Mitt Romney in South Carolina: “Who’s the dumbest hick in the room?”

Just what we need in the much maligned South. National news coverage of the Palmetto State: The only top tier Republican candidate for president without adultery and/or divorce in his past comes on down to see us–and what does he do? Mitt Romney poses with a Southern blonde doxy sporting a nasty, poorly executed poster that reads “NO TO OBAMA OSAMA AND CHELSEA’S MOMA [sic].”

He did more than just smile big and hug his new Carolina friend, Blondie. He helped hold up the fool poster.

It wasn’t cute, Blondie–and neither were you. Mitt and Miss South Carolina Semi-literate did us no favors. Entirely too many folks living in the rest of the country have seen one too many Smokey and the Bandit flicks. They think we’re none too bright down here. “Put a chain link fence around the South,” someone once wrote, “and you’ll have the world’s largest insane asylum.”  Ugly headlines, along with garish pictures of Mitt and Blondie, blared “Grammatically challenged South Carolinians support…”

Excuse me? Like millions of others, I am a proud South Carolinian. A smart South Carolinian. Why, I can actually walk, talk and chew fatback at the same time. I know how to spell M-a-m-a. I can read. And I darn well read more than the vulgar tabloid headlines screaming for my attention as I’m checking out my grits, greens and hog jowls at Bi-Lo. I learned, long ago, that despite what some folks were willing to write for sleazy publication, no poor little old gal was ever impregnated by a two-headed Martian when she looked up at the sky at just the wrong moment with her mouth wide open. Although Britney Spears’ recent history does give one pause…and she is Southern. God help us.

I can’t say who we Southerners resent more– a dumb blonde redneck who can’t tell a brilliant African American candidate for president from a terrorist and cannot spell her own mother’s name, or the flip-flopping Repub with the greasy pompadour, grinning like a used car salesman at a Shopoholics Anonymous Convention, standing close enough to kiss his easy mark when he seals the deal on a clunker. It’s a match made in pathetic political heaven. They deserve each other.

The rest of us deserve better.

Plenty of South Carolinians were offended by both Blondie’s artwork and her candidate. Romney’s staff did their darndest to spin his way out of it: He didn’t know what he was holding up for all the world to see, they whined. No dice. Smart Southerners are not impressed by the “DUH?” defense. We know a dissembling fool when we see one. Old Mitt, himself, is compelled to speak publicly in response. “Lighten up!” he tells us. He says there are “plenty of jokes out there.”

Oh. It was all a joke. That explains everything. What a relief! So…when some other dumb blonde somewhere waves a poster reading “NO TO MITT NIT-WIT, MORMUN [sic] LIVES AND TOO DAMN MANY WIVES!”– well, we can expect him and his flock to get the joke. And laugh. No harm done.

Mr. Romney, we Southerners aren’t as dumb as you think. Poor judgment on the campaign trail means poor judgment in the White House–and the Confederate buck stops with you. You hugged Blondie, grinned like the Cheshire Cat, propped up her hateful poster. You embraced ‘em both, you own ‘em both. Down here in the South you are what you wrap your arms around, good buddy. ‘Nuff said