I have had many conversations among friends and family as to exactly why Willard Mitt “Mitt” Romney wants to be President of these here United States. We’ll leave aside for the moment the daddy issues; trying to attain what his dad George Romney could not, since George W. used up every scrap of the dad, dear dad theory when he ran to avenge his fathers loss to that smooth-talking horny hillbilly from Hope.

In the case of the man they call Mitt, he doesn’t exactly have a long history of giving to his country; hiding out in a palace in France to avoid the Vietnam War draft (which he supported) and then lying about “longing” to serve. On this point, it seems that Mitt’s antipathy towards American military service (at least if your name is Romney) seems to have trickled down to his progeny:

“The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that’s the way we’re going to keep it,” Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. “My sons are all adults and they’ve made decisions about their careers and they’ve chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard.” He added: “One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.”

[...]

Romney noted that his middle son, 36-year-old Josh, was completing a recreational vehicle tour of all 99 Iowa counties on Wednesday and said, “I respect that and respect all those and the way they serve this great country.”

The woman who asked the question, Rachel Griffiths, 41, of Milan, Ill., identified herself as a member of Quad City Progressive Action for the Common Good, as well as the sister of an Army major who had served in Iraq. “Of course not,” Griffiths said when asked if she was satisfied with Romney’s answer. “He told me the way his son shows support for our military and our nation is to buy a Winnebago and ride across Iowa and help him get elected.”

Yeah. We remember those guys.

Then there is the Mitt who used every available loophole to pay the absolute minimum in taxes and “not a dollar more” when he wasn’t stashing dollars in off-shore tax havens or dumping cash into his hard-working Winnebagoing son’s trust funds. Of course, to be fair, there is the outside possibility that Mitt has been paying more than his fair share in taxes over the last twelve years and he’s just, you know, shy about it and doesn’t like to brag on it. But then we may never know despite Harry Reid’s gentle urging for Mitt to come clean because it’s good for the soul.

Stepping in and running the Salt Lake City Olympics doesn’t really count as public service since the Olympics are a private enterprise, albeit this one in particular was financed by the federal government in record-setting dollars while Mitt called dibs on the credit. The fact that he and his Salt Lake City brethren personally profited from the government largesse was probably just a lucky coincidence. Mitt Romney did have a cup of coffee as Governor of Massachusetts although his record there seems to have been wiped clean like so many hard-drives, leaving behind only his bastard child RomneyCare who, unfortunately for Mitt, keeps showing up at the most awkward times.

And that’s about it.

Mitt Romney is a resume builder; he’s a fortune acquirer. He absorbs, he squeezes profit out and then he leaves a dessicated husk behind with hardly a glance backward or acknowledgment that it even happened. It’s hard to recall any candidate who has ever spent more time rote-reciting all of his accomplishments (minus the devastating sausage-making details that went into them) and less time spelling out what he is actually going to do if he lands the job. In fact, Romney has made a point of being as vague about his plans as people will allow him to be. He’s Mitt Romney, for Pete’s sake, he’s running for President!

Steve Erickson at The American Prospect holds Mitt Romney up and compares him to the most recent Republican presidential candidates:

Whatever else was true of him, no one doubted Richard Nixon was a man of ability. Whatever else was true of him, no one doubted Barry Goldwater was a man of conviction. No one doubted that Gerald Ford was a man of integrity, or that Ronald Reagan was a man of eloquence, or that George Herbert Walker Bush was a man of experience, or that Robert Dole was a man of legislative accomplishment, or that George W. Bush was a man of crusty charisma, or that John McCain was a man of heroism. Nothing we’ve seen of him so far indicates that Mitt Romney shares a single one of these qualities. Craven, arrogant, empty, dull, opportunistic—he’s a man of only ambition and acquisition, his distinctions the antitheses of all the attributes that have commended others to his party in the past.

Of course, that was a different Republican Party in a different America (even the John McCain one). That Republican Party was interested in governing and not dedicated to destroying the government from within. And, in Mitt Romney, this New Republican Party (now 40% more teabaggier!) have found their perfect machine: a soulless automaton who made his fortune through acquisitions and creative destruction.

To Mitt, it’s just another job, just like his old job…