Don’t be silly. Mitt Romney’s not a superhero (not mine, anyway).
But when it comes to the economy, the presumptive Republican nominee is the Man of Steel compared to the Democratic incumbent. So far, the Obama Administration has been a 3-1/2 year experiment to reconfirm that Keynesian Economics is deserving of history’s dustbin.
To the weavers of a narrative, invulnerability is a real problem. Ask the creators of Superman. They needed a plot device to trump the advantage of an infinitely powerful character. The plot device need not be explained by the laws of physics or the natural world; rather it is the MacGuffin by which the reader actively suspends disbelief for the sake of the narrative. The exchange goes something like this:
Reader: I’m willing to believe that Superman threw the moon past Pluto, dove to the center of the Sun and then flew backwards around the Earth faster than the speed of light to turn back time. How am I to believe he is captive in Lex Luthor’s laboratory?
DC Comics writer: Kryptonite!
Reader: That makes sense.
In much the same way, Obama’s storytellers, fabulists and propagandists would engage the electorate.
Undecided voter: Obama told me he could turn around the economy with massive government borrowing and spending. But a lot of the Jobs Created and Saved have already been Lost again. He’s wasted money on a cockamamie Green Jobs program, and a lot of those jobs are overseas. Unemployment is higher than the worst projections of the “do nothing” case, and they’re that low only because people are leaving the workforce in droves. He seems to have no faith in market-based solutions, and seems more focused on regulating and punishing job creators than in turning the economy loose.
While he’s busy criticizing investment bankers, half of his Administration are Goldman-Sachs alumni, and the Treasury Secretary can’t run TurboTax.
What about Mitt Romney?
Obama campaign/News media: Bain Capital!
In the interest of full disclosure, I stopped reading DC Comics when they raised the price from 12¢ to 20¢.
Cross-posted at Maley’s Energy Blog.
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