One possible conclusion: Mitt Romney doesn't want tobe president!

[skip fox]

This possibility is getting hard to ignore.

[cali]

1. no, that's easy to ignore. he desperately wants to be president.

How can one possibly come to any other conclusion when one looks at the last 20 years of his life? Ran for the Senate. Olympics crap. Ran for Governor. Second run for the Presidency. You don't sink that much into something unless you really, really want it.

[Johonny]

29. He doesn't want to RUN for the presidency

but hell yeah it is clear he wants to BE president. He has that W entitlement feel to him.

[graywarrior]

32. Like Deval Patrick said of his Governership

He wanted the job, but he didn't want to do the work.

[djean111]

2. I wish I felt that way.

I am starting to feel that he is so arrogant because he knows the fix is in and the votes have already been "counted".
He is overseas in order to collect money for future favors, not to show off his diplomatic touch. After all, he sees America as the boss of all the world. So what if the British don't like him? They don't vote. The bankers love him, and their greed is what he will serve.

[marble falls]

20. I think you nailed it. Its part of that mind set "Consrvatives" have that they speak .....

and no-one who disagrees with them can hear them. I am working a quilt show in here in Texas and I can't believe the insane stuff I heard yesterday. And when you call them on it they all say, "I could be wrong" or "we'll just have to disagree" and shut down. I've knowb some of these people for years and never knew how uneducated to history and current events they are. They all speak in sound bites and act like saying it makes it true, just like Mitt.

[ananda]

26. I share your pain.

My Texas relatives are equally crazy.
They're cute and funny though, so
easy to like.

It's a tribal thing. Me, being more
open minded and not very tribal...
well.. you can imagine.

[Quantess]

3. I think he is doing the best he knows how.

[skip fox]

4. I could well be wrong but desire is a tricky thing, esp. in one's 60's,

where I am now. And especially when one has already accomplished much and has no physical needs.

He begins the month on vacation and ends it with a rather pointless (since he won't be speaking as Obama did) European trip, ceding the stage to Obama.

He won't release tax returns which indicates either his arrogance or, more likely, there is something so bad in them he would lose significant support if he released them. If that is so (and it becomes increasingly apparent even to other Republicans who have stopped encouraging him to release them) then he wasn't thinking about running for president when he filed them!

Intuitively, I see no drive.

When I look into his eyes I see someone who may wish to preside, perhaps, but not someone who wants the daily struggle of being president, of working Congress and standing up to enemies.

In some way he looks like he wants the position even less than George W. (Numbnuts). (Maybe Rove was able to "gin up" Numbnuts and get him away from baseball long enough to "study up," as he might put it, but where is Romney's core?)

[cali]

5. I think you are so off base. I don't think I've ever seen anyone who wants it more

Romney's core is simple: It's his lust for power. That's it.

[pinboy3niner]

6. He wants it. His competence just isn't the right height.

[magical thyme]

12. good one!

He has just one competence that he has practiced his entire life: taking other people's money.

That competence does not cross over to other challenges very well. Or at all.

His trees really are the wrong height.

[HiPointDem]

7. I agree with you. Smells like pro wrestling.

[cali]

9. that's just completely counter to human nature and his history.

[Paka]

8. Even if Mittwit loses heart,

Ann is determined to be FLOTUS. She is both keener and scarier than him.

[patricia92243]

31. Agreed! And she says stuff just as stupid as he does. No wonder they are a good match.

[TomClash]

10. On the contrary

He wants it so much he will do anything to obtain the job.

[magical thyme]

11. oftentimes when I can't believe a person could be so stupid as to (fill in blank)

I discover they really are that stupid. It's mind boggling.

As impossibly inept as his campaign has continued to be, it is entirely possible that he and his chosen staff really are as stupid, rude, obnoxious and incompetent as they appear.

He thought he could skate in because it is "his turn." He thought he had "the formula" all figured out. He thought he was rich and powerful enough to set the terms; he had no intention of revealing his tax returns and thought he'd be able to pull it off.He thought he was the smartest guy in the room. After all, he pulled it off in Massachusetts, and he buried his primary opponents with his money. So he believed his own b.s.

He had no idea of how deep the water is at this level, or how big and hungry the sharks are.

He may now regret his decision to run.

His comeuppance is so public there is no place to hide it or run from it.

