Say what it takes to get the job ... then do what it takes if the job is won?

The Obama experience has taught us that we in fact once again responded to an effective communicator who knew what messages to send to voters to get elected. The experience has also taught us that  once elected based on the implications of his campaign messages, President Obama has performed his job according to his own priorities - many of which have turned out to be the exact opposite of the implications of his campaign rhetoric and promises.

Furthermore, although the philosophical differences between our two major parties appear to be profound, there is same basis for assuming that the profundity is not as profound as the verbiage when it comes down to policies, legislative actions and voting records beyond the actions of those  elected officials precariously beholding to specific one-note constituencies who put them in office.

Which brings us to the Republican nomination campaign and promises. Mormon writer Joanna Brooks has penned a great article, What's Eating Mitt Romney? regarding the Mormon-ness of Mitt Romney's personal priorities and values upon which he is seeking entry into our national governing system.

I appreciate what Joanna wrote ... in that regard, it seems to me that Romney's party affiliation - chosen for his own reasons based apparently on his own personal perspectives - is the most inconsistent aspect of his self-presentation.

Party affiliation in Romney's case looks more like a stage costume than some philosophical conviction aligned with Reflublican power brokers. In 2008 his Reflubican "talk" seemed mere mimicry of what became an almost stereotypical presentation of all the candidates, particularly after Old Man McCain embarrassed every veteran in the country by nominating a shallow religious fool as his VP running mate.

After that, the lowest common denominator for all candidates was anchored by Palin's shallowness. Romney was no exception. What he had to say in his Primary Campaign sound bites failed to differentiate his personal integrity from the pig pen group integrity of the entire field.

And I was disappointed.

This morning I have reason to think again about a lowest common denominator in a crowded candidate field dominated primarily by shallow fools.

The comparatives Joanna makes between Romney and Perry as "male" and as "persons of values and standards" seems to shout out the obvious difference between someone you can count on and someone (as with Dubya) you could have a beer with.

I have some measure of basis for comparing these two men.

I lived in Texas for many years and in fact completed my college studies at the U of Houston. At first we lived withint a kind of LBJ Democratic influence under governor Preston Smith and later under newly aroused Republican.

I understand Perry's performance as very much akin to the insincerity of former Governor G.W. Bush along with the brash and loud hypocrisy of Tom Delay.

In Rick Perry it is very obvious that Howdy Doody and Sam Slick are alive and well in Texas where God-talk and Tavern-talk worked for Bush and are now the basis for Perry's Howdy Doody/Boss Hogg/Elmer Gantry routine.

I've also belonged for a lifetime to the Mormon culture, am essentially the same age as Romney, served as a missionary during the same tumultuous years in the 60's as did he and raised my family within the same time frame.

I then possess an intense sense of much of the moral virtue Romney has to both display and hide based on political contingency.

Joanna's excellent article gives me pause ... a reason to re-think a few attitudes.