One of the things that will always remain a mystery to me is why people run for President. I couldn’t so much as run for dog catcher, because it would take about 30 seconds of oppo research to disqualify me from anything forever- “Dude. You don’t need a PI, just read his fucking website.” But I honestly do not understand why someone like Mitt Romney would run for President. He’s 60+, his kids are all grown, and he has 200 million dollars in the bank. I just don’t understand.
If I had that kind of cash, I would be retired at 41. Period. If I were to win the lottery and have 100 cool million, I’d buy a couple hundred acres in the middle of nowhere, and I would build the best no-kill animal shelter for 1000 miles. I’d accept anything- dogs, horses, cows, cats, pigs, goats- you name it. I’d hire a full time vet, and then I would collaborate with veterinary schools and give out paid internships every summer and Christmas break, and maybe even try to set up year round internships. I’d get in touch with all the probation offices in the surrounding area, and have the kids serve as dog walkers. I’d pair the troubled kids up with dogs, and give them something to love and let them bond. I’d set up big gardens and teach kids how to garden. I’d have a dorm erected so I could have disadvantaged kids from the city who have never been to the country come for a month or two, live in the country, and learn to love animals. It would be easy to do- I’d pay the room and board and insurance on the interest from my winnings. I’d contact the local universities and have paid internships for the social work students and education students, and have them serve as live in counselors. I’d experiment with responsible, sustainable living, and install geothermal heating and cooling and use solar panels everywhere I could.
And all of that, all of that crazy good, would probably only cost 5 million- maybe 20 million if I endowed it in perpetuity. 20 million for Mitt Romney is the equivalent, financially, of one of you non-Galtian overlords paying for braces for your kids.
Yet he has spent the last 8 years of his life, filthy rich, doing nothing but pursuing the Presidency, selling his soul every step of the way. His kids are all grown up, and rather than enjoy his lucky status in the world, spending time with his kids and grandkids, he has squandered his integrity and his reputation. For what- to be under the DC media lens for four years while Jake Tapper questions when the last time he had a cigarette was? To deal with the chaotic bullshit of DC?
I just do not get it. I do not understand.
BettyPageisaBlonde
This is why you are awesome. For the record.
Rob Wolfe
I think it is for the same reason as some folks climb mountains.
Scott S.
What Betty said.
As for why Romney or anyone else runs for the presidency — I have no idea. Seems like a lot of hassle to go through just to get a painting of yourself hung up in the White House. Sometimes, I reckon it’s all just to feed the ego…
erlking
Fuck. John, I hope you win the lottery because that sounds like the coolest idea ever.
Me? I’d squander the whole thing on hookers and blow. After college for the kids was sorted out.
pawtrax
Can you ask for $100 million on kickstarter? Cuz you’ve already written the best pitch.
Walker
He is a narcissist. Just like most people in this position.
TBogg
Part of me thinks Romney’s doing it because his father never made it that far. So, yeah, I’ll go with daddy issues.
Xenos
He wants power, he wants to be adored. We all want that but are too well adjusted to admit it. So we all fantasize about taking the most positive parts of ourselves and creating a world along our values and conforming to what
The same way you have fantasy about 200 acres and animals and kids, Romney has dreams about his church – A huge expansion to do good works, to praise the creator, to recognize the glory of god, and by extension, seeing that glory reflected in himself and his boys, extending down generations. The new Kennedys, perhaps, but without the seediness.
And with the Mormon Church leading America, he wants America to lead the world, all mankind united in some god-awful velveeta-flavoured mlm political and cultural scheme.
That sort of thing means lots of money, so much that it means controlling a sizable fraction of everybody else’s money. And it really helps if you impoverish all the not-good-enough people’s wealth so you can make them dependent on the ‘decent people’.
Smitty
I have wondered this particularly about some of the republican presidents in recent years. GWHB always gave me the impression of a man who wanted to be president but was not really sure why
Gustopher
There’s a reason you can’t run for dog catcher — you’re too soft on dogs. Romney doesn’t have that problem.
zombie rotten mcdonald
do you need more justification than teh sheer power?
gussie
Because you just want to save some dogs and kids, but Romney wants to save us all–and he knows exactly what that entails.
AndyG
Completely agree with TBogg – totally daddy issues, plus a gargantuan sense of entitlement
Snowwy
There is no more addictive (or corrupting) drug than power. Those in its clutches rarely maintain anything even resembling their humanity.
Damnit, beaten by a zombie.
Nancy Irving
“GWHB always gave me the impression of a man who wanted to be president but was not really sure why” –
W never wanted to be president. He never had any ideas about what he would do with that astonishing power.
Rather, W just wanted to be “Mr. President.”
Now that he can still be “Mr. President” without having to do the job, he is obviously a much happier man.
