
elected President, would he be the moderate Republican some claim? If so, they why did he choose Paul Ryan as
his running mate to be just a heartbeat away?
Just to reassure the base? If
elected, would he put Ryan on ice, pivot to the center, and work with Democrats
to achieve a moderate agenda? Highly
unlikely, with the strong influence the Tea Party and Grover Norquist have on
House and Senate Republicans?
Which
leads me to conclude: If consumers are
legitimately wary of buying from a company or sales staff with a reputation for
“bait-and-switch” sales gimmicks, why wouldn’t they apply that same concern
when voting for the next President of the United States and leader of the Free
World?
Gerald
E. Lavey
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