Say it ain’t so, Tim Riggins. Mitt Romney has stolen the slogan from one of my all-time favorite shows and thrown it down the toilet. Mitt has adopted the catchphrase “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose,” and quite frankly, I’m furious. If there was ever a campaign that displayed the admirable qualities portrayed by the lovable Dillon Panthers in the TV show “Friday Night Lights” Mitt Romney’s campaign is not it. Clearly Peter Berg, the creator of the show, agrees with me. In a letter, he asked that Romney stop using the slogan, calling it plagiarism, and said it does not align with the morals demonstrated in the show. 

In fact, Mitt Romney’s campaign is everything that is wrong with our generation’s politics. The Dillon community was one laced with passion and unwavering dedication to the high school football team. Mitt’s campaign has no dedication to a single moral ideology. I haven’t seen flops this big since LeBron James and the Heat were on TV. 

Romney barely can remember what his positions are on a daily basis. His attempt at catering to female voters is borderline pathetic. No, scratch that, it is for sure pathetic. I remember him suddenly becoming ultra-conservative in the Republican primary. Did anyone expect the guy who is running against a health care system almost identical to the one he created not to come crawling back to the middle of the political spectrum for the home stretch of the election? 

As a supporter of fewer government regulations in the marketplace, I find it troublesome that I can’t find out how Romney will make up the deficit in his major tax cut. He has been dodging the question since Day One. I have backed his success and defended his low effective tax rate, but he is hanging me out to dry with this half-baked tax policy. 

There is literally a YouTube video of Mitt debating himself on issues across the board. First he said he wouldn’t cut taxes on the wealthy; now he says he would cut taxes across the board.  First he said patients with pre-existing conditions are covered in his health plan; now they aren’t. The list goes on. He has said so many contradicting things that to bash him on each point would go well beyond the space I have for this column. Berg said it exactly when he said the only comparison between Romney and the show was his similarity to Buddy Garrity, the manipulating car dealership owner — but even Buddy was more likeable.   

The problem is that this type of flip-flopping, lackluster politics is more than tolerated — it’s expected. Where are the noble politicians? We have fallen so far into our polarized division of politics that we hardly see facts or a real change in ideas anymore. We base our opinion on these five-second tidbits we catch on our news program that we have already handpicked to force-feed our own opinions back to us.

The politicians who stick to their guns are always labeled as extremists or crazy.  Take Ron Paul, for example, a socially liberal, fiscally conservative politician. Those positions probably align with more people than Romney or Obama. So you want a president who doesn’t spend much but doesn’t discriminate against the LGBT community and won’t wage unnecessary wars? Ex-Fox News pundit Judge Napolitano points out that Ron Paul might be the only source of real change in a struggling political system (he’s probably an ex-pundit for pointing that out) because he doesn’t fit the traditional mold of the Democratic or Republican party. Let’s just pretend he doesn’t exist because he doesn’t fit a left or right agenda. 

The fact that this election is close just goes to show you the country’s sentiment for replacing President Obama. A more popular Democrat would probably wipe the floor with Romney. As a northern governor, at least Mitt won’t be taking the other popular phrase from FNL — “Texas forever!” — and for that I guess we can all be grateful. My apologies go to Coach Taylor, whose heroics are now tainted by the epitome of this era’s politician.

Brian is a junior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].