How To Lose Elections: Massachusetts Style

Opinion:  After the 2012 election, there should be a movement to ratify a 28th amendment to the constitution: no one from Massachusetts, regardless of political party affiliation shall ever become a party's nominee for president.  I know a great president came from Massachusetts, but look at the last few individuals from that state that have run for president: John Kerry and Mitt Romney.  These guys have to be the most out of touch candidates for elective office either known to man or at least since the reelection of Herbert Hoover. 

What do these candidates have in common other than the fact they are both from the Bay State?  Both Kerry and Romney were elected by their respective bases reluctantly, and party officials were not exactly thrilled with their choice.  Kerry was pretty much selected to be the nominee for president in 2004 when Howard Dean decided that it was a good time to give an WWE Wrestlemaina style speech after losing the Iowa caucus (that video is still funny to this day), and that primary voters did not want to vote for John Edwards, a guy who pretty much ran for president because he had no shot at winning reelection for Senate in North Carolina.  Romney was selected as the nominee only because he spent millions on ads trashing anyone that posed as a threat to his ascendency to become the Republican nominee, save Herman Cain, who no one took seriously. 

Both Kerry and Romney were in positions to win against incumbents who are not exactly very popular (though Barack Obama is more slightly popular than George W. Bush prior to reelection), gas prices are high (people complained about $2.00 gas in 2004, don't you wish that gas prices were that low now), the economy was sluggish in both situations, and both incumbent presidents were mired in unpopular wars (Bush in Iraq, Obama for continuing Bush's war in Afghanistan).  Both nominees from Massachusetts have wasted time and opportunity to take advantage of the incumbent’s weaknesses.  In Kerry’s case, the Republicans managed to turn him from a Vietnam veteran who championed the causes of the most vulnerable, to a wind surfing, flip-flopping, French looking candidate who had a sugar mama for a wife (why did he go windsurfing at a time when soldiers were dying left and right in Iraq?  I never got that).  Kerry’s campaign did not effectively fight those charges.  For Romney, the Democrats have made him to be a car elevator buying, $10,000 betting man, who loves the landscape of Michigan’s trees and  its cars, who will not hesitate to fire workers if there was a profit in it for him and his investors.  Actually in Romney’s case, he did a lot this damage to himself (why did he install a car elevator in one of his mansions as if that bit of information would not get out when many Americans are broke, and he’s running to make 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is new address anyway?  I really do not get that.) .

In my opinion, if Romney loses this election in November, I believe you can point it to the day (Sunday September 9, 2012 by the way) he pretty much lost the election.  Why?  Romney, when pressed about the Affordable Health Care Act, also known as Obamacare, on Meet the Press, stated that he would keep parts of act, and thus would not repeal the law altogether.  I can imagine a bunch of Republicans saying to themselves at that moment, “You fool!  I was only willing to put up with you being our nominee, as long as you would repeal Obamacare.  Now you’re saying you want to keep parts of this law?  I was better off with Rick Santorum running for President if I had known you were going to do this!”  For any Republican reading this, truth be told, you were better off with Rick Santorum as the Republican nominee for president.

Consider how bad the economy is going, had hard it is to get a job in today’s market, the high gas and food prices, President Obama should seriously be losing in the polls badly in the same manner that Morgan State was stomped by the Akron Zips Saturday (I can’t help it, I’m a proud kangaroo).  Somehow, just like President Bush, with weak challengers leading their respective parties, it looks like barring some ridiculous economic breakdown, or we really do find out that those conspiracy theorists who think that President Obama was from the planet Arus were right, President Obama might be headed for a second term.

On the other hand, maybe an amendment for attractive ex governors who look like Farrah Fawcett when appearing on a late 1970s game show, that make impassioned speeches concerning the working man, to run for president should be ratified, even if they were born in Canada.  Just no more presidential nominees from Massachusetts please.