"4 reasons nobody wants to read about Mitt Romney" The Week

[applegrove]

4 reasons nobody wants to read about Mitt Romney

The Week

http://theweek.com/article/index/229593/4-reasons-nobody-wants-to-read-about-mitt-romney


"SNIP.........................................................

"In the war of partisan trash talk that frequently consumes online political media, one truth has emerged from this year's election coverage that transcends ideology," says McKay Coppins at BuzzFeed: "No one wants to read about Mitt Romney." At BuzzFeed, for instance, "two sets of similar, photo-heavy posts [that] focused on the early lives of President Obama and Mitt Romney... [were] comparably promoted." The Obama photo series outdrew Romney 10-to-1. And anecdotally, on many websites across the political spectrum, "the well-starched Republican's traffic poison" has writers and editors longing for the days of John McCain, Sarah Palin, and "the Obama-Clinton blood feud." Romney has roughly a 50-50 shot to be the next leader of the free world. So why isn't anybody interested in stories about him? Here, four theories:

1. Americans assume they can't relate to Mitt
Voters may not be thrilled with Obama, but "Romney is still seen as horribly out of touch and painful to watch on TV," says Taylor Marsh at her blog. Even after four years, Obama's story is still innately compelling, "the tale of a man who began so humbly and ended up the most powerful person in the world." Romney? If he's had any travails, they're certainly "not comparable to your average American's struggle." It could be that if people took the time to read about Romney, they'd grow to like him. The bad news "for Team Mitt is people don't seem to care enough to find out."

2. Mitt is trying to fly under the radar
Romney has wisely figured out that "no buzz is good buzz," says Reihan Salam at National Review. He effectively sticks to his script, saying the same thing over and over, and letting Obama be the story. That's not hard: No matter what you think of him, "Obama is a charismatic, larger-than-life figure who attracts considerable attention...." That was a boon in 2008, but today, as journalist Richard Rushfield notes, "there is no such thing as positive attention in the Twitter age," and "anyone who sticks their head up is going to just have it picked apart by 100,000,000 gnats."

..........................................................SNIP"

[Voice for Peace]

1. Conservatives especially don't want to read about him

or know too much about his life & shortcomings, his dishonesty,
his flipflopping, his hypocrisy and cluelessness, because they
know it will affect how they feel about voting for him.

(my theory)

[applegrove]

2. That sounds true too.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Count me among 'em.

[applegrove]

4. I personally think Romney is trying to fly under the radar. Stephen Harper's Conservatives won

the Canadian election last year by repeating on single mantra "Canada's strong, stable government". Were they to talk about their actual policies it would have scared people. I think that is the Romney strategy too.

[liberalnationalist]

7. I don't how you can compare

Harper to Slick Willard.....Harper is very liberal if you compare him to Americans...you know those "true and real Murkins" who are nothing but a bunch of obese crossed eyed racist sexist evangelical nitwits who keep voting for idiots like Issa and Boner.

[TlalocW]

5. One of my nieces on her Facebook page

Put up a graphic that basically read, "I Pledge to Vote Against Barack Obama in the 2012 Elections." I replied that I noticed it didn't say, "I Pledge to Vote For Mitt Romney in the 2012 Elections," as apparently Mitt still hasn't caught fire yet with the majority of republicans. That somewhat depressed her, and she replied she's probably not even going to vote this year.

It's weird, she's not very political, but she's very much for gay rights so I can't understand why she would be willing to vote for a guy representing a party that would turn back the advancements made so far.

TlalocW

[cbrer]

6. #5 People don't usually need naps

Badly enough to listen to M Romney.

[MatthewStLouis]

8. Maybe we should ask him how his policies will be different from the failed policies of Bush.

RMoney needs to be on the defensive for his promotion of a "failed prescription". Make him explain. He needs to tell us how more tax cuts for the wealthy is going to help the middle class. I'd like to see him defend deregulation of the financial industry. Make him tell us why that would be a good thing.

Every question asked of him needs to be an indictment of right wing supply side economics. People need to know that he would be the 2nd coming of "W" and that would be a disaster.

[yellowcanine]

9. Romney makes people's hair hurt.

[treestar]

10. Running for President for 5 years

makes him old news. That is a disadvantage for Mittwit. Nobody's interested. And Marco Rubio is not going to be a great big surprise like Palin was either. And that didn't work for Republicans.

[flamingdem]

11. He doesn't say anything regarding his positions

So why bother reading about him - he's a puppet for the bad guys of the 1%