Picking Up Mitt-mentum, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #189 | @MDWorld

July 24, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,
I’m having a lot of trouble and I was hoping you could help.  I’m running for president and my campaign has just been a total shit show.  I just can’t seem to successfully control the narrative.  I’m spending all of this time playing defense on topics like my tax returns and my time at Bain Capital when we should be talking about the tanking economy and the general ineffectiveness of the Obama presidency.  If it weren’t for the terrible shooting in Colorado temporarily halting the campaign I would have spent another whole week on the defensive.  What can I do to shift the campaign back in my favor?  Is my quest for the presidency salvageable at all?
-Mitt Romney, Former CEO Bain Capital 1984-?

Mitt,
Normally I wouldn’t be inclined to help someone like you.  We seem to disagree on an awful lot of important policy matters but I’m going to help you out for a couple reasons.  First, I have always wanted to break into high-level campaign direction and turning around a sinking ship like yours is bound to put me on the top of the list the next time someone I like is looking for someone.  Second I feel like you have no idea what things cost and I could charge you huge amounts of money for consulting work and you wouldn’t even begin to fix it.  Mitt, if you want to read the rest of this column you need to send me a check for $17 million.  Everyone else go right ahead.

You sort of missed this opportunity but this past weekend was the perfect time to release your tax returns.  No one would have been paying attention at all.  You can probably get a chance like this again though.  The Olympics are coming up and there’s bound to be some kind of big event that draws the attention of the nation.  Put them out when everyone’s looking the other way and have some confidence that the media won’t want to go back to an “old story” and that, really, the American electorate isn’t smart enough to really understand what’s in those tax returns.  Unless you have line deductions for dead hooker disposal there’s nothing to be afraid of.  The longer you take the more people are going to have to assume that something like that is in there.

As for going on the attack you should probably pick actual places of weakness in your opponent.  Obama has been president for three and a half years so people have a pretty good idea of what he’s going to be like as president.  If he was going to destroy small businesses, turn our nation’s security over to the KGB, or take every gun in America and melt them down to make a giant statue of Jeremiah Wright it probably would have happened by now.  You’re only appealing to the deranged segment of your base that believes these things and they’re voting for you anyway.

Last but not least try to look like you’re even a little fun to be around.  You should learn the lesson of John Kerry, another rich Massachusetts politician who failed to defeat a vulnerable incumbent because he seemed like a total drip.  Obama is far less folksier than Bush was but you make John Kerry look like John Kennedy.  Take some of that money and get coached at this stuff.  Not the money you’re sending to me though; that check had better already be in the mail.