And P.S. John Cole, you are such an ol’ Commie! :)
NancyDarling
@Xenos:
Don’t forget the Jello—more Jello is sold in Utah per capita than any other state in the union. Besides, Velveeta is our state cheese here in Arkansas.
kamalokitty
Because it’s “their turn.” Remember Anne Romney saying this? They’re entitled to it. As if the Presidency is something one comes into naturally on the basis of …. string of acquisitions? Wealth? On what basis, one wonders? He’s made a life of acquisition and conquer so that she can play horsey. Where is the record of commitment to public service? This is the biggest acquisition of them all, I suppose. The biggest power grab. Good gravy, I shudder thinking about it. What a bunch of entitled assholes. It’s nauseating.
David Koch
/fixed. He’s been running for president since 1992.
mclaren
Power.
The president of the united states is now a combination roman emperor and mafia boss. You’re president and you want someone dead? He’s dead. Some asshole annoys the president? He’s gone. Outa here. Exiled to some U.S. territorial island in the south pacific and supplied by cargo plane for the rest of your life. Chicks? You got ’em. All you want, any time you want. Money? Giant corporations will be begging to pay you a million bucks per speech for the rest of your life. Attention? For the rest of your life, you will be the center of attention in any room you enter.
Whatever you want, you get, if you’re president. No man or woman will ever dare to say no to you. Chefs will compete savagely with one another for the honor of cooking you the most delicious meals you’ve ever eaten.
And being president is even better than being a mafia boss or a roman emperor, because people fucking hate mafia bosses, while as president, you today will have all the power of a mafia boss, able to get anyone killed or tortured or kidnapped or silenced or bribed or intimidated with a wave of your hand, but as president, you’ll be loved.
You cannot buy that kind of power and adoration for any amount of money, anywhere. The president is the next best thing to being a successful terrorist in the 1970s: like a god, able to kill any man and fuck any woman, and nobody can touch you.
dsale
“The future, Mr.
GittesCole, the future…”suzanne
You’re good people, John Cole.
I really think that anybody who seeks that level of power, regardless of political party, does so out of narcissism. It takes a LOT to think that not only does the world need what you believe, it needs it FROM YOU ALONE.
I’m often asked by people I know why I don’t run for something someday, since I’m very openly passionate about electoral politics, and my response is usually something like, “Because then I’d have to leave the house and talk to people I hate.”
With that kind of money, I’d set up an architecture and urbanism design foundation to make cities safer and more hospitable for women and the poor.
handy
@mclaren:
really one in the same.
tgp
As president someone will know his name for as long as America exists. Not all of the former presidents are famous or well known but almost nobody who lost the presidency is remembered in the way Romney would be as president. Its a ancient greek version of immortality.
David Koch
but the washington media doesn’t do that to republican presidents. u never once saw a village reporter criticize bush for his vacations. hell, a republican president can expose an undercover CIA agent and lie about it to a special prosecutor and never be questioned by the village idiots.
trollhattan
@Xenos:
Yes indeedie, power for power’s sake plus daddy issues (“Can somebody please show me on the globe where Iraq is, again?”) plus a big-ass shove from the Mormon Church.
I know nobody can talk about RMoney’s religion in the campaign but they will be shoveling money and influence into this election like nothing else they’ve done in their history. And that fucking stinks.
As to Rancho Cole, for the Critters and Kidz, I wholeheartedly endorse this.
clayton
@mclaren: Nice try. You are completely full of shit and believing in conspiracy theories.
I know why Obama wanted to be president and it has nothing to do with what mclaren said.
Rmoney, he feels entitled. It’s his goal in life. I find watching electoral-vote.com gives me a better idea of what is happening than any other website. I’ve followed it for years.
I tried to find the map that David Gregory used this morning, but it’s not something they want to use much because Obama has a clear path to re-election.
Spaghetti Lee
Romney’s one of those rich guys who thinks he’s a superior being, compared to the rest of us, and the best way to prove that superiority is to become president. That’s the best I can figure. He certainly doesn’t seem to have any principles worth fighting for.
clayton
@David Koch:
Remember when Bush gave up golf because of the war? He didn’t. He lied. But that bearde guy Knoller rakes Obama over the coals relentlessly for playing golf.
Citizen_X
Says the self-described misanthrope.
This, on the othe hand,
sounds more like it. Don’t go all Kaczinsky on us, baby!
cckids
This. I guess I get people on the right or the left who want to be Prez because they have some ideal, some vision for the country & where it should be going (see Paul, Ron or Prez Obama). But Romney? What has he ever expressed as an ideal for the USA, beyond lower “job creator” taxes? Nothing.
I agree wholeheartedly with John; with Romney’s cash, I’d be out doing good AND doing well. Why spend so much of your life trying to smile while eating a shit sandwich?
mclaren
@suzanne:
Oh, suzanne, suzanne, suzanne… That’s only the start of it.
To become president, you have to do things like destroy your best friends…and then smile at them and shake their hands, and put your arm around their shoulders, and tell them how you much you love them and what great people they are, just before the prosecutors issue the phony indictments on trumped-up charges.
To become president, you have to do things like interrupt the girl giving you head in the Oval Office to take a call from one of your biggest political contributors — then sweet-talk the girl who was giving you head and tell her she’s the most important person in your life, just before you dump her, and then lie to your wife telling her “I have never had sex with that woman.”
