Mitt Romney: The Max Headroom candidate

[NNN0LHI]

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2012/01/mitt-romney-the-max-headroom-candidate.html

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January 30, 2012 | 1:32 pm

The Screen Actors Guild should have created a "reality television" category this year so the Republican presidential debates could have taken home a prize at Sunday's SAG Awards, jokes David Horsey on Top of the Ticket.

Certainly there are enough people out there who'd say Mitt Romney's as authentic as anything you'd see on reality TV. But forget "reality" programming for a moment. Romney's persona has earned him more comparisons to the '80s character Max Headroom than to Kim Kardashian of "my big fat fake wedding" fame. Both are unreal, but in different ways.

"If you were a casting director and you submitted Mitt Romney, you would be laughed out of the office," says New York magazine film Critic David Edelstein in a recent episode of "Studio 360" that aimed to place Romney within different pop cultural frames. "They would all say he's 'too on the nose.' There's still part of us that looks at Mitt Romney and says 'he's not real.' " Like Ward Cleaver and, yes, Max Headroom.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Mittens is totally Max Headroom.

[JohnnyRingo]

2. Now that you mention it....

Romney does act like something one would plug into a USB port and let go, It would explain some of the off the wall comments like "trees are the right height" and "Marvelous health care bill".

The iPhone's Siri has a more realistic personality and offers more intelligent banter. Maybe the GOP will roll out Mitt v2.0 in time for the summer campaign, after they iron out the bugs.