on fitting in...

Southerners deserve better from candidates - The Washington Post:

What else would one expect, anyway, when the candidates themselves fall into a weird sort of “Southern Tourette’s,” delivering inanities apparently gleaned from the visitor’s guide to “redneck” tropes?

“Mornin’, y’all,” said Mitt Romney recently to a Mississippi crowd. He started his day off right, he said, with “a biscuit and some cheesy grits.” That would be cheese grits, but never mind. Would Romney greet an audience at a Jewish Community Center with: “Oy vey, did I ever enjoy my loxies and bagels this morning!”? Or African Americans with: “Yo, dawg, wassup?”

Actually, yes, he might. Forever tattooed in the memory is the image of Romney approaching an African American baby at a 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. Pointing to the baby’s necklace, he said: “What’s happening? You got some bling-bling here!”

Yo.

Which means “I” in Spanish, so why not go there, too? “Buenos dias, amigos. Love me some tacos and salsies.”

Romney isn’t the only guilty party, just the most recent. Even Barack Obama loses his last syllable south of the Mason-Dixon. For Romney, however, the more he tries to get down with the people, the more he highlights the perception that he can’t.