Two things I haven’t figured out about Mitt Romney yet

1) How intelligent is he? Smarter than George Bush, dumber than Barack Obama, sure, but where in that large gap does he fall? Part of the problem is that he’s so conventional in his thinking that it can barely be said to be thinking at all. And he says a lot of stupid things, but they generally arise from his narrow experiences, even narrower circle of acquaintances, and a complete lack of empathy rather than from faulty thought processes per se.

2) Why does he want to be president? The thought that he feels his privileges oblige him to give something back to his country is too ludicrous to be entertained, he seems too smugly self-satisfied to be haunted by the daddy issues that motivated GeeDubya, and he doesn’t have an agenda he’s burning to impose on the country. Sure, he wants to lower taxes on his rich friends, but does he seem like someone who would go this far out of his way for the benefit of his friends?

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I’ll give Obama one thing on gay marriage: he has ensured, I think, that he will be the last Democratic presidential candidate to oppose gay marriage.