To become president, you have to sift through photos of 17-year-old girls who are alleged to be terrorists and discuss whether to order them murdered along with their entire families, or just the 17-year-old girls themselves. Because collaterial damage might be politically awkward.
To become president, you have to be able to leave your best friends to die on the battlefield and then denounce them as traitors and un-American subhuman scum, not even worthy of being buried.
To become president, you have to be able to shake the hand of a senator who likes to rape and beat nearly to death his underage female pages, and then agree to intervene with an FBI investigation that’s on the brink of indicting him for serial rape, because that senator is the key to getting some legislation passed that will help millions of starving American children.
To become president, you have to be able to publicly praise a pope who has covered us tens of thousands of cases of child rape because the praising that power-hungry pederast is the way to get a key bloc of American voters to swing your way.
To become president, you have to be able to promise hope and change and believe it when you say it, and say it passionately and from the bottom of your heart, and then allow your beliefs to drift away and mutate into the exact opposite while compartalizing all awareness of your betrayal and rationalizing it to yourself as “the lesser of two evils” and “doing a little evil in order to do a lot of good.”
To become president, you have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror after advisors tell you that the canadian citizen you ordered kidnapped and flown by CIA learjet to be tortured for two years in Syria was actually innocent. And then you have to be able to agree to do it again…and again…and again, because if you don’t, key pro-military deep south constituencies won’t vote for you in your re-election.
Personally, I’d rather jam white-hot knitting needles into my eyes while scraping off my genitals with a rusty cheese grater than do those kinds of things. But that’s just me.
asiangrrlMN
He thinks it’s his due, as did McCain. It’s entitlement taken to the next level. He’s owed the presidency, damn it, can’t people see that? That’s why McCain got so angry when it became clear he was going to lose. He had sold his soul to support W. with the tacit agreement that he was next.
@suzanne: I get asked that, too, suzanne, and my response is similar. Plus, I’m unelectable for so many reasons. Mostly, though, it’s my inability to not say to the media, “You’re all a bunch of dumb shits who ask stupid, inconsequential questions. Get real or get the fuck out of my face.”
P.S. If I had that kind of money, I would do something similar to Cole’s proposal, plus a sanctuary for black cats.
Violet
You are awesome, John.
As to the question, in Romney’s case it’s Daddy issues, power, fulfillment of his religion’s goal, and because he feels entitled.
Greg
Mitt wants to be President because then he will have done something that his daddy failed to accomplish.
He has been trying to compensate for being born with a silver spoon up his ass since his days at Cranbrook. Willard’s penis will never achieve its true position until it is out of Daddy’s shadow.
mclaren
@clayton:
Obama became president because he sweet-talked himself into believing that he could use all that power of a combination roman emperor and mafia boss to do good.
What Obama forgot is that instead of him using all that power, that power used him, and abused him, and chewed him up, and spat him out. Power corrupts. Obama got corrupted without realizing it. He’s probably still telling himself about all the good things he’s going to do in his second term, even while he plans to invade Iran and expand the drone murder program and increase the torture and kidnapping and expand the endless unwinnable war in Afghanistan and sign off on more tax cuts for the rich and slash medicare and social security and end the earned income tax break for poor people.
Suffern ACE
I’d run for the food. I’d love to have people demand that I try and like the local food. Chances are good that I would. I’d be a much better head of state than head of government.
Don K
@TBogg:
That’s always made the most sense to me. He’s made WAY more money than Dad ever had, he’s become a Governor, just like Dad (although Dad probably could have been elected Governor of Michigan for as long as he wanted, whereas by the time he was done Mitt probably couldn’t have been elected to Selectman in the most Republican town in Massachusetts). The only thing left is to be elected Prez, which Dad wanted but never got.
Why do the Reps insist on nominating these guys with Daddy issues (Bush the Younger, McCain, Romney)?
daveNYC
I believe that Mr Cole will be receiving a lot of lottery tickets in the near future.
protected static
Daddy issues. SATSQ. Next?
(edited to add, dammit Tbogg…)
TaMara (BHF)
I remember President Obama on the night of the election, standing in front of everyone with his family, getting ready to make his first remarks as President-elect and my first thought was, OMG,what have we done to this man?
When you run as a Democrat you will be demonized and criticized no matter what you do.
When you run as a Republican you are given the emperor’s crown no matter what, win or lose (McCain on every talk show anyone?), regardless of the fact you have no clothes.
Oh, great, now I’m depressed and bitter. Better to focus on JC’s $100 million win and wonderful plans. In the words of Peach, “find a happy place, find a happy place”
mclaren
@Suffern ACE:
Alas, as president, the local speciality of the house is: a giant steaming tureen of shit.
And you’d have to eat it every day, from every hick deep-south senator and every creationist lunatic global-warming-denying congressman and every torture-supporting austerity-loving DC pundit, day in and day out.
Call me a gourmet, but I prefer not to eat shit 24/7/365.
