One of the bigger deals that's being made out of what he said is his "corporations are people" nonsense. It made no sense to the crowd, and neither did half of the other things he said, so instead of biting their tongues and pretending not to hear...they did what any good citizen would do. They spoke up. Well, actually, they shouted out.
Personally, I think they did a good job of schooling him, considering the platform they had to work with didn't involve a microphone and stage the way that his platform did. But, like with most Regressives, it just went in one ear and out the other. He not only refused to address their concerns in a manner that wasn't mocking, but he spoke to them as you might speak to your child when you're angry with him and telling him that something is the way it is because you darn well say so and that's just that. You know that tone I'm talking about? Yeah, that one. That tone that you got when you were being rebellious to your parents, or the principal's tone when he was lecturing you for something.
He also made it sound like since it was only his opinion it shouldn't matter in the long run to his presidential campaign. That's seriously the tone he used, saying that it was his opinion and if you didn't agree with it well...that was okay, because it was just his opinion. Which strikes me as quite odd, because if you're talking about policy and law...and you're up for elected office (especially if that elected office is the President of the United States of America) then your opinion is no longer personal and private, because if you win that election you will be using that opinion to govern. So, yes, its important for the people who might be voting for you to know where you stand on these things and also to take them into account when deciding on whom to vote for. If your opinions on those matters are unsound and ridiculous, then yeah...it should definitely count against you.
And, once he was done talking and making his "goodbye" comments, he made sure to pin it on just being the few in the front who "made sure to get there early," to "make their voices heard," and whom "probably wouldn't be voting for him." The way that he said it, the phrasing and the tone of voice, said a lot. It said that he had no real respect for those people, that their concerns and opinions didn't matter to him because they were not the same as his own (not a good thing for any person who wants to be elected to office, but especially not for a presidential hopeful). He mocked them, making them seem like troublemakers. All because they had the audacity to show up to listen to him give a speech and didn't like some of if it and told him so.
Apparently, according to Mitt Romney its only okay to make your voice heard if you're a fellow Regressive and if you're the type of fellow Regressive who agrees with everything that he has to say and doesn't make waves and whom will sit there while smiling and nodding at him like good little boys and girls.
Even if I were a Regressive, I wouldn't vote for a guy like that.
Another thing that he needs to be aware of, however, is that even his fellow Regressive constitutents as a majority are not happy with the Citizens United ruling. The movement to have that ruling changed or to have something done to fix it (like making a constitutional amendment) some other way is largely bipartisan. And if he's going to run for president and actually wants to win, he'd better start schooling himself on what his constituents think, not just what his fellow Regressive lawmakers and Tea Party lawmakers think. Because, the citizens do not agree with him, by and large in a bipartisan majority, that corporations are people.
I don't know if those hecklers really were just a few and really were just in the front (it sounded like more than just a few, and some of them sounded like they may be coming from the back, but sounds alone can be decieving), but he dismissed them as troublemakers, probably as progressive infiltrators of his speech...but it's unlikely they were troublemakers so much as concerned and educated constituents who also happened to be part of his Regressive base.
Note to Mitt Romney: I wouldn't alienate your own base if I were you. Not if you actually want to win a presidential campaign. I think an apology is in order to those people. But, I don't expect that one will be forthcoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment