The Occasional Observer

As he's been running his "Ask Mitt Anything" tour, in which he gives the mic over to the audience for some unplanned Q&A, there's been a lot of good feedback over his ability to respond to tough questions off-the-cuff. Twice in the past few days, there have been incidents where an audience member loses control of their temper and goes off on a rant (the first was a waitress in Manchester; and then yesterday, this).

The common thread between the two events was that the questioners lost control of their emotions even though the target of their anger was not Mitt or even the topic he was addressing. The waitress started getting extremely upset about domestic health care while Mitt was addressing the international AIDS epidemic and the need to help Africa. Yesterday's angry audience member was upset that his nephew, who was new to the Navy, might get shipped to Iraq, and that Mitt backed the idea of victory in Iraq. Of course, Mitt was in the process of talking about how the planning and execution of the war was bungled, and that we should have done better and still can. But the guy wasn't hearing it: he'd already made up his mind that the war is lost, and that it's failure was on Mitt, before he'd even asked his question.

But it is the way that Mitt has been handling these few angry questions that is earning him kudos with the folks in attendence. Take this comment, for instance:

Claira Monier, of Goffstown, grew up in Bedford as Claira Pirozzi and said she was impressed with the way Romney “wasn’t flustered” when the audience member walked out. She also saw Romney in June in Hollis.

“He stuck to his point. I could see him in a meeting where he had to make a tough decision. He still respected and listened to the man’s opinion, even though he was discourteous to (Romney),” she said.