Tuesday, December 04, 2007

MITT ROMNEY

The 'Barney the Dinosaur' Factor in Romney's Speech

I'll have a longer report on the "local color" here in Manchester in a short while, but it's safe to say a hot topic among those who were attending last night's candidate forum*, and my blog traveling companions is Mitt Romney's upcoming speech. Or as it is now going to be known, The Speech.

The timing of this has been managed brilliantly by the Romney campaign. The news broke Sunday evening, guaranteeing that "what will he say?" will be a hot topic Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. He gives The Speech Thursday, and barring any huge breaking news, "How did it go?" and reaction will dominate a lot of the talk Friday.

Maybe Romney will give a brilliant speech; maybe after it, any further questions about his faith will seem awkward, forced, and snide - er, more awkward, more forced, and more snide than they already are. Maybe, as we now today talk about a "Sistah Souljah moment," we will say in the future that a candidate with a lingering issue that's difficult to address will need to give "a Mitt Romney speech."

But it's easy to see this not working out well. I fear that a little too much "I love my faith, you love your faith, we're all one happy family under God," will leave Romney sounding like Barney the Dinosaur. My personal taste would prefer a little bit of anger in this speech, a bit of what we saw when he got into it with that radio talk show host in Iowa. I think it's okay for Romney to tell us that his faith and his relationship with God is his business (and His business), and that he'll ask for our vote, but he won't subject himself to a theological SAT.

* See disclosure of MySpace's covering the expenses of this New Hampshire trip here.

12/04 01:50 PMShare