Mitt Romney just like Etch A Sketch

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<img src="romneyetchasketch.jpg" alt="Mitt Romney just like Etch a Sketch">

One thing Mitt Romney should have learned, above all, is trust no one, not even your closest advisers, not to say really dumb things.  Then again Willard himself has said some really dumb things while stumping across the country.  Perhaps the topper though is the great Etch a Sketch comparison.  Here’s the story from the New York Times:

THE United States is the great land of second chances. Change your name. Change your location. Change your life. If you’re a politician, change your ideas, and in so doing, change your prospects. It’s a deep-rooted American tradition that the Mitt Romney campaign has now given a colorful symbol.

It was widely reported that Wednesday on CNN, Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, predicted a fresh start for his boss’s campaign after victory in the Illinois primary. “Everything changes,” Mr. Fehrnstrom said. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

Mr. Romney’s political opponents seized on the image as a sinister expression of the candidate’s pliability. But to millions of Americans, the Etch A Sketch has offered a precious life lesson: No matter how badly you screw up, you can always make a fresh start. The past does not exist. The Etch A Sketch offers total deniability in a neat rectangular package.

The Etch A Sketch was invented in the late 1950s by André Cassagnes, a French electrician, and the first model was manufactured for the American market by the Ohio Art Company on July 12, 1960. The device is simple and ingenious: a framed plastic screen coated with aluminum dust on the reverse side. Two knobs move a stylus vertically and horizontally, allowing the user to draw pictures as the tip of the stylus leaves a dark line against a light gray background.

If the results do not please, the user simply shakes the screen, causing polystyrene beads to create a fresh surface by smoothing out and recoating the inside of the screen. History, with a flick of the wrist, vanishes.

Over the years, the company has added color and electronic features, but the essential appeal of the device has remained the same. No matter how bad the drawing, how distant the final product from the original intent, the clock can be turned back.

Etch A Sketch geniuses, the sort of fanatics who can reproduce “The Last Supper” or fully rendered scenes from “The Lord of the Rings,” make their work permanent by drilling holes in the box and emptying out the aluminum powder. But their drawings (which can be seen on Ohio Art’s Web site, ohioart.com) run counter to the spirit of the thing, while the Romney campaign seems to get the point, instinctively. It’s all in the magic shaking of the box.

There’s another lesson, too, should Mr. Romney want to run with the metaphor. For decades, the Etch A Sketch was manufactured at Ohio Art’s assembly plant in Bryan, Ohio. In 2001, the company moved the plant to Shenzhen in China. Shake that.

Parts of this story by William Grimes writing for the New York Times.

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About Post Author

Peter Lake

Peter Lake hails from the Midwest, but is now living in Germany. He is a professional writer who spent many years honing his craft at a well known newspaper. Peter originally sent an article to us through the citizen journalist program and decided to stay. We are glad he did.
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