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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney
By DAVID JAVERBAUM
Published: March 31, 2012
THE recent remark by Mitt Romneys senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views like an Etch A Sketch has already become notorious. The comment seemed all too apt, an apparent admission by a campaign insider of two widely held suspicions about Mitt Romney: that he is a) utterly devoid of any ideological convictions and b) filled with aluminum powder.
The imagery may have been unfortunate, but Mr. Fehrnstroms impulse to analogize is understandable. Metaphors like these, inexact as they are, are the only way the layman can begin to grasp the strange phantom world that underpins the very fabric of not only the Romney campaign but also of Mitt Romney in general. For we have entered the age of quantum politics; and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician.
A bit of context. Before Mitt Romney, those seeking the presidency operated under the laws of so-called classical politics, laws still followed by traditional campaigners like Newt Gingrich. Under these Newtonian principles, a candidates position on an issue tends to stay at rest until an outside force the Tea Party, say, or a six-figure credit line at Tiffany compels him to alter his stance, at a speed commensurate with the size of the force (usually large) and in inverse proportion to the depth of his beliefs (invariably negligible). This alteration, framed as a positive by the candidate, then provokes an equal but opposite reaction among his rivals.
<snip>
What does all this bode for the general election? By this point it wont surprise you to learn the answer is, We dont know. Because according to the latest theories, the Mitt Romney who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform, each being compared to a different beloved childrens toy but all of them equally real, all of them equally valid and all of them running for president at the same time, in their own alternative Romnealities, somewhere in the vast Romniverse.
And all of them losing to Barack Obama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-quantum-theory-of-mitt-romney.html?_r=1
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A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney (Original Post)
cali
Apr 2012
OP
Chantel
(23 posts)1. This is brilliant!
As I read this post, I started laughing and almost spit out my coffee. Thank you for this great post.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)2. Only an infinite can cancel out an infinite
so we must turn them against each other.