You're Still Here?

Apparently someone forgot to tell Newt Gingrich that his chances of securing the Republican Presidential nomination are long over: Slate. While he hangs around spending a billionaires money for no apparent reason, Romney ramps up for the fight to come. And not unsurprisingly, he has decided that he is a centrist after all, supporting Obama's pledge to freeze student loan interest rates -- rather than double them as the GOP currently plans on pushing. It seems a smart strategy, as continuing to push an agenda of tax cuts, screwing the poor and middle class and making the situation even worse for the future generation would have little currency in a rational debate. Of course America is far from a rational country and Obama is no shoe in for reelection. 

The move of Romney to the center is the norm for politics but does beg serious questions about our political process. Does it make sense that politicians portray themselves one way in primaries and then switch once they have secured the nomination? Obama can be hailed for not doing this in his 2008 campaign, essentially offering the same message in both his surprise victory over Hillary Clinton and less surprising victory over the creaky, retrograde McCain campaign. But what does this immediate shift tell us about Romney? It seems to reaffirm the worst fears of those who might support him (me obviously excluded from this group). He is an opportunist who will say anything to win, changes his mind from one second to the next, is dishonest in his campaign ads, his rhetoric and his statements of "facts," those things we once relied on to help us make educated decisions. And he seems completely out of touch with the America we live in today. Recently, he has taken to rewriting American history and claiming Obama is to blame for our current economic troubles, eliding the last 30 years of Republican rule and the disaster that was eight years of Bush (forgoing also the costs of the Iraq war). One wonders how long the American people will allow the ruling class to rule over us, particularly in elected positions. A president is supposed to represent the interests of the nation as a whole; can we really trust someone who has shown an interest only in the interests of the few?