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[Recently,] Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney returned to Michigan, where “the trees are the right height,” and waxed nostalgic about his childhood in a wealthy Detroit suburb.
“Now I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born,” Romney said, referring to his wife. “Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
When all hell broke loose in Twitterland and beyond, Romney quickly said he didn’t mean anything by his birth-upmanship. It was all a joke. A “lighthearted” one at that, [campaign adviser Eric] Fehrnstrom said.
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Even when genuine, humor is a ticking bomb that can grievously injure the person who deploys it. Mistaken attempts to tickle your own funny bone, or those of a few around you, are usually remembered far better than any speech. Yes, we remember Ronald Reagan saying “Tear down this wall,” but we also recall Reagan’s detour as he was about to give his weekly radio address, intoning into an open mic that he’d just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever: “We begin bombing in five minutes.”
Reagan’s blunder proves that even the most scripted pol longs to go natural once in a while. Voters like it, too.
But when Romney goes spontaneous -- excuse me, when he tells a joke -- it usually reveals a tetchy, petulant personality under that eager-to-please boardroom facade.
“I like those fancy raincoats you bought,” he said in February to a group of Nascar fans in Florida. “Really sprung for the big bucks.” In April, looking at the fare from a bakery in suburban Pittsburgh, he said: “I’m not sure about these cookies. They don’t look like you made them.”
And then there’s the famous line delivered in January on the campaign trail in New Hampshire: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”
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* Margaret Carlson / "Mitt Romney’s Mystifying Sense of Humor" / Bloomberg View -- (www.bloomberg.com)
Reagan’s blunder proves that even the most scripted pol longs to go natural once in a while. Voters like it, too.
But when Romney goes spontaneous -- excuse me, when he tells a joke -- it usually reveals a tetchy, petulant personality under that eager-to-please boardroom facade.
“I like those fancy raincoats you bought,” he said in February to a group of Nascar fans in Florida. “Really sprung for the big bucks.” In April, looking at the fare from a bakery in suburban Pittsburgh, he said: “I’m not sure about these cookies. They don’t look like you made them.”
And then there’s the famous line delivered in January on the campaign trail in New Hampshire: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”
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* Margaret Carlson / "Mitt Romney’s Mystifying Sense of Humor" / Bloomberg View -- (www.bloomberg.com)
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Related video: Chris Matthews of MSNBC lambastes the chairman of the National Republican Committee, Reince Priebus.
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