Ash Can
@Cole, of course you’d want to do that if you had a pile of cash. You’re a decent human being. Romney wants the gig because he wants the power and prestige. He just wants to make it to the top. And dollars-to-donuts he’s in complete denial about all the ways the inconvenient RL details of the job would harsh his mellow. I’d bet he just figures all his underlings will handle the actual work; he can just stand around looking presidential and have all the other world leaders trying to get him on the phone and making appointments to see him — appointments that he doesn’t have to keep if he doesn’t feel like it — and pose for photo ops.
There’s nothing to the guy. He’d crumble under the weight of the job like an empty cardboard shoebox with a boulder placed on top of it. And the guys pulling his strings will be left to run the show themselves. Not a pleasant prospect.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
my idea dujour is about breaking the digital divide.
teach kids who live in places where the news vans and even the emergency vehicles only go when something horrible happens, to sing, rhyme, what they see. to report on things large and small, and provide context. remove the aspirational element of when i am going to be rich, and teach contemporaneous storytelling.
then when the kid has something, they call in a hip-hop emergency, or folk or metal, doesn’t matter, and a fully stocked film crew shows up quickly with some commotion, storyboards, costumes(if need be), makes a video of the performance, cuts, edits, and distributes across the barrier.
pluege
I just do not get it. I do not understand.
being able to buy whatever you desire is as empty an existence as there can be. There is nothing to dream about because if you think you want it, you just buy it. So you strive for something you can’t outright buy. Except for romney, that is what he is attempting to do, because that is the only way he knows how to attain anything: lie like hell and throw gobs of money at it.
mclaren
@Don K:
Actually, both political parties persist on nominating people for the presidency who have daddy issue.
Bill Clinton had an absent father and a loving mother. So did most high-achieving pols.
Historically, the best way to create a high-achieving politician or conquerer or military figure is to pick a guy whose father dies in infancy or is distant and withholds his approval, and a mother who dotes on and pampers him.
It’s eerie how many great historical figures this describes.
gaz's wife
Oh, none of you should have the pile of cash! No, no no! Give it to me, instead. I’ll get myself a few hundred acres in the middle of nowhere and start work on some massive greenhouses. For my very own coca plantation. Then I’ll import 17 year old Colombian boys to run the operation. Cuz hookers and blow is so much better when the hookers are underage trafficking victims and the blow is homegrown. Now maybe you think I’m being selfish but in reality I’m helping our entire continent! By providing family wage jobs in an economically depressed area (anywhere in fly-over country where I can by several hundred acres of land has got to be depressed) I’m doing real good. I will also end America’s dependence on foreign drugs. With the drug war ended, Mexico can not vote for Pena Nieto (oh please, God..) and the cartels will crumble and peace will reign once again and Jesus will come back. Ha! Beat that!
mclaren
@TaMara (BHF):
As it happens, psychologists have studied people who win large amounts of money in the lottery. Turns out it usually ruins their lives. They get divorced, lose most of their friends, often start drinking or develop a drug habit, and worst of all tons of parasites and hangers-on leech onto them and worm their way into their lives in a frantic effort to grab some of that gold.
The evidence from psychological studies appears to show that if you want to be happy, the best path involves having a moderate amount of money (not tons, but not below the poverty level either), developing some skill, and spending your money on experiences like, oh, say, surfing in Maui or mountain climbing in Fiji or birdwatching in a rare temperate rain forest animal preserve, rather than buying things like houses and cars and hi-tech gizmos.
Source: “Study: happiness is expeiences, not stuff,” LiveScience, 5 March 2010.
xyzxyzxyz
Tbogg has it….absolutely daddy issues. With shrub I was always reminded of Shakespeare….say “Richard IV”. Same with Romney. It is all about little boys who struggle to meet the perceived demands of their fathers. Now that I think about it…McCain fits that description as well.
Chuck Butcher
I have no answer regarding Mittens other than that he’s entitled for some reason.
For myself, I ran for office because I thought I had better ideas for my fellows’ well-being and the spine to stand against bad ideas – in the face of a shortage of either. There certainly is an ego involved in the idea that YOU are competent to represent a CD of about half a million people. There is even more ego involved in the idea that you are better qualified. There is something about speaking to a crowd and having their approval that draws, performers know this one – add in “they voted for me.”
I do not know just how much ego and belief it takes to run for President – or even the Senate. There certainly is personal validation in the process of being voted for, I dunno, maybe Mittens is damn insecure.
gaz
@gaz’s wife: You and the Wealth Trap(TM)
When are you going to learn that money doesn’t make you happy?
I’ve no truck with your desire for young Colombian guys. I get that. It may indeed make you happy, although I thought you preferred Venezuelans, but money? Seriously? Have you learned nothing? Was I happy when I had money? Do you know anyone with vast amounts of disposable income that isn’t a miserable wreck?
And human trafficking… well I know you are joking, but seriously, you’re already on file at LAX, what makes you think you aren’t on a watchlist as well?
Genine
While it’s rare, I’d like to think some people who run for President do so to make what they think is a positive difference in people’s live.
But there’s a structure in Washington where good intentions can get sucked into a void and it’s hard to make a positive difference in a culture that celebrates the person with narcissistic personality disorder.
TG Chicago
He seems to really care about the Mormon Church, so it makes sense that he believes he could be a great spokesperson for the cause by being a successful president.
Honestly, barring some incredible flameout, I imagine Romney’s run will be a benefit to the Mormon Church. Maybe that’s enough for him.
gaz's wife
@gaz: I mean, human trafficking is a terrible crime and I would never actually be involved in it. That’s what I meant to say.
And that whole thing at LAX was years ago and I’m sure everyone has moved on and forgotten about the whole thing and if you think about it, how else was I supposed to get the kids into the U.S.?
You were unhappy when you had lots of money because you were working long hours to get it and you were living with that mistake of a human that shall remain nameless. Fact is, if you had money and didn’t have to work for it you would be happier than you are now. I personally would buy myself a greenhouse and spend all my time in it tending to tropical plants. :)
mclaren
@Genine:
I really think this is the best description of why sincere and genuinely talented people like Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama and Woodrow Wilson wind up getting corrupted, destroyed, and sucking America down into a black hole of chaos and horror and collapse.
The most dangerous people aren’t the Ernst-Stavro-Blofeld types who nakedly crave total dictatorship, but the idealists who don’t realize the system and the ungodly amounts of intoxicating power will corrupt and destroy them.
ruemara
I see people have hit the power nail over and over but it’s more subtle than that. They’ve already won. You see, the goal is money and he’s gotten all of it. The power is already there. In fact, Romney could have amassed more and we could be taking about the Koch/Romney/Adelstein money that CU has allowed to influence the elections. The presidency is a combination of beauty pageant and talent show with the biggest dick extending prize ever. To be the official head of this great country with people practically genuflecting because of your new awesome POTUSness. Sure you can do things, but it’s not like you didn’t have the money to buy that power before. Now you have the respect of the title and when you’ve never really earned respect, like a certain privileged trust funder running for president, that sort of mandatory respect. That’s damned attractive. Throw in a dash of Daddy problems and there you have the greatest obsession of his life.
IrishGirl
@Xenos: Lol, funny how they define decent isn’t how I define decent. Go figure! /snark
Dave Trowbridge
Wanting to be president automatically disqualifies one for the job.
danielx
@Snowwy:
Like that. There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story about an aide to Richard Nixon who paraphrased that famous quote from Lord Acton: “Power corrupts, and absolute power is actually pretty neat”.
It does sound like something Dick Cheney would say, doesn’t it?
But I’ve wondered the same thing myself for years. Why would anyone – especially someone like the Marquis, who’s already got enough money for twenty lifetimes – subject him- or herself to the exhausting and degrading process of running for president? It’s a job which is guaranteed to age the incumbent five years for every year in office. Except, of course, for Nixon, who thrived on power the way a vampire thrives on blood. He didn’t start to get old until he got booted. The only explanation I can come up with is the desire for power, which appears to be pretty much as the desire for money. If you have that particular addiction, there’s no such thing as enough. The ability to enhance people’s lives, ruin them or kill them, with no more barriers to your will. At least that’s the fantasy.
I’ve started to think that anyone who actually wants the job ought to be automatically disqualified on grounds of dangerous mental instability.
gaz
@Genine: I think it’s more something they tell themselves than the it is the actual reason. I’m not saying they don’t believe it, and maybe they even start out in politics that way, but I’m suggesting that at the end of the day, it’s a psyche out they play with themselves.
I believe that anyone who runs for president is in it for one core reason. Power. They’re obsessive about it, for the same reason that someone accrues massive amounts of money they and their families could never spend. In a sense, I guess you could say they’re hoarders.
Mostly, I feel bad for them. Definitely, I don’t trust them. I’m not saying they’re necessarily evil or anything like that, as I think it’s kind of like being obsessive compulsive or something. It’s a disorder, IMO. And yet we need people like that to help make the world go round. They fulfill a purpose.
In any case, I think the politicians that mean well and have been in office for years are rare. Bernie Sanders might be one of those. I suppose though, that I have to allow for the possibility that you could be right. Jimmy Carter comes to mind, so there’s that. I don’t think Obama is one of these people, I think he’s of the first set. As was Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Truman, etc.
So of the latter category, if they really exist, they seem exceedingly rare.
dp
I am officially expropriating your plan if I win the lottery. It’s fucking awesome.
mclaren
@Xenos:
Sounds an awful lot like the seal of Genghis Khan, doesn’t it?
…the Kah Khan, the power of God on earth. The Seal of the Emperor of Mankind.
Interestingly, Genghis Khan killed so many people that his reign actually produced temporary global cooling.
gaz
@ruemara: There’s power and then there’s Power. Leader of the free world as you say, is about the biggest swinging dick. Not just keeping up with the Jones’ but proving you are much more than any of them. Wielding more power than any one of them. The presidency is the ultimate one-upsmanship. You can’t fuck with that, in terms of (at least perceived) power.
gaz
@gaz’s wife: Nobody that accrues wealth is free from work. With money comes stress. Even winning the lottery makes it damned near impossible to have friends. And if vast sums of money would make anybody paranoid, it’d be you.
sharl
The rare times (maybe just once?) that Rmoney has addressed this question have been patently laughable. I think I come closest to Xenos @8 regarding Rmoney’s real motive to run for Prez. There are daddy issues to be sure – and maybe that provides the propulsion for his efforts – but I’m guessing that his target is to do for Mormonism in America what Jack Kennedy did for Catholicism. That would earn him admiration from a great many of his co-religionists for generations.
