The principal characters in this essay are Mitt Romney, the Republican aspirant to the presidency of the United States, and a fellow called Willie Nelson, who is a singer of folk songs. My memory is that Willie Nelson is perilously close to being 80 years of age.
The knock on Mitt Romney is that he is not likeable. When he came down the street, for example, carrying a bag from a hardware store, he was asked, “What is in the bag?”
Mitt replied, “Only some hardware items.” He did not say, for example, that the bag contained a hammer, some tacks, or a screwdriver. He said that it contained some hardware items.
Recently, when he alighted from his private jet, he was asked, “How did the ride go?” He said, “That is a good aircraft.” He did not say, “That is a good plane.” Somehow, Mitt Romney always seems to produce an awkward phrase.
Apparently the pollsters keep track of a likeability index. Mitt Romney has been through all of the primaries, which were shown on television. But somehow he seems to register a very very low score on the likeability index. That man is not one with whom I would enjoy having a drink. His language is basically stilted. And as I said earlier, his language is quite awkward.
Now I am including thoughts that go back a good many years having to do with likeability. Before the Second World War, I played a few games of semi-pro baseball. The owner of the club was Borbein-Young Automotive Parts. Each week that we played, our nicknames would come from new automotive parts that Borbein-Young was featuring. We had one problem in that Gus Borbein was in charge of nicknames and was having a special on ball bearings. We were known as the Borbein-Young Ball Bearings. That was all right with us as long as Gus Borbein paid us $4 or $5 when the game was finished. We did not have uniforms for our players on the Borbein-Young team. When we played a club dressed in uniforms, the efforts of the Borbein-Young team were greatly enhanced. I was the catcher on that club and when one of the uniformed players came to bat, I gave the signal for a high hard one at the batter’s head.
Similarly, when I played a bit of baseball for my high school, we played a private school called John Burroughs. They were fancy Dans who had the latest in uniforms and baseball gear. When we played John Burroughs High School, there was often a fist fight or more often there were cases when our pitchers would throw high, hard ones close to the Burroughs batters.
After all of these years, I am still of the opinion that Mitt Romney is like the baseball clubs with uniforms who played against us. And there is a distinct similarity to the John Borroughs private school mentality.
The answer to all of this is that Mitt Romney is not a likeable person. Likeability seems to have escaped this wealthy son of the founder of American Motors. Mitt is not the kind of guy who could share a dirty joke.
On the other hand, Willie Nelson, the troubadour, is an extraordinarily likeable gentleman. I suspect that Willie is now in his early 80s. For many years, he had traveled from one engagement to another on a bus that he had customized to provide sleeping quarters. The rest of the band who traveled with Willie had beds on the bus as well. Willie Nelson is an icon in American music, and when it comes to likeability Willie is the exact opposite of Mitt Romney.
A number of years ago, Willie Nelson recorded a song called “The City of New Orleans.” It is about an Illinois Central railroad train which was dubbed “The City of New Orleans.” It ran between Chicago and New Orleans. When it was on the return trip to Chicago they would dub this train “The City of Chicago.” For the purposes of this essay, we will confine ourselves to the southbound odyssey which appears in the song. That also rhymed with Kankakee, the city 60 miles south of Chicago. I have always marveled at someone finding a rhyme for Kankakee. That rhyme of course is odyssey.
Willie Nelson is the sort of person to whom I would be immediately drawn. The voice echoes friendliness. In “The City of New Orleans,” there is a line that holds:
Good mornin’, America, How are ya?
Don’t you know me? I’m your native son.
I’m the train they call the city of New Orleans
And I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
When Willie Nelson sings this song, it is clear that Willie is greeting us all when he says, “Good mornin’, good mornin’, America. How are ya? Don’t you know me? I’m your native son.” I suppose that those who were fortunate enough to get tickets to a Willie Nelson concert would linger around the stage after the songs were finished, hoping to meet Willie Nelson. In short, Willie Nelson is a thoroughly likeable man. He comes across as totally genuine. He is the fellow that most of us hope would live next door. Mitt Romney is none of these things.
Before this essay is finished, I wish to say some self-laudatory things about none other than Uncle Ezra. The way my life has worked out, I have spent an enormous amount of time traveling to nearly all sections of the world. The section most traveled was of course Europe. And it has always come easily for me to make friends. Sven Lernevall, a Swede I have known for more than 40 years, is one of those friends. I have always found that if when meeting a person, you shake hands with a bit of firmness and look someone directly in the eye, you have an excellent chance of establishing a friendship. I do not mean to say that I am on a par with Mitt Romney or Willie Nelson, but I am trying to say that making friends is, for me, the most easy and enjoyable part of human relations.
But here is the test. The next time you hear Willie Nelson sing “The City of New Orleans,” try to imagine Mitt Romney singing the part about “Good mornin’, good mornin’, America. How are ya? Don’t ya know me? I’m your native son.” My guess is that you and the rest of the audience will gag as Romney tries to mouth these words.
This essay is being dictated at 4 PM on Thursday, the day of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech. I dare not show it to Mitt Romney because he might blubber when it gets to the point about “good mornin’, how are ya?” I suspect that there aren’t many who will await Romney’s address this evening with some anticipation. For Uncle Ezra, it could be said that I have been following what Mitt Romney has had to say over the years. You know that this is his second try for the presidency. Perhaps I will wait up to hear Romney’s speech. On the other hand, Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope, moved the midnight mass at Christmas to 10:00 PM to allow His Holiness to get a better night’s sleep. In this case, I may emulate Joseph Ratzinger and go to bed early, say at 11 PM, foregoing the fact that I will miss what Mitt Romney has to say. However, I am certain that the television commentators will have plenty to say about it tomorrow.
So at this point, my tendency is to take leave of this essay, knowing that the state of the union is in good hands. Instead of listening to Mitt Romney, I am going to spend the bulk of the evening thinking about how it would sound if he sang the Willie Nelson lines about “Good mornin’, good mornin’, America. How are ya? Don’t ya know me? I’m your native son.” I suspect that imagining Mitt Romney singing those lines will chase me under the bed until the election finally occurs. But remember this: it is always easy for a guy like Willie Nelson to make friends. Unfortunately, his counterpart, Mitt Romney, is a stuffy sort of person. All of the speeches in the world to be delivered by his wife will not alter the fact of his stuffiness.
So at this point, as we approach the dinner hour, I will retire to consider whether I have the strength to hold out until 10 PM when Mitt Romney will cause the American electorate to gag while he tries to be friendly and likeable. I believe that at 10 PM I may play “The City of New Orleans” to sustain myself for the ensuing day. Let us pray.
E. E. CARR
August 30, 2012
Essay 690
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I had no idea Pop played semi-pro baseball. I think I may have heard it once or twice but I think I mentally put it next to his assertion that he was a champion longjumper.
Now, while I don’t disagree with the analysis here with regard to Romney/Nelson. Clearly the latter would be a lot more fun to hang out with. But critically I think it’s important to note that Pop never really said that dislikability constitutes a reason that Romney would make a poor president. I mean sure, maybe he’ll be a little weird among other heads of state and stuff like that but let’s be honest, how likable a person seems is a pretty awful metric for determining how good of a president he would make. Likability voting gets us presidents like Bush, so let’s not do that — and I’m not reading here that Pop wants us to do that. I think Pop was purely trying to say he doesn’t like the dude.