Dana Milbank (Washington Post): Mitt Romney had just finished working the room at Blake’s Creamery when he paused for a photo with the restaurant’s owner and decided to tell her a joke.
“I saw the young man over there with eggs Benedict, with hollandaise sauce,” he said. “And I was going to suggest to you that you serve your eggs with hollandaise sauce in hubcaps. Because there’s no place like chrome for the holidays.” The proprietor laughed weakly…. The hubcap joke must have killed in Michigan in the 1950s, when Romney was a boy. What’s odd is that he’s still making such jokes….
In formal settings Romney is confident and competent. But in casual moments … his weirdness comes through - equal parts Leave-It-to-Beaver corniness and social awkwardness …. He greets a man perusing shelves of a hardware store: “Shopping here today?”
…He talks about the weak economy with the proprietors of a feed shop, then abruptly pivots: “Okay, so what do you do about mosquito control? … This has been a mosquito-infested year with all the moisture. They flew away with my dog.”
….Posing for a photo with his arms around the waitresses, he suddenly jumps forward, pretending somebody pinched his bottom. “Oh my goodness gracious!” he exclaims, then, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” He later says the gag is “kind of fun to do.”
…. To two older women who just came from the gym: “Are your knees, hips doing okay?” To an old married couple: “You know each other?” Romney seemed to be auditing one man: “What’s happened to your financials the last couple of years?”
He departed Blake’s with a final plea for support in the New Hampshire primary, scheduled for Feb. 14. “Get out and vote,” he encouraged the diners. “It’s a while, though, I think. What is it, November? … It’s not November. It’s January. It’s February!”….
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