A couple of weeks ago, Obama revealed one of his secret talents: he can sing. During his speech at a fundraising event, the charming President unexpectedly began singing as his way to thank Al Green, who had performed earlier that night. Even if you don't agree with Obama's policies or approve of his job in office, it's difficult to watch this video and not like the guy.
Then just recently, Mitt Romney took it to the next level (the presidential level) by singing "America the Beautiful" at a Florida rally. Satirists like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, from whom young people get much of their political news as we learned in our textbook reading, have pointed out how Romney quotes the song almost too frequently at his public events, apparently appealing to the patriotic, America-loving GOP constituencies. In their most recent episodes, Stewart and Colbert did poke fun at Romney since he was no comparison to Obama. To be frank, it ended up being a vain and embarrassing attempt to one-up Obama, although it definitely wasn't terrible (hey, the high notes are tough to hit).
Michelle Obama went on Jay Leno the other night, where the host asked for her opinion of Romney's musical performance. She replied (with what seemed like very subtle sarcasm) that "it was beautiful" and that "that should be a song sung by every American," a very respectable comment indeed.
What effect will this have on his campaign/image, if any? Will some people take Romney less seriously now, and will others respect him more for his courageous expression of patriotism?
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5 comments:
I think that Obama and Romney's decisions to sing in public were most likely calculated moves concocted by their campaign teams. Singing in front of a crowd opens you up to a lot of vulnerability and can demonstrate a lot of positive virtues like confidence, relateable-ness, and patriotism in Romney's case. They definitely opened themselves up to a lot of comedic criticism by people such as Stewart and Colbert, but as long as they have decent voices and don't botch any song lyrics (cough-mariah carey-cough-national anthem-cough), I think singing is a reasonable campaign strategy.
Its interesting to find out that Obama can sing and actually sing well. But its funny that Mitt Romney thought he could be like him. From the looks of it, he lost voters from this incident. They probably take Romney less seriously since he stole the idea of singing to draw peoples attention from Obama. But who knows, maybe people might feel respect for him since he tried to show expression of patriotism.
I think it was a good move on Obama's half because it is new, fresh, and something that has not really been done before giving him a better image and opens him up like Simone stated. But the fact the Romney did it after -even though he was going for the same reason Obama did it, to get points- I do not think it worked as well mainly because he really is not a comparison to Obama. Maybe if Romney made the move first and sang first, then it might have worked out better for him.
I think Romney's singing act could be interpreted in both positive and negative ways, depending on original party position and other biases. Those who were already in favor of Romney will probably applaud Romney for his "courageous expression of patriotism" as Jeremy put it, and those who were against Romney may utilize this as a way to downplay Romney's seriousness and legitimacy as a candidate. However, in whichever way this act is perceived, I think it will have a trivial, if any, impact on Romney's campaign. Hopefully, voters will base their votes on more serious topics such as policy positions as opposed to a small concert.
I agree with basically all these points, although I disagree with Maegan in that Romney did not lose voters because of this incident, from what I can deduce. I think the situation is more like Jackie's description, where Romney's little concert did not sway voters one way or the other, but rather solidified them just a bit further into the pro-Romney or pro-other-GOP-candidate camps. As Kelly said, it would have appeared much more legitimate if only Romney had been the first to sing in public. Nevertheless, the incident hasn't stuck like Perry's infamous debate gaffe did, so it shouldn't have an overall effect on Romney's campaign.
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