Assuming that is true, is there any deal with the devil he would consider too far over the line, to achieve that goal? So far, I don’t see a basic set of morality anywhere in his visible persona.
Suffern ACE
For what it’s worth, I was actually a little surprised that Romney was worth so little. He’s kind of the lower middle class .1%. McCain (with his wife) was worth almost as much. Kerry is worth more. I get the sense that in wall street terms, he’s gotta go into a lot of meetings where he’s the below average guy in the room. Bain itself was probably chasing after investors for its funds who could have bought his firm for their spare change. I’d get annoyed by that rather quickly.
Liz
Some people want power for power’s sake. Got a friend who is the kid of a very powerful pol. He’s in it for the power, not for social justice or deeply held beliefs. So we’ve had these kind of discussions because we don’t get it.
It’s simple but it’s still hard to understand. This pol. is in it for the power. So is Romney. He believes that it is his place in the world to be on the top of the hierarchy. He wants power over other people for it’s own sake.
People who don’t want power for power’s sake have a hard time understanding it. Because we’d much prefer to open a no-kill shelter or fund a cure for cancer or give scholarships to kids in need. We’d find much more gratification in those sorts of activities. People who lust after power are a different sort of bird.
Think Game of Thrones. Some people are in it for the Game. Others are in it for the Power. And some love both.
KT
He wants to impose his will on the world and $200 million isn’t enough to do that. The Presidency gives him power that money simply can’t buy. It’s as simple as that.
LosGatosCA
First off, Rmoney is not Meg Whitman. He’s not torching $150M to fulfill his ego. That’s a plus.
Even born rich people have ambition. Howard Hughes did – some others as well. JFK. That’s a plus, too.
Ambition, drive is innate. Why did Mike Wallace keep doing TV until he was 80 something? Saw Charlton Heston explain it (way before the NRA) from his perspective and it works for me (just not as well):
“First you just want a part. Any part just to be in show or a movie. Then a part with speaking lines. When you have that then you want a role, a character that’s important to the movie. Then you want a role in good movie that people want to see. Then you want an important role in a really important movie. And so on.” That’s a plus, too.
Don’t fault Rmoney because he’s still ambitious, still hard working and competing – those are admirable qualities.
It’s just what he wants to do if he wins that is so misguided.
LosGatosCA
That’s funny, now that I think back, I remember I thought that John Cole had WON the lottery, went through it all and that’s why he changed his name and started this blog, laying low until the heat was off.
IIRC, the $545K was in his pickup truck glove compartment.
Maybe I just didn’t have the story straight. Won’t tell anyone, Jack. Not a soul.
TenguPhule
One of these words does not belong, one of these words is not like the others.
Romney hasn’t worked hard a day in his life.
LosGatosCA
@TenguPhule:
You might not respect what he worked hard at in the past, you might not respect what he’s working hard at now, but robber baroning is not a 9-5, 5 day a week job job and neither is running for president.
I think that was the point of John’s post, why bother working that hard?
Richard W. Crews
It’s as clear as a bell 3 ways :
1. It tops his father
2. It makes Mormon history
3. It saves him 20% of his $25M/yr = $5M/yr FOREVER by keeping his taxes at loophole BS 15% instead of the real 35% a second0term and continuing Democratic gov will cost him.
Richard W. Crews
This is a high-class crowd – but Lord! everyone here is wrong so far! Power! Hah! real power couldn’t handle the House as it is ! unless it’s your House. But a Dem Senate is not appealing to a man who already has personal power. All ideas expressed are sadly wrong.
!. beat Dad
2. make Mormon history
3. make bux
that’s it.
Lordy, that’s enuf!
JoyfulA
What I’d do with all that money has always been like John’s plan, but lazier: fully fund a local homeless shelter that does a good job with what little it has, make the local community college tuition-free, endow a cat home, fill my preacher’s pastor’s purse (unrestricted money he has to help poor people who show up at the door for a place to live, food, etc.); in other words, fund people who already do what I’d like to do.
With all that taken care of, I’d retire to read crime fiction and hang out on blogs.
Kane
Why does Mitt Romney want to be president? The man has essentially been running for president for more than a decade, but there isn’t one specific domestic or foreign policy issue that he is associated with.
If he were an advocate for a cause greater than himself, then one might understand why he is willing to twice put himself under the national media spotlight of a presidential campaign. But without that core belief, it makes it all more puzzling.
Triassic Sands
Which is just one reason why you don’t have that kind of money.
Two hundred plus million is pretty much middle class these days — just ask Mrs. Romney, who doesn’t feel rich. While you’re at it, ask her the last time she ever wanted something and couldn’t have it because of a lack of money.
fuckwit
EEEEEEE….. GO!
