Baggage

At the end of a recent weekend trip to Boston, my wife and I packed our belongings and checked out of our hotel, which was outside downtown Boston. Our plan was to spend the day sightseeing and then pick up our luggage at the end of the day before beginning our trip home to New York. The problem was the luggage. The hotel was happy to store it for us all day if we wished, but then we'd have to double-back to pick it up. We finally took it with us; this was a real nuisance, since we came to Boston by public transit. Eventually, our problem resolved itself when we lugged it downtown and checked it with the bellhop at the downtown branch of the hotel.

Over this past weekend, as I watched Mitt Romney make appearances with his newly-chosen VP running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, I found myself thinking about our luggage. The more I observed Romney and Ryan, the more I saw a similarity between them and our luggage. In a very real sense, Ryan was now Romney's luggage that Mitt will be forced to drag along wherever he goes until Election Day. I could easily be wrong-- maybe it's because I'm a liberal Democrat-- but to me it seemed that Romney's smile sometimes looked slightly like a rueful grin. I could swear I saw the same look on John McCain's face after he picked Sarah Palin for his ticket.

Make no mistake: this is baggage, not luggage! Already, Mitt is going to Florida, but Ryan has been detoured to the Midwest lest he offend the millions of Medicare retirees in South Florida. Mitt can go wherever he wants but, like us at the end of the day, he's got to reclaim his baggage.

Until now, Romney could bob and weave when it came to policy pronouncements and positions. I think he rather enjoyed being nimble and changing positions as circumstances dictated. It won't be so easy going forward from this point and, unlike my wife and me, he isn't going to find a friendly drop-off spot for the duration.

The rich elite, right-wing conservatives, and the Tea Partyers may be thrilled, but there are clearly more Obama supporters out there than loyal Republicans. Choosing Ryan won't overcome the gap, which Romney recognized and attempted to close with his VP pick. BTW, I've noticed that Romney's campaign photos in the papers and on TV always seem to be taken at an angle which mask the relatively small size of his crowds at campaign stops. I noticed the same treatment with the McCain campaign.