Humanizing Mitt

CHAPTER THREE

Candidate Mitt Romney preps himself for his weekly lesson in behaving like a human being. He takes a few deep breaths, then wriggles his arms around. "Relax," he tells himself, following his instructions. His cheek muscles and built-in smile remain as tight as before. This doesn't worry Mitt. He knows that if he follows the instructions, everything will work. It's how he's conducted his life. This policy has never failed him.

Meeting him at various stops along the campaign trail is his acting coach, imported at substantial cost from a Broadway-based acting school. The acting coach has arrived, an aide announces to the candidate.

"Are you ready?" the aide asks.

"Ready," Mitt assures him.

The acting coach is escorted into the room. The man wears a sarcastic expression as he notices the candidate standing rigidly, ready to be coached. Mitt doesn't catch the expression, or if he does, ignores it.

"How are ya, how are ya," the coach asks, slapping his hands together to get right into the unpleasant assignment. Hey, he tells himself. A paycheck's a paycheck. "Mitt baby! Sit down, please. Remember what I've said. Our first step is to relax."

"Yes, I know," Mitt answers, dressed for the lesson in an open-necked shirt so he can appear comfortable, though Mitt has trouble feeling comfortable when not dressed in standard business shirt and tie. "I know. Relax. I've been telling myself to relax."

"Good! That's very good. We're making progress."

Mitt sits stiffly on a sofa, while the acting coach pulls up a hard-backed chair and places himself directly across from his student.

"Today," the coach tells the candidate, "we are going to work on caring. We will try to care. We will tell ourselves again and again that we care. We care. Care. Care!"

"Care?" Mitt asks. "That's silly. Care about what?"

The coach stares at the candidate for a long minute.

"Let me get this straight. You want to be President."

"That's right."

The candidate sits firmly but complacently, like a dog awaiting orders, with no discernible expression. The eternal Mitt. The coach realizes the difficulty of his task. He's done this kind of thing before, and is rather good at it. But usually he's coached Democrats, who are better natural actors. Better able to pretend. To emote. Candidate Romney will be a challenge. Think of the paycheck, the acting coach tells himself.

"We'll start out small," he tells Mitt. "We'll depict compassion. We'll express on our face the emotion of compassion. Let's look compassionate, Mitt. Ready? Give me compassion. Action!"

Mitt looks exactly the same.

The candidate's aides check the time on their watches or cellphones as the session goes on. They wait in an outer room. The door is open. They can hear what's happening. The frustrated coach soon enough moves his pupil off the sofa.  "Mitt, baby, let's just pretend I know what I'm doing. Humor me," they hear the coach say. One of the aides glances in every so often. The candidate is taking deep breaths and trying to focus. In baby-step fashion, he seems to be making progress.

They run through giving a speech and connecting with an audience. The coach has begun to shout, as he encourages the candidate to shout.

"No no no no no! You must pretend to CARE, Mitt baby. Say it again, but louder. Em-pa-thize!"

"I care!" Mitt says.

"Louder!"

"I CARE!"

"Yet again!" the coach insists.

Mitt spreads his arms out and breathes in as he prepares for more shouting. In a perverse way, he's enjoying this. Being human is a new experience.

"Remember what I told you,"the coach reminds him. "The onions! Shift and bring up the onions!"

Mitt turns, brings up a small packet from beneath his shirt and deftly rubs something in his eyes. They've practiced the maneuver many times. Tears roll down Romney's face. He spreads his arms again.

"I care!" he yells. "I CARE!"