Just eight months after Willard embarrassed himself by not knowing how much the T costs (“[A]sked at a news conference yesterday about the price of a token, Romney stumbled. ‘A buck,’ he gamely responded. That was the correct price — in 2003. Informed of the $1.25 it now costs, Romney told reporters ‘OK, I’ll give you a quarter,’ then laughed and descended into Park Street Station.”) comes the following from the BBC about recent Iowa campaigning: “This hugely successful multimillionaire businessman turned politician: tanned skin, suspiciously dark hair, very sharp suit arrived unannounced in a modest saloon car, spent some time being polite to the Republican ladies selling coffee for 25 cents a cup (that is about 15 pence). There is a lot of fuss with dollar bills because, of course, Mr Romney does not normally deal in small change.” Iowa: check. “Modest saloon car”: check. Petty badinage with serfs serving coffee: check. Nothing less than a Benjamin: buzzer and elite alert. Get that man a staffer with change and a Charlie card.
Not having a quarter on you makes you elitist?
but constantly appearing as a shiny exec and not knowing how much the T costs when you’ve spent the last few years in Boston does make you appear a bit out of touch.
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And, of course… out of touch + rich == elitist.
To Mike Dukakis who actually rode the Green Line to work every day while he was Governor.
But I do think the “rich elitist” issue will be an important factor in the 2008 Republican primary race; that it may hurt Romney; that one of Bush’s strengths was his ability to recast himself from a Rich Preppy to a Regular Texan; that Romney needs to do something similar if he wants to win; that stories like this hurt his ability to do that; and that his staff needs to pay better attention. Bush may not know how much the DC metro costs, and he may travel without small change, but I haven’t seen an article with a note like this related to the Bush family since the infamous supermarket scanner story (arguably false) that helped derail his father’s campaign. That’s not an accident: that’s winning politics.
The snootiness in the encounter is a product of the BBC style – not Romney’s actions.
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I can hardly wait until you post a BBC story on Duval!
I can hardly wait ’til they write one! (btw, it’s “Deval,” with an “e”)