Etch-A-Sketch

Published in Publico
(Portugal) on 21 March 2012
by Rita Siza (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Diana Coada. Edited by Katie Marinello.
This was not the message that Mitt Romney wanted to be discussing in the aftermath of his Illinois victory. According to his campaign’s senior adviser, the former governor will have enough time to ''change'' his positions and build a new image for himself and his campaign before he faces off against Barack Obama, or, as Eric Fehrnstrom said, to erase and paint a new drawing like children do when they are playing Etch-a-Sketch and “start all over again.”

In reality, this is what all candidates do when they transition from the primaries to the presidential campaign. During the primaries, the candidates talk in a kind of an encrypted code to the most orthodox factions of their political movements. But during the presidential campaign, they need to show openness and moderation to captivate the pragmatic independents, those voters who do not choose their candidate based on party affiliations or ideological beliefs.

But at this stage of the campaign, when Romney is still fighting against the preconceived notion that he is a false conservative, a candidate based on focus groups, a flip-flopper instead of a man of deep ideas and convictions, Fehrnstrom's comments only serve to confirm and reinforce the distrust that the candidate is already encountering from a significant portion of the conservative electorate.

Rick Santorum and the Democrats did not waste any time in taking advantage of the blunder. And the people who love to make jokes on Twitter can only be grateful for yet another treat.


Segu­ra­mente não era esta “men­sagem” que Mitt Rom­ney que­ria estar a dis­cu­tir hoje, no rescaldo da vitória no Illi­nois. Segundo o prin­ci­pal con­sel­heiro político da cam­panha, o ex-governador terá tempo sufi­ciente para “refor­mu­lar” as suas posições e pin­tar um novo retrato para si próprio e a sua can­di­datura antes do embate com Barack Obama — apa­gar o que está e desen­har uma coisa nova, como as cri­anças fazem quando brin­cam com um Etch-a-Sketch. “Começar tudo do princí­pio”, resumiu Eric Fehrnstrom.

Na real­i­dade, é o que fazem todos os can­didatos quando tran­si­tam da fase das primárias para a cam­panha pres­i­den­cial: no primeiro caso, os con­cor­rentes falam num código cifrado para as facções mais orto­doxas do seu movi­mento político; no segundo, pre­cisam de demon­strar aber­tura e mod­er­ação sufi­ciente para cati­var o eleitorado que não baseia a sua escolha exclu­si­va­mente por critérios par­tidários ou pura­mente idol­ógi­cos (os prag­máti­cos independentes).

Mas nesta fase da cam­panha, em que Rom­ney ainda luta con­tra a ideia pré-concebida de que é um falso con­ser­vador, um can­didato con­struído com base em receitas de focus-groups, um flip-flopper em vez de um homem de ideias e con­vicções pro­fun­das, a men­sagem de recon­strução veic­u­lada por Eric Fehrn­strom só vem confirmar/reforçar a descon­fi­ança que o seu can­didato já merece de uma parcela sig­ni­fica­tiva do eleitorado conservador.

Rick San­to­rum, obvi­a­mente, não perdeu tempo para explo­rar a gaffe. Os Democ­ratas tam­bém não. E as pes­soas que ado­ram fazer piadas no Twit­ter só podem estar a agrade­cer mais este brinde.
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