The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Data Points

12.12.07 @ 12:01AM

INSIDE THE MIND OF MITT
Re: Jeffrey Lord's What Would Mitt Do?:

Excellent point, Mr. Lord. As one of a handful of Massachusetts conservatives, I do admire Mitt what he did and tried to do here in the commonwealth. I admire him as a pragmatic leader -- we do need an adult in charge of our country that leaves fluffy liberal emotion out of policy decisions. Unfortunately, he lacks the passion that should come with one's convictions. And let's face it; if we want to win this election, we need a passionate actor who'll win over the center-left with the enthusiasm and confidence in his positions.

The Dems aren't putting forth the most compelling figures either. I yearn for a composite of Mitt's organization skills, Rudy's street smarts, and Fred's conservatism. Until then, the election will be another nail-biter between the best of American mediocrity.
-- William H. Stewart
Boston, Massachusetts

Mr. Lord, I have objected to many of your articles, but you have, in my opinion, hit a home run with this article. I think you have hit upon a major objection to his nomination. I have watched his career from New Hampshire, and have seen the process that you describe.

I will say that, with Mr. Romney's academic record, this should not be a huge surprise. I also have an MBA, albeit not from Harvard, and have been exposed to what academia has to say about how to run a business or an entire economy. Mr. Romney is simply accepting what he has been taught in his business and economic courses.

I would say that we are currently seeing the same thing with George Bush. On 9/11/2001, he took a leap of faith, of conviction, regarding what to do about the attack on our shores. He stood against the tide through his first term. Now we seem to be seeing the results of the bureaucratic process on him over time. The State Dept. Bureaucracy has captured Condi Rice and subjected her to re-education, it seems. It seems that they have slowly but surely also captured the mind of George Bush. In the last year or so, Bush has accepted the standard processes in foreign policy, at least with the exception of Iraq. (See the current policy regarding North Korea, Iran, China, Israel, Burma) What is the relevance to Romney? Bush also has an MBA from Harvard. He has also been thoroughly indoctrinated by the wizards of academia with the importance and superiority of process over gut level certainty.
-- Ken Shreve

You make the very large assumption that Romney would sacrifice principle for process. On the contrary, if you get the most correct information available, good advice from many sources then you are able to apply your principles to the best solution for a particular problem with the best possible outcome. Will you make mistakes? Yes, but the odds of success are greatly increased. Maybe, if Bush has had better information and better advice, the war in Iraq would have been over much sooner or we would have not invaded in the first place.

If you have other problems with Mitt, that's fine but your argument is as silly as the one I heard the other day that Mitt is too good looking and too smart!

We need a President that uses actual thought process in lieu of listening to polls or gut instinct alone.
-- Pam C.
Missouri

Mitt Romney's political problems with Evangelicals are not largely based upon religious differences but upon the uneasy feeling I get that he would be more than willing to sell out my principles if he thought it would get him one step closer to the White House. You know, kind of like Hillary.
-- Jeff Seyfert

I appreciate the concern that Jeffrey Lord expresses, however I would assume that Mitt Romney is at least as smart as I am and the first thoughts that came to my mind were: 1) Just because Romney says he likes to gather as much data as possible to help make a decision doesn't mean he is not also influenced by principle; and 2) The experiences of Lincoln and Reagan, along with others, are part of what make up "the data" that Romney would look to. Who hasn't read Profiles in Courage?

To carry Mr. Lord's analogy further -- the man who looks at data only would probably decide not to have children, or only one or two. It is debatable that the costs outweigh the benefits. The odds of having one or more children cause you real, long-term grief are considerable, especially as the number of children increases. Yet Mitt Romney had five.
-- Rob Madsen
Orem, Utah

Please thank Mr. Lord for his great article discussing Romney. I would like to see similar articles on the other candidates, but I am not sure that they have given us enough information to do so. It would be useful though to get them to state their guiding philosophies and to ask them how that philosophy affected their pasts as well as their campaign proposals.

I slowly came to the same opinion concerning Romney as has Mr. Lord. At first I wondered why Romney was unable to communicate his conversion to being Pro-Life. I surely think that anybody who took as much heat on his changes as Romney has, and not flinch, would have truly changed, but he couldn't connect to communicate that change. There might be some merit in enumerating all his changes and placing them in the perspective of what his most recent goal is, but it is a rarity to see someone withstand such abuse for something they are not serious about.

But surely he needs to be able to communicate well to be as successful as he has been in politics, the Olympics, and business. So I watched him on C-SPAN. Gradually it appeared that he might be out of touch. That he is just from a much higher class strata than most of us. That might in part explain why so many wonder if he is too slick, but it doesn't explain everything. As a Mormon, I can assure you that it is not because he is using innate Mormon lingo. The only things I have seen with that aspect are the "This is the place" ad that won his contest and his tendency to close chats with emotional stories for impact, as in "Firesides."

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Foreign Policy, Education, Business, Religion, Books, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Israel, United Nations, Conservatism, Oil, Unions