[pinboy3niner]

13. The GOP doesn't throw hundreds of millions of $$$ behind someone who "doesn't want" it

Falling short in a lot of ways in the campaign, and even screwing up in a lot of ways, is no indication that the candidate is not serious.

Mitt happens.

[oldhippydude]

14. actually

its above want... he's chosen by prophecy (white horse prophecy) to be president, thats been told to him by church members since hi BUY days.... when your chosen by God all the other stuff, will be taken care of.. remember the leader of his denomination is regarded as a living prophet.. and this stuff is ingrained in his religion

in this belief system the campaign is simply killing time till he is magically elected.. like all believers in Divine prophecy, I'm sure any use of voter suppression, rigged machines or other questionable tactics can be dismissed as gift from God.. after all, it is all pre ordained.. his professional life, and a book titled "no apologies" pretty much explains it all..

what we really have is a narcissistic man child, who through religion, and circumstance believes he's "God's gift" to America... that's the only explanation i can see..

remember also he's in a party that for 30 years has believed in an economic vision of 12 year old Grover Norquist.. God makes crazy not not only possible, (choose your pronoun) makes crazy inevitable

[cali]

15. really? you have evidence that he believes in this prophesy that the Mormon church

has disavowed? What bullshit. He's the son of a man who tried but didn't make it to the Presidency and a mother who tried but didn't make it to the Senate. His history indicates that he's massively ambitious and power hungry.

[cali]

21. that's as absurd as birtherism that claim of yours that

George Romney wasn't eligible.

Yes, Mitt is greedy and racist. That still isn't evidence that he believes in anything but his own ambition and lust for the ultimate power.

[skip fox]

18. How empty is desire when one comes to see it was based entirely on a notion of the self

and of its promotion which now seem foreign to one?

Here's what I see:

Romney looked back on his previous life and (from the perspective of intelligence and age) found it based on solely on acquisition and power, and thus came to a proto-wakening. When he saw how interchangeable the elements of his "convictions" were, how malleable his political philosophy (some 18 months ago), one part of his being became as fully awake as it will likely ever be.

But the rest of his being sleeps. It goes through the motions of what he's done before. It tries to satisfy the expectations of others. (And others have expected the most out of him for 40 years; they've expected to see a man who is serious and knows there is a foundation to life, a man who will justify their existences which seem plagued with doubt.)

The core of his desire is gone. He has come to realize that his forward thrust was based entirely on a self so superficial it was willing to do almost anything, including switch ideological positions, to promote itself.

What is he left with? The gesture of desire, a jester haunting him. He can almost feel the sting, the bite at its edge, the grand joke that was his life.

That's what I see in his eye.

But I'm speculating.

(edited for clarity . . . believe it or not)

[secondwind]

19. He has the eyes of a dead fish. No soul, no core. absolutely

[davidpdx]

24. I disagree, I think he wants it

But the fact that he is impersonal, rich and won't even bother to release his tax returns makes him look bad. He also tends to have an opinions that is very unpopular and get himself in trouble by talking about them. He is a very weak candidate and won against other weak candidates. Romney will have to be very careful with his VP pick because if he blows that the election is as good as over. I guess we'll find out sometime after the Olympics end.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. Look at his advisors.

They only know what's in the bubble. Insulting the NAACP and other countries is what they want.

We're talking about people who tried to bust Greenpeace on piracy statutes from 170 years ago.

[GoCubsGo]

27. They also keep blathering on about the Soviet Union.

Which, as we all know, no longer exists. Got to wonder if this is why he chose to visit Poland over all the dozens of other European countries. It's all so bizarre.

[libodem]

30. Yep

His foot will be back in his mouth when he goes there to trash unions and my hero, whose name I probably can not spell, Leck Luenza

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. "It's all so bizarre"

Not if you consider Reagan to be a God and SDI to be his unfulfilled dream.

Sell fear of missiles and then sell a missile shield.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

28. He does want to be president but

the GOP is having second thoughts. When Karl Rove shakes his head you know something is up

[Courtesy Flush]

34. I've always said that's why Bush Sr. wasn't re-elected.

To me, he seemed like he was tired of it. He had been VP for 8 years, and president for 4, and it seemed obvious that he really wanted to quit.

[vaya con xenu]

35. Or...

The Illuminati WANT OBAMA FOR HIS SECOND TERM! Maybe McCain threw it, too, and that's why Sister Sarah was chosen.