(SitNews) - Recently, America's Independence Day, we celebrated that grand experiment in human progress and evolutionary biology known as self government. In other words, we engaged in our yearly ritual of driving up to our cottage in New Hampshire--after deciding against the beach house in San Diego--and posing for the pictures of eager reporters just after mounting our jet ski and slicing our way through the bubbling wake of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Wait, that wasn't us. That was Mitt Romney.

What is it about Massachusetts's politicians who run for president? Ever since President John F. Kennedy (and his brothers), who connected with the common man like peanut butter and chocolate, we've had a series of guys run for chief executive from the Bay State who couldn't steal candy from a baby. Until Mitt they were all Democrats -- Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas and John Kerry -- also known as the most aloof rock band one could ever create. Let's face it, there must have been times Bob Dole looked at these guys and said, "damn, they're boring."

Who climbs onto a jet ski for a photo shoot when they're being attacked in TV ads for outsourcing jobs and stashing money away in places people normally associate with vacation spots? Was a tank not available? And don't you just get the feeling that if f it came with a tax write-off, Romney would have probably already outsourced his IRA to a safety-deposit box on Uranus?

F. Scott Fitgerald famously wrote, "the rich are different than you and me." I have observed Thurston Howell III on old episodes of Gilligan's Island just like the next guy, but what possesses someone who knows they're going to run for President to hire their very own lobbyist for their third house on a private beach in Southern California, to pressure town officials to change zoning rules so they can add 8,000 square feet and a car elevator to this monument to the carried-interest tax loophole?

The only thing I don't understand is what also stopped Romney from resisting changing his name to Bilderberger.

Americans are a fair people. Tea-Party adolescents may stomp their feet and flail around about how Democrats or "libruls" are committing "class war" and are "envious" of people like Romney, but those are just talking points. Most people, in poll after poll, believe in capitalism and its rewards, but also don't think that those who got rich off of, and were protected by, our public investments in roads, bridges, universities, military, police, courts, safe food, clean water, etc and so forth have no obligation back to the country that created the atmosphere in which they were allowed to flourish.

Romney is simply a caricature of everything that is wrong with the United States economically at this moment in our history, and again and again he proves he hasn't the slightest clue of any of it. Self-awareness, thy name is most certainly not Mitt.

I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm thankful for Mitt Romney. For the laughs he provides and the daily reminders of what his America would look like for 99 percent of Americans (hint: no dressage horses for you, but worse jobs prospects and a bigger tax bill than Mitt, his cronies, his lawyers, his accountants...).

I hope he keeps riding his jet skis for the klieg lights, packing his family pets on the car roof and maybe even comes up with a few new tricks. For example, we haven't yet seen him play polo by riding on the backs of homeless people. Or add a giant mechanical mouth to each of his houses so they can eat all the poorer houses in the neighborhood. Just think of the possibilities!

© Copyright 2012 Cliff Schecter, distributed exclusively to subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Cliff Schecter is the President of Libertas, LLC, a progressive public relations firm, and the author of the 2008 bestseller "The Real McCain."

Email Cliff at cliffschecter@gmail.com.

This column has been edited by the author. Representations of fact and opinions are solely those of the author.

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