That’s the only reason anyone runs for office, especially one like that.
Massive, continental-sized, fevered ego.
Yes, that includes Obama, and Clinton, Kennedy, and FDR, Truman, etc.
Even the good guys have gargantuan egos.
Hillary Rettig
I’m in the entitlement camp. For someone like him, becoming president is doable, and anything less is underachievement.
Plus, I think everyone is discounting the greed factor. Just because he has $200MM doesn’t mean he wants more. The greediest people, in life and literature, are the wealthy. (They’re wealthy in large part because they’re more greedy than the rest of us!) The presidency guarantees wealth for him and, perhaps more importantly, in an ongoing way for his kids.
And I’m sure wanting to impress and promote his church is a huge part of this. The Mormons have probably been grooming him for decades as their ticket to greater legitimacy.
Hillary Rettig
For those interested here’s a list of farmed animal sanctuaries – and I know there are others; google in your state.
MA-area people can go to Maple Farm Sanctuary’s FarmFest this Sunday:
http://mfsfarmfest.wordpress.com/
I’ll be there!
harlana
Look, I keep saying this and crickets follow. God wants him to be president. His family and his church believe this is his destiny.
You wanna ignore his Mormonism? Fine. But if you do, you’ll never get it.
drunken hausfrau
I love that dream of yours… maybe we can make it a reality…
Schlemizel
I think we’re all missing one part that is important. The reason the Willard is so rich (other than that daddy got him half way there to start with) is because he will ruthlessly do anything to make himself richer.
When I hear people say “If I had Bill Gates’ money” and here a story like John’s I know why they will never have that money – they’d be happy with so much less. But guys like Gates & Willard are not happy with their money & incapable of making themselves happy on less. Willard is just looking for something to make himself happy & power, immorality of a sorts and the big payday available to ex-Presidents is just the next thing for him to try
Don K
As for what I’d do with 100 mil, there’s a center here in Detroit that helps LGBT kids who have been kicked out of their homes (The Ruth Ellis Center). After I set aside enough to ensure my and my partner’s continued comfort for the rest of our lives, I’d make sure the Center has a good-sized endowment, then see about setting up similar centers in other cities around the country.
And really, ensuring our continued comfort wouldn’t require too much beyond our present resources. Just enough to be able to rent small jets for future travel. As god is my witness, I would never fly commercial again.
Mauve Lantern
It’s almost as if the system by which we elect out leaders automatically filters out good people like JC, and elevates douche-gobblers like Romney, who are reft of dignity or even good intentions. Of course to point this out publicly could get you called a “glib narcissist” by certain types.
magurakurin
@mclaren:
How in the fuck did you go from this:
to this:
in just 20 posts?
you’re a fuckin loon, mate.
xian
@mclaren: I’ll make you a deal, since you *know* that “he plans to invade Iran.” If Obama is reelected and invades Iran, I will publicly admit that you are not a self-righteous dumbass and chair-bound adrenaline junkie.
bob h
You would take pleasure in your philanthropy. There would be new hospital wings in your name for research on MS and breast cancer. But Romney just gives to his cult.
Lojasmo
@mclaren:
I hope you die in a drone strike.
Don K
@mclaren:
Good point. Interesting, though, that the two most successful recent Dem pols (Clinton, Obama) had dads who weren’t there at all, while the last three Rep nominees had high-achieving dads who they wanted to outdo.
Not sure what that means about the difference between the parties, though.
Mike Nardozzi
See “Last American Man” by Elizabeth Gilbert, then visit this website
or google turtle island preserve
You dont need money to do what you’ve laid out. Just do it.
Nina
Romney believes he’s the Mormon Jesus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_horse_prophecy
Mr. Prosser
“Power, Mr. Gittes.”
Schlemizel
@Nina:
It would sure be fun to have Koch level money to see to it that the fundies were well aware of the entire prophecy! Because it basically predicts a theocratic rule of America run by the Mormon Church.
It would be easy to see Willard in this role as he is obviously a white horses ass. Let the Evangelicals and Baptists know that his real goal is to fulfill the prophets dream.
Schlemizel
@mclaren:
personally, I’d rather someone jam white-hot knitting needles into your eyes while scraping off your genitals with a rusty cheese grater. But maybe that’s just me.
neil
Romney wants to run for President because it’s the ultimate CEO job. CEO of America Inc.
J R in WV
@mclaren:
Correction. LBJ was power-mad from the get go. He cheated to get elected Class President in college – then after getting elected to congress, he paid a private investigator to round up every copy of the college annual yearbook, which made fun of the corrupt election LBJ won, and had them stolen, or in the case of library owned copies, had the relevant pages razored out.
Even though LBJ had tremendous successes with the Great Society and the Civil Rights bills, morally he was a monster from a young age.
Donald
Magurikan–
Not that it actually matters, but there’s no contradiction in Mclaren’s claim that a Pres has access to great chefs and also eats shit every day. If you hate someone’s viewpoint you gotta do better than this.
