There were rumors that Team Mitt had benched his wife after her meltdown on Iowa radio last week–rumors that I hoped would prove to be false. Good news. Ann Romney (Mitt’s secret weapon) is back on the trail.
Towards the end of the week she gave an interview to a radio station in Nevada and voiced a concern that I think every American should have (emphasis added):
Asked what her primary worry would be should her husband succeed in defeating President Obama on Nov. 6, Mrs. Romney replied, “You know, I think my biggest concern, obviously, would just be for his mental well-being.”
Me too.
And Ann, I’m a bit worried about Mitt now. It seems to me that his emotional balance and mental well-being are already in the flashing red light zone. I mean, have you heard some of the crazy things he says? He doesn’t seem to be able to tell truth from fiction and he sorta seems to be living a fantasy world.
So Ann, please get Mitt some help. He thinks he is running against the guy in the empty chair that Clint chatted with the night he accepted the GOP nomination. In a few days, he’ll have to debate the real President Obama and I’ m afraid that the cognitive dissonance of the moment will break him long before he has the chance to have the reality of the Presidency crush him.
Better for the world that Mitt has his meltdown now. Thanks Ann, for the well timed warning.
Cheers
arguingwithsignposts
BSOD?
dmsilev
“Mitt’s wife is worried about his sanity”.
Awesome.
MattF
Mitt certainly needs a secret weapon right now, but I don’t think it’s going to be Ann.
Alex S.
Well, if she goes on in this way, I’ll never get tired of her.
Baud
To be fair, I’m concerned about my mental well-being if Romney wins the presidency.
beltane
@MattF: Ann is an excellent weapon to use if political suicide is your goal.
the Conster
I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. If she’s saying this in public, imagine what she’s seeing in private. He’s just not a normal human being – assuming he actually is human – and at his age he’s confronting for the first time how he actually stacks up when leaving the super rich Mormon yes men bubble. He’s had no real challenges that he’s had to overcome all by himself, and now the pressure of that first debate is so enormous I think we’re going to see an actual crack up. The sentient brain can only process so much bullshit and cognitive dissonance before it goes haywire.
Popcorn!
aimai
I don’t take the comment that seriously as any kind of statement about Mitt’s Mental Health. He has all the firm resolve of the sociopath/ceo. The stress of being president, if he were to become president, wouldn’t affect him at all. It didn’t affect Bush much.
However I do think its another case of IOKIYAR combined with the very special “the rich really have no idea how different they are from the rest of us” glue. The entire of the right wing, including the Romneys, believes that Obama and Michelle are just empty suits, lazy black people faking their way in their social and public roles. There’s no way you could believe that the office of the President is so demanding as to constitute an emotional drain on your (White) husband and not acknowledge that Obama and Michelle have demonstrated incredible grace under pressure unless you secretely think that there’s some phalanx of white advisors actually doing all the work for both of them and that they are simply strutting and sleepwalking their way through their days.
Now that’s interesting.
Alex S.
@the Conster:
He’s probably locked up in his home cinema and urinates into a bottle.
Svensker
I think she was just talking as an unscripted wife here, saying that, as a wife, she worries how the stresses of the job would affect the man she loves.
But were I a politician with such a wife, I might greatly appreciate her love and concern but would also keep her far, far away from any unscripted mic moments. Crikey.
the Conster
@Alex S.:
Watching Battlefield Earth.
feebog
So the software has some glitches. The main frame still seems intact, and the hard drive still has some room to write new programs, whats to worry about Ann?
Baud
@Svensker:
I think clearly that’s correct. However, we still have to hear about “51 states” so I feel no sympathy in making hay over their gaffes.
Cassandra
Frankly, I think both of them are teetering on the edge.
MonkeyBoy
I get the impression that Mitt is a guy who has heard that nobody likes him so he is trying to buy the presidency so that he can point to all of the people who voted for him and prove that people do like him.
MattF
@aimai: A good point, that there’s an ’empathy gap.’ And it’s very visible to usn’s on the wrong side of the fence. Maybe Mitt’s advisors should tell him to imagine that the audiences he’s speaking to are full of billionaires.
WereBear
I think the wheels are coming off; all of them.
The MittBot’s not stable. She just said so.
Baud
@MattF:
I thought that’s what he has been doing.
Regnad Kcin
@arguingwithsignposts: kernel panic
Regnad Kcin
@arguingwithsignposts: kernel panic
Kathy in St. Louis
I love the “secret weapon” appellation. It’s been used for years by uncreative reporters to pay a little compliment to the little lady who is married to the candidate, whatever he’s running for. It’s so patronizing. Give the old girl a little lift, you know. I’ve been hearing it since at least JFK, where it actually fit with Jackie.
