Presidential candidate Mitt Romney tries very hard to connect with people. Sometimes it looks as if he tries too hard. A recent video of Romney trying to connect with Michigan voters is a case in point and only serves to underscore descriptions of him as mechanical and robot-like.
COMMENTARY | Mitt Romney is again having problems, much of it due to his seeming disconnectedness to the average American, which many commentators, analysts, and pundits describe as automaton-like. The "Romneybot," they call him. And when Romney is pressured, he appears to be like the old stereotypical robots that can't handle conflicting information -- he gets jittery, appears to be malfunctioning, his processing abilities overloading. His inability to connect with voters and his desire to be the next Republican nominee for president tend to create a nonsensical Romney, like the version witnessed in his home state of Michigan recently when he insisted Michigan trees were the right height and how he loved lakes and cars.
Romney is in trouble in Michigan and he well knows it. The state's primary, with its 30 delegates at stake, looms and contender Rick Santorum, using momentum gained with victories in several states' contests earlier in the month, has been leading in most preference polls (as per Real Clear Politics tracking). And the former governor of Massachusetts, who was born in Detroit, seems to be cracking under the pressure to do well as a native son.
A video of some comments he made at a Michigan rally is getting viral treatment on YouTube and in the general media. It highlights his disconnectedness with what seems to be normal things to talk about. Only it lacks true emotional depth, a true connection to the things he talks about.
Romney said he loved Michigan, that the trees were "right height." Then it was the lakes he loved, not just the "Great Lakes but also all the little inland lakes that dot the parts of Michigan." And then he turned to cars, the backbone of Michigan's economy and the source of a lot of Romney's trouble with Michigan voters, as it was a New York Times article written by Romney in 2008 that encouraged the then Bush administration to allow Detroit and the Big Three automakers go bankrupt. But now, just over three years later, he was telling Michiganders he also loved cars, especially "American cars, and long may they rule the world, let me tell you."
And while he spoke those words, he appeared to be in manic mode, that frenetic mode he gets in when he's trying to explain himself around a topic. We've all seen it before, like when he tried to explain during a debate that he might wait until April to release his tax information.
Because it is imperative that Romney connect with voters. But it is without doubt he is far more comfortable dispensing information in analytical bits and statistical percentages than in dealing with the regular phenomena of everyday life that might impact the average person. The directive of "must connect" and "must become president" is at war with the analytical Romney that also sees the rise in poll numbers from the often illogical and non-linear or unscientific arguments and positions taken by his top contender for the Republican nomination, Rick Santorum.
The Romneybot cannot find connection, yet he/it must, altering political stances (flip-flopping) and talking about emotional bonding (loving trees, lakes, and cars) as he/it goes.
He looks every bit like a robot going through verbal gyrations just before the eventual slurred bass slowing of its enunciations that mark an internal implosion or shutdown.
It is not an easy thing to watch, this Romneybot internal conflict. But it is something that seems internally self-correcting. A reprogramming, if you will, because Romney hits the campaign trail after each of these instances and seems none the worse for wear -- except with the added media attention given his questionable and often odd comments.
But can the Romneybot persevere long enough without some form of costly communication breakdown to make it to the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August? Like any good science fiction serial, that part of the story will be answered at a later point.
(photo credit: JaumeBG, Creative Commons)
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