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March 19, 2006
Mitt? Short for Mitten?
The BBC's From Our Own Correspondent allows seasoned journalists to share the stories behind their stories. The result is often as insightful as it is pithy. They read like charming letters to a friend back home, telling the tales of the curious rituals and institutions that often seem unremarkable to the unwitting subject.
Fitting, then, that today's piece by Justin Webb, Republicans begin long road to 2008, introduces the world to the Long March that is the pursuit of the Presidential nomination in the United States. He describes the party meeting he sat in on outside Des Moines, Iowa, as one part school board, one part national convention, with Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney playing the part of the humble and gracious suitor, sitting on the living room sofa and peppered with questions before he is allowed to take Jane to the movies.
He did not, of course, mention the presidency.That would have been a ghastly blunder, akin to jumping into bed before even flirting, which in Iowa is something only farm animals do...
It was all very warm and gentle and wholesome: a fitting way to begin the selection of a presidential candidate in a nation which, for all its meretricious airs, has a simple homespun gentility at its core.
For the majority of Americans, who, like my friend quoted in this post's title, have yet to be introduced to Mr. Romney, the next two years will be a mix (if they happen to live in a swing state) of folksiness and big money theatrics (if they live anywhere else). It is gratifying to see that at least one international service is taking a closer look at a process that is often covered as if it were a political soap opera acted out only in the corridors of power.
Posted by Henry Shepherd at March 19, 2006 11:08 AM
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