Personally, I think McLaren is slightly over the top. I doubt Obama wants to invade Iran–he’s probably a power-worshipper like almost anyone who makes it to the WH, but he’s rational and knows how badly an Iranian invasion would go. But he’d be fine with wrecking their economy with sanctions until they knuckle under and if they don’t, well, very few Americans seemed to care what sanctions did to innocent Iraqis.
liberal
@TenguPhule:
Depends how you define “work”. If you mean long hours and a driven focus, I’d wager he’s worked very hard.
If by “work” you mean, long hours etc in pursuit of a productive contribution to the economy and/or society, not including rent-collecting, then no, he’s never worked.
The first definition encompasses some very professional criminals, and also those who commit legalized theft.
liberal
@J R in WV:
Depends on how you view morality. If you were to assume away the whole Vietnam thing, then in some sense LBJ was a moral saint, and otherwise “nice” teapartiers who wouldn’t do the things you refer to are moral monsters.
liberal
@Donald:
I’m not an O-bot, don’t like O-bots, blah blah blah, but one can make a plausible argument that in the current political environment, this is the least aggressive path forward. I.e., a world where the president takes actions to normalized relations with Iran etc etc is one in which he gets stomped on by AIPAC and Congress.
efroh
Honestly, I’m convinced it’s the plane.
Shinobi
Wow I’m alarmed to discover that John’s “Winning the lottery” fantasy is the same as mine.
Though it does make me wonder what the upper limit on a Kickstarter project would be.
Rob in CT
The only way a guy like you or me gets rich is via the lottery, because before we ever got really rich via non-lottery pursuits (working), we’d quit. We’d have enough.
I don’t play the lottery. I do dream of retiring a little early. 60, maybe?
Your Mitt Romneys of the world simply aren’t like that. It’s never enough. And they like working crazy hours and stuff (or even if they don’t aways enjoy it, the thought of just relaxing for a decade is akin to the cheese grater to the balls metaphor discussed above).
dianne
If I win that big lottery, I’m going to put John Cole in charge of my foundation and let him do all he just said plus run all the Mustard Seed schools around the country.
I think the Mormans are in the ascendancy (at least they think they are) and it is their turn to run things. We are all converted at death anyway. May as well formalize it. We have Mormans in our family, I have no doubt my Baptist inlaws are now in Morman heaven.
...now I try to be amused
@Suffern ACE:
Romney may be worth a quarter of a billion dollars, but he has always been an employee of billionaires. If he gets elected president, he will continue to be.
Tim I
You’re not narccisitic enough to understand how important it is for Mitt to one-up daddy, who was a great man, but was never elected President.
Hungry Joe
I don’t get the super-rich either. The woman who owned the newspaper chain I worked for (she inherited it from her husband) was worth around $800 million. Our paper, the chain’s flagship, was mediocre at best. She could have sunk $50 million into it, made it one of the finest papers in the world, and when she died (with her $750 million!) we would have torn our clothes, smited our foreheads, and followed her casket through the streets. Instead she spent about $10 million over a decade on a law firm specializing in busting unions so that she could pay us less and die with $802 million. Go figure, because I sure can’t.
Ruckus
I’m going with daddy issues and an ego the size of
texasnorth america.Ruckus
@Hungry Joe:
EGO.
Power over everything she could see.
Or, she won because she has more. They don’t have to get better, their money already proves they are better. Therefore more money means better.
Shorter, better is not better, more is better.
Catsy
@Xenos:
Or, alternatively, we cheerfully admit it and indulge that urge by posting pictures of our Lego creations or creating other things that it makes people happy to use or look at. There are many paths to
basking in the adoration of your fansthe divine.I suspect that Etch-a-Sketch Mitt doesn’t have so much as a single creative molecule in his body.
Elie
Romney is a Bishop in the Mormon Church. His selection as head of state of the United States would be a signature accomplishment that has only part to do with temporal power here. Frankly, everyone seems to have glossed over this part — that he is a highly ranked formal priest in the Mormon church and I am not sure that is a merge of church and state that I think is healthy for our constitution or government. This guy is very dark and I am tremendously suspicious of his motives but I do not question at all why he wants this badly…
Elie
I will also add that his candidacy makes explicit the question of why we don’t allow other priests and prelates to be elected to the Presidency. What is wrong with a theocracy — look what its done for Iran!
celiadexter
All I can say, John, is I’ve had almost the same millionaire fantasy/plan as yours, and if you hit Lotto and it happens I hope you’ll take me as a volunteer.
Gus
@AndyG: We have a winner.
uptown
I blame it on daddy issues – Rmoney’s Daddy couldn’t, so his son is trying in his place.
update: of course TBogg said it first.
Mags
Fwiw, I have had that *exact* same idea, about having a no-kill shelter combined with garden and animal-care opportunities for disadvantaged kids. No lie, if this is something you want to pursue I would work to raise money and make this happen. I’ve got connections to vets and vet schools, public health, teachers and social workers with strong backgrounds for this stuff, just no money to make it happen. If I win the lottery, I’ll call you.
Diana
@Ash Can: I think this depends upon the prospect. For the guys pulling the strings, I suggest it’s a very pleasant prospect.