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" (Optional Video Accompaniment To This Post) It is not true that nobody in America really likes Willard Romney. It is true that it generally seems that nobody in American really likes Willard Romney. It is true that there is some actual polling data to the effect that, the more you are exposed to Willard Romney, the less you like him, and that that has been true for two presidential campaigns in a row now. But, empirically, it is incorrect to say that &amp;quot;nobody&amp;quot; really likes Willard Romney. Jay Nordlinger of National Review really likes Willard Romney. He likes Willard Romney more than he likes even his fellow conservatives, who felt in their hearts that Romney was the deadest dead fish in the history of presidential nominees. He likes Willard Romney more than that fake Paul Ryan, who&amp;#039;s alive, or that fancy-pants swanner-about Jack Kemp, who&amp;#039;s dead. In fact, Nordlinger likes Willard Romney so much that he pretty much hates the entire rest of America for making it as clear as the entire rest of America did that it doesn&amp;#039;t like Willard Romney, who only wanted to apply the lessons of the Sermon On The Mount to entitlement reform. Or something. Romney is not plutocratic, he is democratic - a democratic thinker and politician through and through. A democratic spirit. His proposals were designed to help millions of others enjoy some of the success that he and his family have enjoyed. Just don&amp;#039;t walk on his private beach smoking your doobies, proles. Romney is classically, almost stereotypically, American - at least as we used to conceive Americanness. The reference to him as &amp;quot;plutocratic&amp;quot; is not just lazy but moronic. I would expect it from my fellow Americans - the rot, the idiocy, set in here long ago. I have higher standards for the Brits. As for Romney&amp;#039;s being &amp;quot;out of touch with the concerns of most voters,&amp;quot; I can tell you that he was in touch with my concerns. And those of many others, I gather: He got between 47 and 48 percent on Election Day. But that is not most voters, to be sure . . . To be, in fact, very fking sure. If logic is not your friend, then math must be. Over and over again - day after day - my fellow conservatives have been saying that Romney scanted the &amp;quot;middle class.&amp;quot; He paid too little attention to the &amp;quot;middle class.&amp;quot; He offered nothing to the &amp;quot;middle class.&amp;quot; It has been maybe the chief refrain on the right since Election Day. First, &amp;quot;middle class&amp;quot; is such a bogus term - meaningless, obnoxious, cheap. It is a term of Marxists and demagogues and that whole Bidenesque world. My fellow conservatives are using it constantly. I expect them next to refer to the &amp;quot;petite bourgeoisie.&amp;quot; That is hardly a less respectable term than &amp;quot;middle class.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Middle class&amp;quot; first turns up in a pamphlet in 1745. Marx picked it up because it had been lying around economics for decades. And, by the way, in 2011, 71 percent of the people living in Great Britain considered themselves &amp;quot;middle class,&amp;quot; the commie bastards. Anyway, someone who refers to &amp;quot;Marxists&amp;quot; as part of a &amp;quot;Bidenesque world&amp;quot; long ago left for the Elvish lands to the west anyway. Do you remember this moment during the primaries? Romney said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not concerned about the very poor. There&amp;#039;s a safety net there, and if it needs repair, I&amp;#039;ll fix it. I&amp;#039;m not concerned about the very rich - they&amp;#039;re doing just fine. I&amp;#039;m concerned about the heart of America, the 95 percent of Americans who are right now struggling.&amp;quot; I guess he meant the &amp;quot;middle class.&amp;quot; In this instance, he called them &amp;quot;the heart of America,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the 95 percent.&amp;quot; Anyway, conservatives went absolutely nuts. They wet their pants. &amp;quot;Romney said he doesn&amp;#039;t care about the poor! Eek, eek!&amp;quot; He had committed a terrible gaffe, according to the media at large. Romney was always being accused of committing &amp;quot;gaffes&amp;quot; when he said perfectly sensible things - such as the above. So, what did Romney offer the &amp;quot;middle class&amp;quot;? I&amp;#039;ll tell you what: He offered to avert financial collapse. To do something about the debt and the deficit. To reform entitlements. To reform the tax code. To foster the conditions in which economic growth occurs. To help put people back to work. To save the frickin&amp;#039; country. You ingrate bastards, with your underwater mortgages and your usurious student loans and your expiring unemployment benefits. How dare you reject the non-specifics that this saintly man presented to save your worthless asses? The stiff the builders have rejected has become the cornerstiff. Die out there! Die, DIEEEEEEEEEEEE! That&amp;#039;s not program enough for the &amp;quot;middle class&amp;quot;? What does he have to do, enter each of their homes and bake them muffins? Swab their floors? (Actually, knowing him and his neighborliness, he would do that.) OK, Willard. Here&amp;#039;s your chance. Come to my house and bake me some muffins and swab my floors. I&amp;#039;ll sell tickets.  Let me quote the Sermon on the Mount (assuming that&amp;#039;s still legal in Sotomayor&amp;#039;s America): OK, now we&amp;#039;ve moved to the Angry Rambling Nut On The Subway portion of the piece, Let&amp;#039;s change cars and skip down a ways. Fine - we all make choices. I&amp;#039;m not exactly setting the world on fire. But Kemp as our role model? In my view, the dumped-on Romney is much the more impressive man. Wait a minute. Who arranged this bout? One guy&amp;#039;s dead and the other guy merely appears to be. Where&amp;#039;s the box office? There&amp;#039;s no possible pay-per-view audience. But, if I have to participate, I&amp;#039;d remind Nordlinger that, in his first career, Jack Kemp used to get chased around and thrown on his head by the likes of Ernie Ladd. In his first career, Romney had to fight off the political juggernaut that was Jane Swift. Tale of the tape, motherfkers. But I try to remember this: Politics is hard. Vote-getting is hard. Have you ever tried it? How many votes would you get? How many votes would any of us at National Review or National Review Online get? We always think we know better than the men in the arena. Jack Kemp made himself an important congressman and an important national figure, and here I am, weeing on his grave. I&amp;#039;ve never so much as manned a phone bank. Look: Sometimes you sell your product the best you can, and the people aren&amp;#039;t buying. They don&amp;#039;t want it. So much the worse for the people. Romney is supposed to be a &amp;quot;failed&amp;quot; candidate. In a sense, sure. I think of the electorate as failed. First of all, &amp;quot;weeing&amp;quot; on his grave? The conjunction of third-grade vocabulary with fifth-grade composition skills here does not make for a very compelling case. (What is this paragraph actually about? How much Nordlinger sucks for being a spectator in our national political pageant, or how much America sucks for failing to buy aluminum siding from Willard Romney? Inquiring minds want to know. Or not.) This is the equivalent of all the guff sportswriters have to take from half-bright outfielders. DIDJA EVER PLAY THE GAME, MAGGOT? Thus do I conclude that the intellectual difference between Jay Nordlinger and Carl Everett is not vast. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17053/mitt-romneys-last-fan-010213/>