The evolution of Mitt Romney’s stump speech is a subject of continuing fascination and speculation among political observers. Is it short on substance? Long on biography? Occasionally sprinkled with peculiar details?
The one essential requirement for judging Romney’s speeches is to actually watch them, preferably in person, but on video if needed. And then quote from them accurately. That is the problem with an analysis published Friday in the Washington Post headlined, “Can Romney find a way to connect with GOP voters?”
“Before business-oriented audiences, Romney seems at ease, focused and assured,” said the Post, pointing to a speech Romney gave Thursday to the Chamber of Commerce in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Indeed, it was a good speech; if you paired it with the speech that Rick Santorum gave to the Detroit Economic Club at about the same time, you came away with the feeling that Mitt Romney knows a lot more about business than Rick Santorum.
The Post continued: “But when he takes the stage at large rallies without a teleprompter, Romney veers from bromides about America’s greatness…to odd facts about his upbringing…to broad indictments of Obama.”
“Some of his statements are just bewildering,” the Post said. “At a rally Monday in Mesa, Ariz., for instance, Romney made this promise: ‘If I am president, I will save Social Security and Medicare, and make sure they do not kill the future generations.'”
That certainly seems bewildering. Social Security and Medicare killing future generations? Strange. Except that’s not all of what Romney said. Watch the video here (at about 13:25), and you’ll see that Romney said: “If I am president, I will save Social Security and Medicare and make sure they do not kill the future generations with excessive taxes.”
The addition of the phrase “with excessive taxes” changes the statement from a Romney head-scratcher to an entirely reasonable statement about future crises of Social Security and Medicare. Without those last three words, the sentence is evidence of something weird about Romney’s speeches. With the last three words, it’s perfectly unremarkable Republican orthodoxy.
There’s no doubt Romney can say things that seem a little goofy. In that very Chamber of Commerce speech in which he spoke so well about business, he began with a rambling ode to Michigan that included this: “I love this state. It seems right here. The trees are the right height. I like seeing the lakes. I love the lakes.” But what Romney said in Mesa about Social Security and Medicare was entirely reasonable, and it shouldn’t be portrayed as anything else.
