I knew that the Romney campaign reminded me of something. It’s an episode of Seinfeld.
[Scene: breakfast at fancy hotel restaurant, morning of November 3rd, 2008, the day after Barack Obama is elected president. Mitt Romney and long-time Bain Capital consigliere Bill White enjoy poached eggs.]
BILL: Salsa is now the number one condiment in America.
MITT: You know why? Because the country is being overrun by people who like to say “salsa.” “Excuse me, do
you have salsa?” “We need more salsa.” “Where is the salsa? No salsa?”BILL: You know it must be impossible for a Spanish person to order
seltzer and not get salsa. (Angry) “I wanted seltzer, not salsa.”MITT: “Don’t you know the difference between seltzer and salsa?? You have the seltzer after the salsa!” You really should look into acquiring the Serrano’s salsa company. They’re up and coming.
BILL: See, this should be the campaign. This is the campaign.
MITT: What?
BILL: This. Just talking.
MITT: (dismissing) Yeah, right.
BILL: I’m really serious. I think that’s a good idea.
MITT: Just talking? Well, what’s the campaign about?
BILL: It’s about nothing.
MITT: No policy?
BILL: No forget the policy.
MITT: You’ve got to have policy.
BILL: Who says you gotta have policy? Remember when we were waiting for that table at L’Espalier that time? That could be the campaign.
MITT: And who runs against us? Who are the characters?
BILL: Rick Santorum could be a character.
MITT: Santorum?
BILL: Yeah. He’s a riot.
MITT: So, on the campaign, there’s Rick Santorum?
BILL: Yeah. There’s something wrong with that? He’s a character. People are always saying to him, “You know you’re a quite a character.”
MITT: And who else is on the campaign?
BILL: Michele Bachmann could be a character. Newt…
MITT: Now he’s a character.
BILL: Right.
MITT: And our campaign will be about nothing?
BILL: Absolutely nothing.
MITT: So you’re saying, I go in to the big donors, and tell them I got this idea for a campaign about nothing.
BILL: We go to the big donors.
MITT: “We”? Since when are you a campaign strategist?
BILL: (Scoffs) Campaign strategist? We’re talking about the American public!
MITT: You want to go with me to the big donors?
BILL: Yeah. I think we really got something here.
MITT: What do we got?
BILL: An idea.
MITT: What idea?
BILL: An idea for the campaign.
MITT: I still don’t know what the idea is.
BILL: It’s about nothing.
MITT: Right.
BILL: Everybody’s doing something, we’ll do nothing.
MITT: So, we go into the big donors, we tell them we’ve got an idea for a campaign about nothing.
BILL: Exactly.
MITT: They say, “What’s your campaign about?” I say, “Nothing.”
BILL: There you go.
(A moment passes)
MITT: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.
[Scene: breakfast at fancy hotel restaurant, morning of January 21st, 2009, the day after Barack Obama is inaugurated as president. Mitt Romney and future campaign manager Matt Rhoades enjoy poached eggs.]
(Matt Rhoades pitches campaign strategy)
MATT: …And you’re the manager of the circus.
MITT: A circus?
MATT: Come on, this is a great idea. Look at the characters. You’ve
got all these freaks on the campaign. A woman with starry eyes? I mean, who wouldn’t tune in to see a women with starry eyes? You’ve got the dumbest man in the world; a guy who’s just a head.MITT: You mean Bachmann, Perry, and Gingrich?
MATT: Look Mitt, the show isn’t about the circus, it’s about watching freaks.
MITT: I don’t think the networks will like it.
MATT: Why not?
MITT: Look, I don’t want to do a campaign that is just about freaks.
MATT: Oh come on, Mitt, you’re wrong. People they want to watch freaks. You’ll be a shoe-in. This is a “can’t miss.”
I can’t believe they made the pilot!!
Everything in life can be related to Seinfeld or My Cousin Vinny
Or Monty Python.
unfortunately I’m not as fluent in Monty Python, but maybe I need to learn
This, this I enjoyed. Tremendously.
