The Father, the Son and the Holy Vote

One of the inevitable developments of any modern presidency is the "psycho-history" cottage industry. That is, academics, physicians, amateur psychologists and dishonest partisans predictably produce elaborate psychological theories tracing the conscious and subconscious roots of the president's personality and political worldview.

But on the eve of this week's Republican National Convention that will officially nominate Mitt Romney, concerned conservatives and puzzled pundits are already paging Dr. Freud. Team Romney continues to fret over the "empathy gap" with Barack Obama. His supporters struggle to explain the paradox between Mitt's apparent dedication and generosity to those within his small circle of family, friends, business colleagues and fellow church members, and his jaw-dropping detachment towards everyone outside it. In many ways, it seems, Mitt Romney remains unknowable to us.

As it turns out, in January Nixonland author Rick Perlstein offered what may be the keenest insight into the mind of Mitt thus far. In his almost Shakespearean tale of filial piety gone wrong, Mitt is an undoubting Hamlet figure, the son who must avenge his beloved father George's 1968 defeat most foul at the hands of Richard Nixon. As Ann Romney put it, "He is why Mitt is running." But to succeed in his quest for his party's nomination, Mitt the Redeemer had to become Mitt the Repudiator. In pursuit of votes, the son cast aside the bluntness, candor and authenticity that also made his father politically vulnerable, replacing it with secrecy, serial flip-flopping and almost pathological dissembling about what he believes and what he would do. The result, as a quick glance at his positions on taxes, civil rights, education and unions shows, is that Mitt Romney has essentially become George Romney's opposite.

Which is more than a little ironic'and disturbing. After all, Mitt has used the dad he idolized as a human shield for years, telling Americans that he"saw" his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s (he didn't see that) and fondly remembered joining Pop for Detroit's Golden Jubilee in 1946 (Mitt wasn't born yet). But even more than a mask for Mitt to wear to connect to workers and minority voters, father George Romney became a proxy for the rags-to-riches story his son obviously lacked. In February, for example, Mitt used George's humble roots as a substitute for his own privileged background:

My father never graduated from college. He apprenticed, as a lath and plaster carpenter, and he was darn good at it. He learned how to put a handful of nails in his mouth and spit them out, point forward. On his honeymoon, he and Mom drove across the country. Dad sold aluminum paint along the way, to pay for gas and hotels.

There were a lot reasons my father could have given up or set his sights lower. But Dad always believed in America; and in that America, a lath and plaster man could work his way up to running a little car company called American Motors and end up Governor of a state where he had once sold aluminum paint.

As he has for months, Romney claimed that questions about his mysterious finances and Darwinian business practices were an attack on "success and free enterprise." When President Obama said that all Americans deserve a "fair shot," even those who, like him, weren't "born with a silver spoon" in their mouth Mitt took umbrage:

"I'm certainly not going to apologize for my dad and his success in life. He was born poor. He worked his way to become very successful despite the fact that he didn't have a college degree. And one of the things he wanted to do was provide for me and for my brother and sisters."

But as Rick Perlstein explained, AMC CEO-turned-Gov. George Romney's compassion didn't end with his family:

His vision of how capitalism should work was in every particular the exact opposite of the one pushed by the vulture capitalist he sired. (If George Romney's AMC was around now, Mitt Romney's Bain Capital would probably be busy turning it into a carcass.) A critic once said he was "so dedicated to good works his entrance into politics is like sending a Salvation Army lass into the chorus at a burlesque house." As a CEO he would give back part of his salary and bonus to the company when he thought they were too high. He offered a pioneering profit-sharing plan to his employees. Most strikingly, asked about the idea that "rugged individualism" was the key to America's success, he snapped back, "It's nothing but a political banner to cover up greed."

As we'll see time and again below, that kind of talk wasn't going to endear Mitt Romney to today's Republican Party.

(Continue reading below the fold.)