Mitt Romney - Quantum Politician
is a Quantum Politician?
NY Times Opinion...
A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney
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.
But the Romney candidacy represents literally a quantum leap forward. It is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense. To be honest, even people like Mr. Fehrnstrom who are experts in Mitt Romneys reality, or Romneality, seem bewildered by its implications; and any person who tells you he or she truly understands Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.
Nevertheless, close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romneys behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-Im-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-Im-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum.
So this is how they are going to play off etch-a-sketch.