Look, I can understand the disappointment Mitt must feel after working so hard, coming so close, and ultimately losing, but in the end, his great loss was a position of power and influence that pretty much none of us will ever reach, so he doesn't get much sympathy from me. Losing THE PRESIDENCY is a lot less devastating that losing your home, your job or a loved one.
We can't really know what this race meant to him, but it's clear that there was an exuberant confidence about him and his team going into election night that was utterly shattered. What happens to you when you're about to reach the apotheosis of your life and your work, and you know that you have seized the day, but suddenly you realize that it's all been an illusion, and that you've failed on the biggest possible stage? Imagine how he must blame himself. Imagine looking into the faces of the crowd in Boston that was expecting to celebrate, saying anything to raise them out of defeat and despair. Imagine the apologies he must feel he has to make now to everyone who loves him.
The fact is that Mitt Romney will be remembered in history as a failure. Business, Olympics, government, it's all forgotten now. I don't care how many cars or houses he has, for he has enough to live out a comfortable and fulfilling life - but Election Night was surely the culmination an almost surreal human tragedy for him. I deeply sympathize with him. To wish this fate upon one's fellow man is truly criminal.
I don't buy this at all. He lost an election? Boohoo, I guess he can go and cry himself to sleep in one of his castles. I actually did feel some sympathy for McCain when he lost - although, again, it's not like he had real problems - because at least he occasionally reminded us that he was an actual human being.
The only times the veil ever slipped and we saw the real Mitt Romney, he revealed himself to be (hat-tip to Jonathan Chait) a sneering plutocrat - why feel sympathy for him? The man's a sociopath who
genuinely believes that people are poor because they don't "take responsibility for their lives". If someone posted that on this forum they'd be mauled, and rightfully so. Why is it acceptable for a Presidential candidate to say? I don't feel any sympathy for Romney - he's slime, and all I feel is a deep and gratifying schadenfreude at his defeat.
I'm not going to pretend I don't get some satisfaction from the knowledge that Romney, the pathological, sociopathic liar and fraud who we had to suffer for months, who pandered obscenely to the misogynists and Klansmen in his own party, saw his dream die on Tuesday night - he's not going to have the Presidency of the United States as a trophy, and he's not going to get a chance to deprive millions of people of their health coverage. Good! F--k him.
