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  • ohiohistorian

    and not one of us squares. The article described him as going on to the late-night show, doing a “man-hug”, etc, which shows how cool he is. Romney is not that cool, says the author.

    Makes me reflect. The cool kids I graduated with in 1968 were smoking, blowing MJ, drinking, etc. My last reunion, those that weren’t in jail or dead from their bad life choices were pathetically “cool”. There is nothing like a gray hair pony tail on an all-but-bald man who chain smokes Camels and bathes infrequently because the tobacco has killed HIS olfactory senses.

    Yeah, I think Obama is “cool”. More like early 80′s cool, so he may even be a leisure suit guy and go disco with Michelle. In his biography, he says that he “tried drugs enthusiastically”. Such a cool cat, vacationing while the rest of us are “staycationing”.

  • septembergurl

    conservatives need to grasp — if Obama is re-elected it will because of his strength among voters in the area of foreign policy more than any other issue.

    I know. You think Republicans are strong on this issue and Democraps are weak. But that’s no longer the case. The voters like Obama because they think (wrongly) that he ended the war in Iraq and is ending the one in Afghanistan, while taking out Bin Laden and other assorted villains, They like that, and they think Obama has made us respected and liked internationally.

    I know. But that’s how they think & it’s how they are going to vote.

    The fact is that both Bush and Obama pursued policies that have kept us safe from attacks since 2001. Running as the Republican is not the cinch it used to be.

    This is especially a problem for Romney, who is not as strong on foreign policy as he is on economy/business matters. Foreign policy was hardly touched on during our ludicrous primary. Aside from the issue of a nuclear Iran, there was precious little discussion of any issues.

    This includes Afghanistan, where two of the candidates, Paul and Huntsman, advocated an immediate pullout (rather than the slow bleed Obama has put in place). Paul of course can be discounted since he opposes all overseas deployments of any kind. Huntsman correctly pointed out we have zero interest in Afghanistan now the Taliban is out, we should never have allowed mission creep and especially should not have permitted Obama to escalate the conflict and the casualties by putting in 40,000 more troops.

    Taking a hawkish line on Afghanistan, as Romney has done (and as Perry, Santorum and Bachmann did during the primary) will result in a defeat. Romney needs to do some serious thinking on this issue. He also needs better foreign policy advisers and speechwriters. He could do worse than talk to Huntsman on this issue.

    This is like the Vietnam war, where Johnson escalated and Nixon got the blame because he tried to negotiate an honorable end to the war. It’s farcical.

  • aesthete

    Back when Perry was still in the running, I cringed when he said that he would re-insert our troops in Iraq. Right now, Americans are not looking for another war: support for even very limited military action against the Iranian regime is about evenly split, nevermind regime change. Huntsman was 100% correct about Afghanistan, and reflects the majority opinion on that issue. Romney needs to start talking about a shift in foreign policy away from the Middle East, IMO: that region of the world is played out among American voters.