This lady is not Jackie. She’s a pearl clutching, country club scold, who would be very annoyed if the busboy brought her water without lemon. And she’s accustomed to saying whatever she wishes without more than a polite reaction. Both she and Mitt need to go back whatever friends they have and sit around complaining to all within hearing distance just how hard it is to get good help these days.
Drive-by Nomad
@arguingwithsignposts:
He is the CTRL-ALT-DEL candidate, after all.
slippy
I would really enjoy watching Mitt lose it in the debates. Total bugfuck meltdown.
Evolving Deep Southerner
When the Yahoo Fashion Police are piling on, it’s time to pack it in, Ann.
SiubhanDuinne
The Wikipedia article on Ann Romney has what I consider a very telling paragraph:
“Never. You couldn’t pay me to do this again.” If she really meant this, and if Mitt insisted on moving to Massachusetts for his political ambitions even though the climate wasn’t good for Ann’s MS (as was mentioned in another thread), I can just imagine how cowed and bullied she must be. Almost, almost, I could feel sorry for her.
pluege
WOW, is that explosive. romney’s own wife doubt’s he’s mentally competent to be POTUS. Let the romney damage control begin!
Kathy in St. Louis
@SiubhanDuinne: As someone said on another thread, she probably just goes home and takes it all out on Consuela.
pluege
ann’s concern is more damning than anything anyone else could have said about romney.
Todd
@Kathy in St. Louis:
Can Mormons actually drink water with lemon? Would Mitt serve wine at state dinners, followed by coffee with dessert, or would it be all koolaid and postum?
He fucks up royally on the “have a beer with” test, which is about 70% of his problem.
Todd
@Drive-by Nomad:
Yeah, but the fucked up web page keeps coming up as restored.
rikryah
AND SHE IS HIS SECRET WEAPON.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
Applejinx
Presidenting is easy but running for office is hard?
Romney is saying, repeatedly, that he won’t have to do anything because if he is President the economy will just be happy and nobody will be mean to the US ever because they’ll be too scared to.
I’d like to see his chances of winning convincingly drop to ZERO because one percent chance of ending up with this guy is too high…
debit
@arguingwithsignposts: Out of cheese error.
Villago Delenda Est
This woman so needs a tumbrel ride, its’ not even funny anymore.
red dog
Has any one else noticed how much trouble Mitt has walking? He takes tiny steps like a Tim Conway little old man and when jumped of a low stage the other day he almost fell down. He could be the most uncoordinated guy on earth…watching him try and dribble a basketball might be a U-tube sensation.
Southern Beale
In case you missed it, the creepiest Mitt Romney video yet, where he explains Bain Capital’s business model was to “harvest” other companies for profit.
These people are fucking weird. There’s just no polite way to say it. They are pod people from outer space who haven’t quite figured out how to communicate like normal human life forms. Leaders of Planet Kolob, please come and get your people. We do not want them.
Dennis G.
@rikryah: My favorite part of the quote is her use of the word “obviously”.
The #romneyshambles tour continues…
Jay in Oregon
@SiubhanDuinne:
Southern Beale
@red dog:
Yes, I’ve noticed that, also talking, that voice of his is too smooth and emotionless. He is not a real person. He’s an alien wearing a human suit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
Ugh. “Harvest,” as in “harvesting organs” for transplant? What a bizarre word to use.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: Soylent Green is companies.
dance around in your bones
Totally OT, but I was just singing the Wipe Out theme to my grandkid, and came across this video of The Ventures.
I just love the interaction between the two drummers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay in Oregon:
Yeah. Kind of brings down the tone of the whole neighborhood.
debit
@debit: Because, you know, the “companies are people, my friend” thing.
Jade Jordan
HaHa I love you guys. Now I can go back to my planet and tell them I found human life on the planet. We were a little worried after meeting Mitt the Droid.
ThresherK
So winning would be a strain on Mitt?
Show me the candidate who thinks the struggle ends after the victory speech.
(And is this a CEO thing? I ask because the very sight of Linda McMahon on the teevee unbalances my humours towards the bile.)
Joey Maloney
@Southern Beale:
I believe that was the plot of an old Ted Sturgeon sf story. The main character convinces an energy company CEO that many other CEOs actually are aliens who are deliberately destroying our environment to make the planet more comfortable for them after they invade; so that the energy CEO will redirect his company away from fossil fuel tech.
kindness
Why isn’t it so far fetched to think I might one day see a news report about Ann snapping and shooting a whole bunch of people (not her family of course)?
