Earlier this evening, I was at the Four Seasons’ Bristol Lounge to meet a friend for a drink. (By the way, the image shown below, taken from the Four Seasons Web site, looks more like a library – and less like a lounge – than the place itself does.)
While waiting for my friend, I spent a few minutes in semi-proximity to former Bay State governor-slash-erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, while he and the missus waited for a host to appear and seat them.
I caught Mitt’s eye and smiled (’cause, you know, that’s how I roll), and I thought he looked a bit sheepish. It may well have been at being in an establishment that prides itself on impeccable service (NOT on pretension/exclusivity) and still being made to wait, while several tuxedo’d hospitality professionals collaborated to retrieve a high chair for the sheik who’d brought his newborn 47th son to cocktail hour.* That said, I sort of wonder if he feels embarrassed to be seen out and about these parts in the same way that, say, a distant runner-up for Prom Queen feels while trying to get really into “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” once the dancing has resumed.
Later, over our respective Ketel One-and-olive concoctions, I brought this up with my friend, who is considerably more worldly. His assessment was that these days, Mitt’s thinking not about everyone looking, or about what he’s going to do next, but about his 2012 presidential campaign.
…Or perhaps running for U.S. Senator, should ailing titan of Massachusetts’ equal representation Edward M. Kennedy soon cease to serve.
“Really??” said I, incredulous. “How is that even remotely possible, that Mitt Romney could park himself in the seat vacated by the peerless Teddy K??” Apparently, there are two ways to consider that question, which together serve as an answer: the question of whether it’s possible, and the question of whether Mitt thinks it’s possible.
What comes to mind is a line from the Sex and the City pilot:
“Samantha had the kind of deluded self-confidence that caused men like Ross Perot to run for president.”
(For those of you who haven’t memorized the entire series, there is – very weirdly – a transcript of the episode to be found here.)
As I pointed out to another friend in another politics discussion on another night, I was born in 1984…which means that at the two times when Perot was running for President**, I was thinking about
1) whether I was going to get in trouble for putting an earthworm in my classmate’s lunch box; and
2) whether my mom was going to make me wear a bra at my bat mitzvah.
…the bottom line being that I don’t totally understand this reference in the first place.
Still, I get the main gist, and I now regret having failed to ask my worldlier friend whether Mitt Romney should be thought of as more or less deluded than Ross Perot.
To that end, I’m not sure that I’m politically well-versed enough to determine where that line of self-awareness is drawn and on which side various former presidential candidates have fallen. I’m loathe to contradict my homegirl Carrie Bradshaw, but it’s beginning to seem to me that an enormous proportion of runs for political office have required some amount of “deluded self-confidence” and that, moreover, many of them have proven successful.
Uh huh – check it out: what my insta-recall of all things Sex and the City failed to retrieve immediately (thank goodness for that transcript!) is that the line in question,
“Samantha had the kind of deluded self-confidence that caused men like Ross Perot to run for president…”
goes on to include
“…and it usually got her what she wanted.”
So who are we to say who is or isn’t deluded in thinking they might achieve this or that office in this or that election? But, man, do I hope Ted Kennedy gets better…
(I would have liked to end on that, but this is even more perfect: Check it out! Really!)
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*I do not mean to be offensive with this statement. I am only trying to convey that the Bristol Lounge is predominantly patronized by people with money, and that one of them brought a baby.
**Can someone weigh in on whether this should be capitalized? I’m having some trouble.
