I’m a day late with this, I know. At least I’m not a dollar short, which I say
because of a funny incident that happened over the weekend. We were at a festival in Alexandria, Pennsylvania, and
my son was being cranky. We walked to
the one end of the festival, and a guy there was selling yo-yo balloons. We asked if he wanted one, he repeatedly said no, so we
then walked all the way back—and what did he do but, you guessed it, started whining for the yo-yo. My wife chided, “Adam, you’re a day late and a
dollar short.” And he replied, in his oh
so whiny voice, “I’m NOOOT a day late and a dollar short!” Very funny coming out of the mouth of a 3-year-old.
Anyway, in watching the second debate, I couldn’t help but
notice how much my post from the other day regarding Mitt Romney was dead
on. The man is still just as much of a
bully as he was before. I realize Obama
and Romney were debating—arguing—and that rough demeanors need to be present in
that type of format, but Romney just wouldn’t let certain subjects go. He continued to talk over the moderator,
refusing to shut up at times. I was
watching this on CNN with the continuous plus/minus meter of how the voters
were responding to the dialogue, and each time Romney talked over or tried to
steer the debate in an already exhausted direction, the meter dipped well into
the negative. I really don’t think he
realizes his tone and language can be taken as demeaning at times.
Unless you pay no attention to the Internet (how’d you end
up here reading my blog??), you know all about Romney’s “binders full of women”
comment. If you look at the facts, apparently
a women’s rights group ran a study and found women in leadership roles lacking,
and so they put together some candidates and gave them to the Massachusetts
government just when Romney became the governor. Like they said to him, "Here, do something about this." He didn't go out and put together "binders full of women" on his own. And I appreciate the effort he made in making positions available to women, but did he have
binders full of candidates from other minorities?
Did he have a binder full of gays and lesbians? It just seems like such an odd thing to say.
I don’t think Romney doesn’t mean well. I think he is an OK guy. I think everyone is an OK guy or lady until they prove me wrong, and even then I'm always giving people second and third and fourth chances, but that's just one of my character flaws, I guess. But as for Romney, I just don’t think he realizes how critical he
sounds. His former lieutenant governor,
a woman (from a binder?) named Kerry Healey, came out in his defense today and explained his eccentric verbiage. But that's just part of the problem right there--it seems like Romney is always explaining himself after saying something crass (like his 47% comment). And he did the same thing all through the second debate. In fact, I think I only noticed him on the offensive against Obama during two
incidents—one regarding gas prices and Obama’s decision to cut oil leases on
federal land and another at his wording after the attack on the US embassy in
Libya. Both times Romney aggravated me,
with the first going after something that has LITTLE effect on the GLOBAL price
of gasoline (especially when the US is producing more oil now than ever), and the second implying that Obama was trying to politicize the
murder of Americans in Libya. Obama
fought back, and his line of finding Romney’s suggestion “offensive” won me
over. You could tell Obama was ready to
go all gangster on Romney, and yet Romney would not let up, even after the
moderator flat out said that Romney had it wrong.
Romney had some firepower on his side going into the debate,
and he could have easily won it had he gone about it the way he had with the
first. But his aggressive, bullying side
seemed to come out, and I think that’s why he lost. And I think that’s why he’ll lose the
election in a couple of weeks. Nobody
likes a bully. Especially me.
October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. If you didn’t read my post from October 10th,
go back and check it out here. No kid needs to be bullied. It quite literally ruins lives.
I made myself a Stop Bullying t-shirt on Zazzle.com. This is NOT a non-profit, and the proceeds do
NOT go to bullying prevention, but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find any
bullying prevention awareness sites that sold t-shirts, so I made my own. If you want one, feel free to buy one here or
make your own. Or if you know of a great site that sells them with the proceeds going toward bullying prevention programs, please let me know! Let’s put an end to this!
And as for Mitt Romney, I wish him all the luck in his
future endeavors. But as for being a
President, I just don’t think his personality and character are what we need in
our leader.
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