By Eric Zanzucchi (@ericzanzucchi)
The Club of Presidential Losers in an exclusive club with only a handful of members. John McCain and Bob Dole are sitting on the sofa drinking brandy and trading pain killers. John Kerry and Al Gore are at the humidor smoking cigars and talking about what a douche George W. Bush is. Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale are getting massages. Lastly, George McGovern sits in an urn over the fireplace. They are all ready to welcome their newest member with open arms, Mitt Romney.
What do all these guys have in common? They are punchlines. Unlike myself most Americans are only casually interested in politics. It is because of this that they are introduced to most of the men I’ve mentioned as they become presidential candidates. Thus for many Americans they are in and out of their lives in a flash and the one thing that we all know about them is that they lost the presidency. Tonight Romney will be the butt of jokes in all of the late night monologues. Futurama will mock him with an insignificant head in a jar. Even members of society who are wide open to criticism themselves will crack wise at Romney’s expense.
I guess this is just due to political apathy, but it’s amazing how in pop culture presidential losers have just become losers when nothing could be further from the truth. I can’t imagine that Mitt Romney would walk away from this failure thinking he’s a failure. He’s got a wife, a fleet of sons, has had tons of success in business, and has had tons of success in politics. Mitt Romney is not a loser, none of these guys are. They are all men who had wildly successful careers and took a calculated risk to reach the top of their profession and failed. I’ll still laugh at the jokes in the same way uninvolved kids won’t defend the bullied kids, there is just no truth to the sentiment.
The Nationsmith 