LOOKING TO '12: SLIPPERY MITT

Willard Mitt "Mitt" Romney is the only Republican prospect who has the executive intelligence and skills to be an effective president.

He could be one, that is, if the policies he implemented were rational ones. He knows well enough how to be rational. The trouble is that he's willing not to be, if that's what it takes to win.


He ran the Olympics and aced that big job. Then he got himself elected gov of Massachusetts as a moderate Republican. He got his healthcare program through and was probably on top of things.


Then he realized that in a weak field he'd have a shot at the '08 GOP presidential nomination. But the party was reactionary, while he had not been.


He resolved that dilemma with what was practically a religious conversion, ditching his dad's sane, flexible, centrist Republicanism and becoming a typical far-right fanatic overnight.


What that should convince anyone realistic of is that he would do anything to get to the White House. You want to be careful about electing someone like that because, once in the office, he might also do anything to remain there.


Nothing that Mitt says is fair or reasonable. He criticizes Obama constantly and for everything, because that's how you get support in the Republicult.


I've told you what my buddy George Ball said about Mitt: that he "has a kind of glossy insincerity that some Republicans like." Entirely true. It reflects a character flaw that keeps showing up.


I remember watching a debate some years back when Romney ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate. Mitt was listing categories he had proposals for. Coming to the next one on the list, he practically shouted the word "WOMEN"! It was plainly calculated. I'm sure he expected that Ted would flinch or look guilty and that the camera would immortalize that moment; but the senator showed no more reaction than if he had said, "FED INTEREST RATES"!


I decided in that moment that I did not like Romney and could never trust him.


He's running full-tilt for '12 and is one of the frontrunners along with the going-nowhere Ron Paul and the from-nowhere Sarah Palin. And he is better than they are: sounder and more capable. So he can't be overlooked.


But I'm telling you here and now that he won't make it. The teabaggers won't have him because he's an establishment Republican, not an outsider. The Religious Right won't have him because he's a Mormon, which according to them makes him a non-Christian and an agent of Satan. The third large component of the national GOP, the Wall Street and big money types, would like him just fine. But the other two groups each have a veto.


If he had been prescient, Mitt would have changed parties 30 years ago. Then he might have gone all the way by now. But it doesn't break my heart that he didn't.