Beyond Misery in America: Willard Romney

By Charles Pierce, Esquire Magazine

07 July 12

illard Romney, onetime dauphin prince of the Mexican outback and current presumptive nominee of the only Republican party we have, has been having a rough week there up at his lakeside retreat in the small town of Silly Rich Bastard, New Hampshire. He's gotten himself tangled up (again) with his previous incarnations, particularly the Self that once deigned to govern Massachusetts for about 11 minutes back in the early Aughts. That one put in place a mandate requiring that all citizens of the Commonwealth (God Save It!) buy health insurance, or else pay a penalty that would be collected by the state revenoo'ers. The current Willard, of course, is opposed to mandates because he is the nominee of a party full of crazy people. He and his campaign have spent a week trying to decide if the crazy people are less likely to disembowel them if they call such a mandate a "penalty" or a "tax" in relation to the Obama administration's success at bringing Romney's original Massachusetts plan to the masses. He's also being sniped at by various allegedly non-crazy leaders of his party for not being the candidate of their dreams. All of which seems to be harshing the general mellow up in the piney woods.

Once again, I put upon my head my speechwriter's hat - it is a lovely green fedora with a red feather in the band - and offer the Romney campaign my services in this strange, floundering hour of its discontent. I believe it doesn't have to be this way. I believe in addressing the problems head-on, as you will see.

I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm all you got left.

Look at me up here in one of my three primary residences, zipping around Lake You Can't Afford It in my jet-ski with just enough chest hair showing, and gathering my incredibly beautiful, incredibly wonderful, incredibly wealthy family around me to celebrate the Fourth Of July the way all Americans do, except with better cars. It's almost hard to believe up here that I actually had to go all around the country to buy this nomination. I could've closed the deal from my hammock here. No, though, I was willing to go out and meet some of those people. And now, I'm back in the hammock anyway and,

I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm all you got left.

Stop sweating me, okay? It's time for my nap. Tell Kristol to shut up or I'll look under the lawn chairs until I find enough loose change to buy that little magazine of his and sell it to the publisher of Biker Mamas for a 200-percent profit. Let Kristol go cover Bike Week in Laconia next summer if he wants to run his yap. And Murdoch? He doesn't like me? Tell you what: How about I get in there and revoke that tin citizenship medal that he's got and let him go back to selling titty magazines to sheep farmers in Queensland. He's over here because people like me allow him to be over here. Goddamn immigrant. I hope the senile old fool is tapping my phone, because I won't have to shout at him that,

I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm all you got left.

In case you haven't noticed, they're still all coming to me. I've been running them through the obstacle course up here all week. Jindal's parking cars, and Pawlenty's almost got the entire pool cleaned out, and Portman mixes a fine dark-and-stormy for the cocktail hour every day. Ann's got Portman cleaning out the stalls. Fine man with a shovel, that Portman, but, Jesus H. Christ Come To Arkansas, he's boring. Ayotte was around this afternoon, but she has to be back on the pole by 8:00 because I promised one of the kids - Tagg, or Tripp, or Tybalt, or Queequeg or whatever the hell his name is - a show for his friends tonight. They will do anything just to be the person I get to send to the funerals of the presidents of countries I could buy for what I've spent on alfalfa for that damn horse, because, well:

I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm all you got left.

These people all have futures, or they think they do, anyway. (Even Jindal does, like he's got a shot with those hayshakers I met this year. Most of them will ask him to sell them a lottery ticket.) You think they'd be up here in chipmunk country sucking up to me and all the rest of the walking orthodonture in my family if they didn't know what's what in the real world? You think they'd be demeaning themselves in all these different ways if they didn't know I could deliver? You know what the difference is right now between Tim Pawlenty and the guy who trims my hedges? A green card. You don't think I could send Portman out for whiskey and Chinese hookers any time I want to? Is it a penalty? Is it a tax? You think I care? I can write a check and buy English and change words to mean anything I want them to mean. "Horse" is now "deduction." See how it works? "Penalty" and "tax" and "fee" all mean the same thing. They mean I don't have to pay them. I own English now. Say something. Go ahead, I dare you. Say something and you owe me a buck royalties and you better believe I'm coming for it because,

I'm Mitt Romney, bitches, and I'm all you got left.

Sources close to the Romney campaign have told the blog that the campaign is unlikely to use this speech, or the ideas therein, in part or in full.

Further adventures in speechwriting here, here, here, here, and here.