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The Common Touch

"Pressure," one of our raspy-voiced sports commentators said, "is betting $20. on a pickup game of basketball with two gang members, and not having the twenty bucks."

Mitt Romney has never been under pressure.  He offered to bet Rick Parry ten thousand dollars during a Republican debate, and Mitt had the twenty bucks in his pocket, and twenty million more of them in the bank.

"Oh," Mitt said, "I haven't lost touch with ordinary people!  You know how ordinary people say, 'I will bet you a million dollars!'"

I often say that.  I play golf once every ten years or so, and I have been known, without perceptible hesitation, to bet a beer on the outcome.  I do that almost fearlessly because, once, in 1983, I won the round on the first playoff hole:  twenty-eight over par!  It is not so much because I am a great golfer, but because I only bet with people I like, and nobody I like is good at golf.

Mitt knows how to buy a company with money he inherited, strip it of its assets, and sell the carcass at a profit.  He doesn't know what it is like not to have $10,000.  He has never not had $10,000.

"It was just a joke!", Mitt said.

Yes, it was.

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