I’ve been following politics for many years; I’ve written a book on presidential campaigns and I’ve delved quite a bit into the minutiae of the 2012 campaign. And I’m increasingly convinced that Mitt Romney is the worst national politician I’ve ever seen.
There are so many proof points to back up this supposition that I could go on for a while, but I’ll just stick to Romney’s train wreck of an interview on “Meet The Press” on Sunday. This was not exactly a hard-hitting inquiry, what with inquiries from David Gregory like, “Do you feel like an underdog or do you feel like you’re right in this thing?” and a dearth of many follow-up questions.
Still, none of this stopped Romney from stepping on landmine after landmine. He was unable to offer a single tax loophole that he wanted to close. even though closing these loopholes and deductions is foundational to his argument that massive tax cuts for the rich won’t actually lessen their tax burden.
On health care, Romney said that he wouldn’t get rid of all of Obamacare, even though he’s been saying for months that repealing the law will the first thing he’ll do upon taking office. Embarrassingly, only hours after making this statement he reversed it . . . twice. As Steve Benen noted, “over the course of one day, Romney went from supporting full repeal [of Obamacare] to partial repeal, while taking four different positions on protections with those with pre-existing conditions.”
But here’s the crazy thing: I actually don’t think this was the most politically clueless thing that he did in the interview.
