The Dream of Romney

I would like to thank Dan Coyle for passing this fucking crazy thing along:

Note: This is a short excerpt from my soon to be released book Why Romney Won : The [Fictional] True Story of the Campaign That Should Have Been. It’s part alternative history, part political messaging manifesto. Permission granted to reprint this excerpt; in other words, blog this baby…

That's Lee Stranahan, Breitbart maniac, and yes, it keeps going.

THINGS COMPLETELY CHANGED for the Mitt Romney campaign a few of days after the May 30th primary election in Texas, where candidate Romney had picked up enough votes to mathematically secure the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

Years of planning, work, defeat, reorganization and struggle had led to this moment: Mitt Romney was going to be the hope of the Grand Old Party, the candidate taking on Barack Obama in November, 2012.

Then came the bolt out of the blue. Just days after achieving its dream, disaster struck the Romney campaign on June 2nd. A plane carrying members of Romney’s top campaign staff went down over the Colorado Rockies on their way to a victory / strategy retreat in Utah. Nearly the entire Romney brain trust was gone in an instant.

Today, of course, we know that tragedy was avoided. We all remember that happy day that everyone who was on board the plane was found safe by search and rescue teams just days after President Romney defeated Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

Very droll.

There's another excerpt!

“MY NAME IS Lystander McRae. You can call me Ly and that’s easy to remember because as you’re about to find out, I don’t lie.”

The man grinned and looked around, obviously hoping for an encouraging smile. He saw a crowd staring at their feet and ignoring him. He pressed on.

“I’m an ad man. A copywriter specifically. You’ve never heard of me but I can assure you that every single one of you has read or heard my work. I’m about to turn sixty and I’ve been in the ad game for over forty years. I’ve written television ads that played during the Superbowl, magazine ads for about fifty companries in the Fortune 500 and long direct mail ads that appeared in the back of popular men’s magazines. I’ve sold billions of dollars worth of products.”

One consultant sighed and looked up at McRae.

“Okay, so you can sell soda pop and tissue paper and whatever you were selling in the back of men’s magazines. Any experience in politics?”

McRae squinted at the consultant for a long second and then twisted his face into a grin. McRae wasn’t a good looking man and it didn’t seem like he had much experience grinning.

“That’s a good question. Damn good. And no, I have never worked in politics. Not once in forty years.”

And a third!

On the screen was a segment from the CBS show This Morning that had aired in mid-April. It showed Mitt Romney and his sons chopping at a tree. Another clip showed Ronney using a chainsaw. Romney grinned a little watching.

McRae glared at him.

“What the hell is that?”

A blonde Romney aide grimaced and whispered the word “language” at McRae, who ignored him.

Romney was puzzled, still watching the screen.

“This? It’s me and my sons – that’s Matt there – pulling out a stump from a neighbor’s yard after those awful fires in California a few years ago. I don’t understand why you’re so mad.”

“Why isn’t that video of you swinging that axe running as a thirty-second spot? Everywhere? Last week?”

“Okay, Ly, try to understand me here. I know you mean well but that’s not why I helped out my neighbor. I don’t help people just to make some silly thirty second spot.”

The thing that surprises me most is what a weak-tea spewtopia this is. If you have enough ambition to write Romney into the presidency why wouldn't you write somebody in there that you actually wanted? The dream of beating Obama is more powerful than getting something good.