Mitt Romney’s Haggis Problem

Michael Kinsley begins his latest Bloomberg column with an observation so old it’s even been made in these parts: If Mitt Romey ever becomes President, it will be because his supporters are convinced that he’s a liar.

True enough. Kinsley continues:

Romney’s campaign is hoping he gets through the primaries without losing his appeal to independents and moderate Democrats in the general election. Meantime, his attempts to enlist the right are like serving haggis (sheep’s stomach stuffed with oatmeal — yum!) to your distant cousins from Scotland when they visit. You can’t stand the stuff, but they’re supposed to like it.

If you can ignore that ignorantly sarcastic “yum!” you’ll agree that Kinsley’s haggis-point is accurate. In fact it’s even more useful than I fancy (even) Kinsley realises. Romney is indeed in the position of selling haggis to his visiting Scotch relatives and they know there’s a difference between real haggis and would-be haggis. Romney, you see, is serving American haggis, not Scots haggis. He doesn’t like it much and his audience is neither supposed to notice that nor twig what he’s up to.

Romney’s haggis looks quite like the real thing and it smells and tastes quite like genuine haggis but it is not, in the end, quite the real thing. It lacks something. In this instance and thanks to a ridiculous piece of nannying prohibition, American haggis lacks a necessary ingredient: the all-important sheeps’ lungs. (Vital for depth of flavour and, indeed, lightness).

Romney’s visiting Caledonian relatives – who, you will remember, are playing the part of honest-to-goodness American conservatives in this overcooked analogy – can taste the difference. They may applaud the effort involved in producing a quasi-haggis but they’re not convinced it’s wholly kosher. So to speak. If it’s no’ got lungs, it’s no’ a haggis.

Perhaps this helps explain why even though Romney has been running for President since 2007 (with a brief intermission in 2008) nearly four in five Republicans still ain’t persuaded by him. They’re not fooled any more than haggis-enthusiasts are by even the best-intentioned American efforts at replicating the Great Chieftain o’ the Pudden Race. And if Romney wants to convince them he needs to serve the genuine article.

Meanwhile, as one of the few blogs keeping an eye on American haggis policy (see, god help us, here, here and here) it is depressing to remind you that Barack Obama remains a haggis restrictionist, prohibiting the importation of lung-rich offal products. Obama: worse than Bush on medical marijuana, no better than Bush on haggis.