Paul McMorrow – Snappy Title TK TK

These are not fun times for Willard Mitt Romney. His campaign’s nearly done for actually done for and with good reason. Quoth the Globe:

With 499 total delegates up for grabs through March 4, Romney would have to win more than 80 percent of them to catch McCain, assuming the Arizona senator won none. And, even if Huckabee won them all, he would still trail McCain. Dividing the total among the three candidates makes over taking the front-runner more difficult still.

Awww. Looks like woobums needs a hug. Or a good laugh. Hey, that Sal DiMasi’s a funny guy. He’s always good for a laugh.In fact, there was once a time way back in the spring of 2006 when Romney and DiMasi shared a great, full laugh together. What fun they had. In times like these, it’s best to go to one’s happy place – and for Mitt Romney, there can be no happier memory than the day he put on a massive show and signed the state’s landmark health care reform law. Let’s revisit that day, Mitt, and hopefully brighten your day a little bit.

Mitt was on top of the world back then. Even for a governor who ruled mostly by keeping his good angles towards the cameras, this was a coup and a half. He was taking credit for a major issue that would, hopefully, catapult him to the fore of the GOP presidential field and position him as the campaign’s most capable – and hirsute! – technocrat. Even better, he, a vile Republican, was surrounded by Massachusetts’s Democratic elite, and the way they looked at him… fawning even seems a little weak.

That photo was surely designed to outlast Romney’s term as governor, and now, it seems, it may outlive the campaign it was supposed to serve. The funny part is, even for an empty suit like Romney, this good-times photo-op was staggeringly fraudulent.

I got the real story on the famous health care photo from Sal DiMasi when I interviewed him for his feature in this month’s issue. Turns out, it was DiMasi, not Romney, driving the scene in that picture, just as it was the Speaker, not the Governor, who should’ve been claiming credit for health care reform. An excerpt from my interview with DiMasi:

The picture where we’re laughing – during the ceremony, there was a big platform that you had to stand on, and I said to myself, Holy shit, this is really orchestrated, what the hell’s going on here? This guy’s all pomp and circumstance. No substance, but that’s besides the point. I started my speech by saying – well, because he was always talking about the employer assessment as a tax, I said, think of it as a fee or an assessment. Just like you had your fees and assessments, you didn’t raise taxes, right?. I got up there and I said, Well, thank you very much, it’s always difficult going last because a lot of the time has been used up. So if I go over my time [speaking], governor, I’ll be glad to pay the $295 fee, assessment, tax, whatever you want to call it, governor.

At the end, when he goes to sign the bill, he goes, OK, where’s your $295? You went over. I went like this to pay him. [Mimes reaching into his pocket.] I said, well, I’ll pay if you tell me what it is. Is it a tax or a fee? Can I deduct this as a tax? That’s what we’re laughing at. Fee, assessment, tax, I said, whatever you want to call it.