No two people could be more different than Mitt Romney — Ken-doll handsome, wealthy as a Pharaoh, and blessed with a loving and equally good-looking family — and George Costanza, a schlubby, balding loser who could never manage to hold down a job or a girlfriend and lived with his parents deep into his thirties. And yet, while many Republicans look to Ronald Reagan, the Founding Fathers, or even Jesus Christ for inspiration, it appears that Romney is increasingly basing his campaign on the (fictional) life and philosophy of George.
We all had a pleasant chuckle a couple of months ago when Romney recited a bit of George wisdom during a primary debate. “As George Costanza would say, ‘When they’re applauding, stop,’” Romney declared, not totally accurately. But at a campaign stop yesterday, Romney borrowed a page from George’s playbook again, albeit not as explicitly:
“What I would do? People ask me, ‘What would you to get the economy going?’ and I say, ‘Well look at what the president’s done and do the opposite,’” Romney told a group gathered at a warehouse in northern Virginia.
While that can hardly be considered an economic plan, simply doing “the opposite” of what isn’t working was a tremendous success for George in a classic 1994 episode entitled, “The Opposite.”
In addition getting George a new girl, doing “the opposite” also secures him a new job with the Yankees.
Whether doing “the opposite” can boost unemployed on a nationwide scale, as Romney hopes, remains to be seen. Regardless, it’s becoming more and more evident that Romney intends to base his political decisions on the Teachings of George. If Romney suddenly drapes himself in velvet and proposes that Americans stretch their budget by eating food out of the garbage, we’ll know why.
