Spotlight on Democracy

Romney Continues His "Etch-a-Sketch" Journey -- Baffling, Befuddling, Perplexing, Shocking and Amusing the Media and the American People As Well!

By Frank Byronn Glenn -- In a sit down interview yesterday or the day before -- Mitt Romney, to everyone's surprise, simply stated out of the blue that he did not intend to get rid of "all" healthcare reform -- that there were actually things that he "liked" in healthcare reform -- and which he thought were good for the American people.  .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      . For example, Romney said that he thought the ObamaCare prohibition against denying people healthcare insurance for having  "pre-existing conditions" was a good thing for the American people.  He said he liked the idea that young people could stay on their parents' health insurance policies and thought it was a good thing -- and even expanding on it a little -- saying that he thought young people should be able to say on their parents healthcare insurance as long as they wanted. .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      . Understandably this change in position on healthcare created a huge buzz in the media -- then within a couple of hours the Romney campaign issued an official "denial" of Romney's interview statements -- saying that Mitt Romney's position on ObamaCare had no changed and that the still would work to repeal it on "day one" when he got in office. .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      . Now Romney has probably been planning to run for President since his dad's failed Presidential campaign years ago -- and has himself been actually running for President for a decade or more now.  He's also a very rich man -- so you have to assume that he has the best campaign advisers surrounding him that money can buy.   With that in mind, you kind of have to assume that these things that baffle us, that we think are gaffs, must actually be part of the Romney campaign strategy.  They must be convinced that they have enough money to spend on advertising that they can make anything that they want to be true -- seem to be true to the American people.  They must believe that they can go on MSNBC and say things that will appeal to Democrats and independents -- people who do not watch Fox -- and influence some of those people to vote for them -- without alienating any Foxx TV viewers -- because the Foxx watchers do not watch MSNBC. .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      . Or they must believe that they have enough money that they can make alternate and in fact competing realities work in different segments of the voting public market -- kind of like a market segmentation strategy businesses use for different prices and classes of products -- because otherwise why would they go out there and say things that they know would alienate the far right extremists in the Republican party in front of progressive or more moderate audiences -- and then officially deny that the words were ever spoken in a couple of hours -- and then reiterate their "far right" positions emphatically on all the far right media outlets before the day is out. .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      . But one thing is clear -- either the Romney campaign -- and Romney himself -- are so incompetent that they are just "winging it" hour by hour -- day by day -- or they have an almost unimaginably complex and byzantine strategy based on a pure propagandist view that they have enough money such that they can make Romney appear to be "all things" to "all people" enough times, consistently, in enough places -- in front of enough different kinds of people -- that somehow they can cobble together a collection of unlikely voters to combine with the far right extreme voting block that will probably support Romney no matter what -- that combined with voter suppression, caging and all the other voter suppression strategy and a few voters "flipped" or outright stolen here and there they can eek out a victory in November. .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      . I just can't for the life of me believe that the longer this goes on and the more the GOP and Romney are exposed for the charlatans they are -- that they are going to be able to hold this surreal and cynical reality together well enough between now and November 6 to win the election --- no matter how much money they have to spend to support a Romney created alternate reality.    I certainly hope this strategy fails.