This signature Romney pose—eyes softened, mouth closed, sometimes in a Mona Lisa smile, stomach slightly out, shoulders slightly slumped—has always struck me as a benevolent, kindly look. If he’s looking on as other people speak, it seems he’s doing so in admiration, perhaps like a proud pastor letting his flock speak from the pulpit. That would jibe with what Maureen Dowd refers to as “Romney’s image of himself as wise, caring, smart and capable.”
During the Republican debates, Romney, Sarah Kaufman wrote in the Washington Post, would often “lean an elbow on his lectern and, with the mild, slightly wincing smile that is his default expression, he’ll settle in to listen. (Is that the consultant in him, keeping an open mind? Or is it the missionary, hoping to find common ground and then swoop in for the conversion?) .… Stiff, yes. But not cold…. This man wants to be involved. He has the missionary’s tenacity.” (If so, this gives new meaning to “the missionary position.”)
But here’s the problem: Romney had the same look on his face right before he famously and physically laid into Rick Perry for accusing him of hiring “illegals” at one of the debates. Grabbing Perry’s shoulder and refusing to let Perry interrupt him, Romney was no wimp or weenie. He was aggressive, he was bold—as he’s been in other debates and can be on the campaign trail. Yet, when it was officially Perry’s turn to speak, Mitt returned to the same mild mien that I had taken as benevolence and kindness. (See the episode here.)
Mitt may well have vast reserves of both qualities, but they are not necessarily what his passive posture reveals at all. Elspeth Reeve may be right when she writes that when Mitt seems to be making goo-goo eyes at others, he’s really just expressing “boredom and contempt.”
MORE: What Mitt Romney’s Body Language Is Trying to Tell Us | The Nation.