A user on Reddit posted a blurry photo of a man at a gas station, purported to be one Willard Mitt Romney, fresh off the high of campaigning to be president, now looking dejected and very, very ordinary.
Gone are the Secret Service bodyguards, the adoring crowds, the hateful crowds, the news media, cameras, reporters, and fleet of buses, trucks, SUVs and town cars.
Gone are the private jets--no wait, he still has those. Mitt Romney has lost everything, except for his hundreds of millions of dollars and his three mansions.
The photo was taken near one of those mansions, in La Jolla, Calif., at a Shell gas station.
It is dark, and the man who could have been the President of the Unites States has his hands in his pockets. He is not wearing a tie. His hair is tousled, dare I say, disheveled.
He does not look happy.
But then, Romney has spent the last two weeks getting kicked around by the very Republicans he nearly broke his back trying to please.
After its resounding defeat in the presidential election, the Republican party needs to reevaluate its platform and pick a new direction, but in lieu of self-reflection, it's much easier to pin all the failings of the campaign on Romney.
The other Republicans who ran for president should be thanking him for being the sacrificial cow.
Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Ron Paul and whoever I missed from that tax-averse rogue's gallery should be happy they weren't the one trying to explain bad math and vague policy proposals and weekly rape comments to the American public.
Sure, Romney failed miserably at all those tasks, but none of them would have done any better, and now they're kicking him when he's down, like the whole thing was his fault.
But Romney got closer to the prize than any of them could ever have dreamed (except maybe Jon Huntsman).
So maybe it isn't the slow hiss of a gas pump that has Romney down. He's got enough money left to have people fill up his cars for him, if he wants. Maybe he's out in the middle of the night grabbing a Twinkie and a slushie like the rest of us.
Maybe he's sad because he thought he was part of a team.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
