Probably true, to an extent. But the OP was about impressions left with the voters. No one gave a poop whether Michael Dukakis went on a tank ride, either, but that enduring picture of Howdy Doody in a helmet haunted the campaign. That's what the OP is talking about.

Unemployment wasn't 8.3% and growth at an embarrassing 1.5% when Michael Dukakis ran.

It's about the economy. Nobody gives a poop about Mitt's trip.

I agree that campaigns are generally about the economy more than anything else.

But appearances and impressions matter. If Romney is giving the appearance and impression in foreign matters of having the storied grace of Gerald Ford (and that's what the OP is about), it's a chink in that "competent businessman" facade.

Good points. Romney has based his campaign entirely on the competency issue. It's certainly not based on good policy where his plans are right out of the standard Republican Party playbook that is simply a rehash of failed W poliicies: we can lower taxes, increase miltiary spending and balance the budget at the same time. We've heard that same BS from Republicans since Reagan. Romney is largely irrelevant to this campaign. It's going to play out as a referendum on Pres. Obama's first term management of the ecoonomy balanced against his personal likability numbers, which as the OP correctly pointed are far beyond Romney's.

Which one are you talking about?

Your statement applies equally to Obama and Romney.

Dubya comes out looking like a good Presdient when compared to Obama and Romney.

It's really a sad day in America when it's been proven beyond a doubt that we can do worse than Dubya.

Mitt the Twit is the name our anglo friends in the UK have
decided to call Romney, after his bangup successful tour overseas.

I don't agree with that at all.

Bush got us into Iraq - Obama got us out.

Bush stopped trying to get Bin Laden (in fact he said he doesn't matter any more) - Obama got him.

Bush kept holding up the Shepard Hate Crimes Act - Obama signed it.

And on and on.

And as much as I dislike Romney, I have no doubt he would be a far greater President than Bush.

Don't confuse the leftist media's hype with reality.

For example, Mitt got Lech Walesa's endorsement. The MSM barely mentioned that... or the fact that Walesa has refused to even meet with Obama... three different times (he hates Communists).

Only MSM-brainwashed Obamabots believe the "the trip went badly" fables.

Walesa and Obama have built a spite fence. That's too bad.

Only hopeless advocates could see "Mitt the Twit" headlines in Britain, see Mr. Romney cancelling a fundraising dinner because it was scheduled with an Israeli day of fasting, and proclaim that the trip wasn't terribly flawed.

Obama does that with a lot of people, including about 55% of Americans. Maybe more.

Too bad.

That's why his endorsement is like the Kiss of Death to other democrats.

Not me.

Nice try at spinning the situation, but Lech Walesa was a freedom fighter against the Soviet communist occupation. Big unions here are America's version of communists.

Well, this one was started by Walesa, who felt that he should either have a private conversation with Obama in Poland, or not see him at all. Then Obama returned the favor by saying, no, Walesa couldn't accept an American Medal of Freedom for another recipient.

All that aside, talk is cheap. November will tell, one way or the other, and I ain't making predictions at this point.

As for Walesa and Romney and all that, it's just not that simple. Walesa was president of Solidarity when Solidarity was the main anti-Communist force. The Soviet Union imploded. Now Walesa and Solidarity have gone their separate ways. Walesa, outside of Solidarity, has effectively endorsed Romney, while Solidarity chose not to do so. And as I understand politics in Poland (meaning, I don't), Solidarity is not behind the party running the show in Poland. It's not a simple picture there.

1.  A week ago I would have agreed with you that the Romney international soire would be forgotten in another week except for a few late-night jokes.  Now, I think maybe not.  As the article I linked noted, I don't think Americans will remember the details.  I think Americans will remember "hmmm....this guy is saying he's competent but the only recent test we've got on this matter was a clusterf*ck".  They won't remember the details, they'll remember the impressions.

2.  You keep repeating that phrase "lame duck."  Every politician who either announces they won't run for re-election or is term-limited is automatically a lame duck.  And the reality is that some Presidents in their second term are very successful (see:  Clinton), and others much less so (see:  Reagan).

Ed

1.  The trip went badly.  Really badly.  How badly did it go?
--The DNC is already creating ads using the trip as fodder for use in key swing states.  So you have to argue that of all the areas they'd choose to go after Romney on, they'd pick one that actually went well, that was a strength?

--Right wingers are publicly saying it went bad.  This is from the conservative Washington Times:  "The British were offended, the Palestinians accused him of racism and even in friendlier Poland, Mitt Romney’s union policies drew criticism from the current leaders of the movement that toppled Communism."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 … -obama-08/

“It comes under the heading ‘seemed like a good idea at the time,’ ” assessed John Pitney, a former Republican National Committee aide and now a political-science professor at Claremont McKenna College. “If the plan was to burnish his foreign-policy credentials and remind people of his leadership at the Winter Olympics, that was a very sensible idea on paper, but in practice it didn’t work out as the campaign had hoped.”  Republican strategist Ed Rogers, a former Reagan aide and a veteran of the Bush-Quayle campaign, awarded the trip a 4 on a scale of 10. "The question always is if you had to do all over again and get the exact same results, would you do it again?" he said. "Well, in this case, no."
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-pre … l-20120801

3.  Your definition of a successful trip is that he got Lech Walesa's endorsement?

Here is the statement that the leadership of the Solidarnosc Union released after Walesa met with Romney:  "Solidarity, the trade union group Walesa once led, disassociated itself from his comments today, saying in a statement that “Mitt Romney supported attacks on trade unions and employees’ rights.”
“Solidarity was not involved in organizing Romney’s meeting with Walesa and did not invite him to visit Poland,” the group said."
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 … kes-obama/

BTW, you're also inaccurate in insisting that Walesa has refused to meet with Obama 3 times.  What's going on here is that Walesa requested a private audience with Obama when he came  to visit the US and the President didn't have time for him.  Then when Obama came to visit Poland, Walesa snubbed him and then endorsed Romney.

Additionally, I doubt that Walesa would perceive Obama as a "communist".  In fact,  Walesa would support a whole series of positions (national healthcare, expanded social net, entitlements) that you would probably label as "communist".

Ed

While I think that history will be more kind to Bush the Younger (history is generally kinder to all Presidents because you have more time to see policy play out and the consequences of changing it), please point out ways -imperically- in which President Bush performed more effectively than President Obama.  Address the ways in which we were better off, quality of life, rapport with other nations, etc.  On the whole, how did his policies make us better off as a nation than the policies of President Obama.