A River In Egypt

We Are Not Electing An Economist-In-Chief

The conservative party line is that Mitt Romney is the best choice for fixing this economy. I agree. So, let President Barack Obama appoint Romney to head up this effort in his second term. If you need the toilet fixed, you call a plumber. You don’t make the guy mayor. Romney may be uniquely qualified as an economic fixer. However, as a presidential candidate, he is lacking in virtually every other area. If fixing the economy was all a president needed to do, there'd be a Romney-Ryan sign posted in my yard. But the presidency is bigger than that. Bigger than Mitt Romney. If little else was achieved in Monday’s debate, it aptly demonstrated that whatever estimable skill Mitt Romney may or may not have as a businessman does not extend much beyond that periphery. Monday night, Mitt Romney did precisely what he needed to do: cover up and lean into the ropes. He took absolutely no risks, laid out absolutely no vision. Other than a few wonderful moments where the president aptly demonstrated Romney’s cluelessness (notably Romney’s child-like insistence that more ships equals a stronger Navy, which led the president to patiently explain that ships have improved since 1917, so we don’t need as many, “…we also have fewer horse and buggies and bayonets, Governor…”), the debate was a study in Romney’s confident caution and the president’s desperation to draw him out to better demonstrate how dangerous an idea it is to make this guy commander-in-chief. All of which made the evening much less enjoyable than last time and of much less value to the American voting public, at least half of which are simply choosing to ignore the obvious and gamble with the future of the nation if not the world by elevating a clearly disingenuous con man to leader of the free world. This shouldn’t surprise me, they’ve done it before—I found George W. Bush’s Supreme Court appointment to the presidency to be unfathomable and his reelection simply astounding, given his demonstrable incompetence. And, thanks in large part to the president’s stunningly incompetent reelection campaign and historically bad performance in the first debate, he’s all but handed the election to a man even the people voting for him do not trust and actively dislike. There is only one reason anyone is voting for Romney: they want Obama out so much they simply don’t care who wins. Which is pure lunacy. You should care. You should be able to trust the person you are voting for, and you should be able to depend on him to have core values, which Romney demonstrably does not. Painted on the side of his bus: “More Jobs, More Take-Home Pay.” And they actually believe that. Even after hearing, with their own ears, this man denigrating them to his rich friends behind closed doors. Are people really so desperate for economic relief that they're willing to sell out America for a few more dollars in their paychecks? Are people really naive enough to believe anything Romney might do once he's sworn in will have any real effect on their economic situation anytime soon? Seriously: are we that gullible? What's this election really about? If Mitt Romney is sworn in on January 22nd, the president’s terrible, half-a-loaf reelection effort is surely to blame, but each of us will surely be responsible.