Paul Krugman does a typical liberal piece indicating that Romney, in best Freudian fashion, has told his real feelings about the poor in his mis-speaking.
But I think this is not the right interpretation. First of all, Romney has been running for president for a the better part of a decade now, so whatever tendencies to malapropism he might have had are well controlled.
What can’t be controlled is the psychopath’s courting of risk, and that’s the real danger. Romney thinks he can be elected while telling the American people off to their faces. Historically Romney has not relied on persuasion but power to get his way, waiting until the legislature was in recess for most of his moves in Massachusetts, and relying on social structures not just to promote his advancement but to win political power for him. What I fear that means, is that his misstatements are deniable statements of real intent: and the targets of that intention are supposed to be intimidated.
In Massachusetts, Romney faced a legislature that was 85% Democratic, and as we know from previous posts, Salt Lake City was keen he get along with Massachusetts' liberals. But with a Republican Congress, Romney would likely move to a far right agenda. You’d better believe the social security disability rolls would be slashed in half; that food stamps as a program would probably be eliminated for the crime of becoming too expensive; that Medicaid rather than Medicare would receive further axe attention; and AFDC would probably be eliminated entirely. Pretty much any bugaboo of the conservatives of the 1970s would be a target. And when some will complain they thought he was moderate, he would only have to point to these interviews and say, “I told you what I wanted.”
His grandiose desire for reckless change is most apparent in defense policy where he has criticized Obama for authorizing a $6 billion cut in a $525 billion annual budget. He is obsessed with having a military "so powerful no one will ever dare challenge it" and makes ridiculous claims that the Navy and Air Force are weaker now than at any time since just after World War II. Rather than accepting a diminished role in the world, Mitt Romney has rather megalomaniac ideas about our foreign relations.
He has all but guaranteed war with Iran saying if he is elected "Iran will not have a nuclear weapon" and refusing to say he would even consult Congress before declaring war. His foreign policy adviser has advocated nuking Iran.
http://www.alternet.org/story/154018/elect_romney,_get_war_in_iran_/
In November he even said he would "prepare for war" with Iran.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hPT0FxeuTQDt8fKCpkU2LzxcHN0A?docId=CNG.157e26ff13a2c531647ebb82af797d37.91
Thus, Romney's recklessness knows no bounds when he doesn't have a political constituency to satisfy. He is a most dangerous man, and that is what his "misstatements" most reveal.
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