Kathryn Jean Lopez Gets Thrill Up Her Leg For Romney's 'Vision Thing'

Apparently, there has been a turning point in Mitt Romney’s campaign—a GOOD turning point of some kind. We know this because Kathryn Jean Lopez has taken to the National Review to inform us of such, even if she can’t quite identify exactly why this was a turning point, or what it means, or how it benefits Mitt Romney. But she does make sure to note that this turning point has something to do with his glorious speech to the NAACP (no, really) which she knows was glorious because her Nigerian taxi driver told her how much he loved it (again, no, really). Also, Mitt Romney doesn’t need a woman or a person of color as his VP because he doesn’t need anything so gimmicky as a non-white person for a VP given that he “has a record of being all about winning the future.” (Once again, no, really.) And he will be a GREAT president because he believes so strongly in Freedom and in personal choices, and the NAACP was a perfect showcase for all of that because he quoted from Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Frederick Douglass.

The mid-July rumor that Mitt Romney might pick former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as his running-mate was a fun Matt Drudge scoop…A woman is a good idea. Or a Marco Rubio. A Bobby Jindal….But the insistence that Governor Romney is a deficient candidate who needs to make up for a lack of “sex appeal” or “a vision thing” misses a central point about him: He’s got a record of being all about winning the future, to borrow a phrase. And if his recent speech to the NAACP is any indication, he’s intent on making sure America knows.

There is the business success, his turnaround of the scandal-crippled 2002 Winter Olympics, or his time as governor of Massachusetts. Or you can talk to a cab driver from Nigeria, who has been a U.S. citizen for 16 years. Having admired Reagan, he has always voted Republican, but he has had misgivings about Romney and the whole “Repeal Obamacare!” business… And then Mitt Romney spoke to the NAACP. “For the first time since coming here, I heard what I’ve been waiting to hear from a presidential candidate,” my taxi driver told me as he braved D.C. traffic to get me from one meeting to the next…

[Romney] may just get to work on rebuilding something we’ve been undervaluing of late: freedom. Freedom to believe as we choose, even outside our places of worship. To have the dream of upward mobility. To have dreams again, period. At a time when our government is insisting that women’s fertility is a disease, that parents and individuals simply do not know best what they and their families need, invention and creativity and American exceptionalism all seem on the verge of becoming past tense…

The Romney campaign doesn’t need a vice-presidential gimmick. Mitt Romney just needs to be himself. That NAACP speech was a model and a turning point. “Take a look,” he said at his unleashing. If he keeps talking that way, whole new audiences might do just that.

So much to say here! Choices, choices! But let’s start with this one: here I am, thinking Romney had a record of lying to the SEC when in in fact, he has a record of winning the future. Never having seen one, I wouldn't know what it looks like. As it turns out, it looks like having $100 million in an IRA and retroactively retiring from a venture capitalist firm. And: Kathryn Jean Lopez, the Bush Administration, and Tom Friedman have something in common, being that they regard taxi drivers as founts of wisdom and/or voices of the man on the street , so that's interesting. Oh and there's this: what do “a Bobby Jindal” and “a Marco Rubio” and “a woman” all have in common (besides “sex appeal” or “a vision thing”)? Apparently, picking one of them would be “gimmicky” because (DUH) why else would you pick an Indian, a Cuban, or a Black woman as your VP? Who needs one of them when you're ALREADY so in touch with FREEDOM?

 [The National Review]