They got nothin’. Every last issue has been taken away from them.
National defense? Nope
Taxes? Nope
Economic stewardship? Nope.
Foreign policy? Nope.
Retirement security? Nope.
So for the next 8 weeks it’ll be ginning up hate of the ‘other’….minorities, godless heathens, immigrants, gays. In other words, the usual anti-American bullshit wrapped in red, white and blue bunting, but pitched to an ever smaller portion of a dying electorate.
The only hope they ever really had was fucking the American economy so badly people begged for any alternative, even Mitt.
This is funny, Booman. of course, I don’t think it’s anything like what really happened.
This may be the first campaign about nothing, but things have been trending that way a long time. Most of the campaigns in my lifetime (I was born during the Truman administration) have been about as little as possible.
Also, while the GOP campaign has been about nothing, a lot of that “nothing” has been in the form of calculated disinformation. Regular Limbaugh and Fox News fans would not agree that the campaign was about nothing, they believe the fate of civilization hangs on this election. (They are probably right about that, but their reasons for believing it that are almost entirely delusional.) That is another aspect of American politics that has been evolving since the advent of professional disinformationists like Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, Morton Blackwell. It originated with the Young Republicans of the late 1960s, and Nixon’s tradition of dirty tricks.
And then, it is not really true that the GOP campaign is about nothing. It is about some very serious stuff, but they don’t want to talk about it. I don’t see this as radically different from past campaigns either. I think it was more like “We’ll just bullshit the voters again like we did all those other times.”
So things have been trending this way a long time, this is just the most extreme example, but also it has come about at precisely the time when enough people cannot be bullshitted, at least not to the extreme degree required. Reality just could not be kept at bay, it is too intrusive, at least for enough people.
I think the GOP has been perfecting these techniques so long, and then came 2010, which made it look like a certainty, they figured they could elect a ham sandwich. Romney was sufficiently “presidential” looking, the other candidates were patheric rejects. And Citizens United, how can you lose with all that $$$?
Fortunately, the Democratsy, with all their faults, are a lot more engaged with reality than before 2004 and Howard Dean. And this time we have a GREAT candidate, a brilliant strategist who also knows how to work with people.
There are limits.
No need to comment after your observations.
As another person observed on another thread, “conservatism” has become a crackpot religion. What Gingrichian “conservatism” has done is make voters think elections are about upholding God and the recipe for Apple Pie, while it radically demolishes government and wrecks the planet before their very eyes.
Ail image, no substance. I think they got the idea from Madison Avenue. It’s a powerful technique, to get people to buy Coke — not for the cola but for the image associated with it. But you can take that just so far.
How many seasons and never a “very special episode” of Seinfeld?
Which is the problem with humanizing Romney. The campaign format doesn’t allow for “very special episodes.”
Mitt is George Costanza
George : Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable, I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but … I was perceptive. I always know when someone’s uncomfortable at a party. It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat … It’s all been wrong.
Yeah. They made the pilot, but it looks like it’s not being picked up by any network(s). Except Fox, of course. And the reviews suck!!!
This is very funny, Booman. Very good.
Alternatiuvely, the Romney campaign is a take on Mel Brooks’s “The Producers.”
They produce an awful show on the premise that they’ll make money on the failure.
Or the Cayman islands or somewhere.
Let us pray that the plot doesn’t backfire this time.
Let us pray.
If of course we can stop laughing.
Later…
AG
Booman, this is a BRILLIANT piece and going up on the FB ad twitter. thank you.
I posted it in orange, too.
Perfect! The reel was playing in my head the whole time I was reading. Funny stuff; because it’s absolutely true.
pure genius, booman. i put it up on my blog.
There’s a reason Seinfeld is my favorite show. I have a Seinfeld reference for anything that happens in my life, which is why I loved it; it’s too relatable. Sometimes my friends who don’t like the show get annoyed, but they come around lol.