It’s so odd. This is a family you would want to have respect for and to feel positively about even though their politics are abhorant. But no. I find Ann and Mitt to be increasingly disgusting the more I know.
Some folks are screwed in so tight they snap. Please Ann, for the sake of the country…Do it at a Koch gathering.
Montysano
If you watch the video, a millisecond after the words “mental well being” leave her mouth she has an “oh, fuck me” moment.
As one of those bleeding-heart libtards, this whole clusterfuck is just painful to watch. Both Romneys seem perfectly miserable. Obama? Loose as a goose.
gelfling545
@Cassandra: I am afraid this may be so for Mrs. Romney. She suffers from an illness that is greatly exacerbated by stress. He should really have left her out of the whole circus. To me it looks like sacrificing her health to his ambition.
dance around in your bones
@Montysano:
Michelle, too. I am always amazed at how cool they are – they maintain, under incredibly stressful circumstances.
I get the sense that the Romneys would shatter like crystal under stressful circumstances.
muddy
I think a campaign would be hugely stressful even if you didn’t personally make appearances. Mitt is a selfish bitch.
hep kitty
Well, for anyone who’s been watching him on the stump lately, he is, afte rall, coming apart before our very eyes, not only his campaign, but emotionally and mentally as well. It’s going to be no different in the debate(s).
He can prepare all he wants, he’s going to lose his cool early on. And, as we know, our President never loses his cool. I don’t even need to go into the intellectual superiority part.
Can’t wait for the 3rd.
cckids
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes. I saw a clip of them yesterday, Mitt was entering some arena for a speech, holding her hand. She (seemingly) couldn’t quite walk as fast as him, especially on the stairs to the stage, but he took no notice of her trouble, all but dragging her. Normally, if you’re holding hands, whether with an adult or a child, if you feel that drag, you look at them to see if they are ok. Not Mitt.
Even tho Ann has a deeply unpleasant public personality, I feel sorry for her in the area of her marriage. Just sad.
trollhattan
@Jade Jordan:
OTOH if WillardBot12 is the best we can do, our code monkeys are really lousy, in a galactic sense.
hep kitty
Stephanie Miller referred to Queen Ann’s “STOP IT” scold as a nationwide version of “The Help.” Just listen to that voice. The woman has ice water running through her veins. At least for the masses. I guess it’s good to know she might be capable of even an once of of compassion for another human being, even if is Mitt.
trollhattan
@hep kitty:
No, you see, Obama never losing his cool means he’s too dumb to see the clear danger to our republic and therefore…a witch!
/
wingnuttypical Republican.They will never, and I truly mean not once, give Obama credit for anything. Hell, I even cut Bush some slack for his African AIDS campaign. Can you imagine the Republican outcry if Obama had a new Africa initiative that didn’t involve blowing stuff up?
ding dong
Obama has two secret weapons – michelle and anne and then he’s got two suprer secret weapons – paul ryan and mitt romney.
nastybrutishntall
@debit: Where would you like your internet delivered today, sir or madam?
Stuck In 60s
I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Ann. Ann, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it I can sing it for you.
It’s called “Ann.”
Ann, Ann, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
wasabi gasp
COPE
phoebes-in-santa fe
You know, I don’t feel one damn bit sorry for the Lady Ann Romney. If she didn’t want to be out there, she could use her MS as an excuse. She’s totally awful.
Uncle Cosmo
Did no one bother to remind (or tell) Mrs Romney that her father-in-law’s Presidential campaign came apart the moment he admitted to mental weakness (being “brainwashed” re Vietnam)?
Or is she fully aware of the history & merely decided that These peons will never let Mitt be President, so we might as well end it right now…
Original Lee
@Evolving Deep Southerner: I am now concerned about Ann’s mental health, since she is clearly channeling Sarah Palin here.
melior
Mental health. *cough* This is a man who will look you right in the eye and explain how he thinks wearing magic underwear will help ensure that when he dies he’s going to the Planet Kolob where he will be among the exalted.
Wait, what was the question?
halfcynic
Honestly, that line about how they’ve never (ever!) had a fight in their married life alone makes me want to run a mile shrieking from both of these people.
trnc
I have a feeling then when asked about her comment, Ann will say she was actually talking about Obama’s mental health. The usual 15 idiots will guffaw and think it’s the killer zinger that throws Obama completely off his game.