Lexington
Moral quandary
道德的窘境
Mitt Romney wants to talk about the economy, not social issues. It isn’t working out that way
米特•罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）希望着眼于经济事务而不是社会问题，但事情并不如意。
May 26th 2012 | from the print edition
IN MANY respects, Mitt Romney makes a perfect spokesman for America’s religious right. He certainly looks the part: his clothes crisply creased, his hair neatly gelled, his face habitually frozen in a look of square-jawed conviction. His personal life seems blameless. He is a regular churchgoer, and appears to live by the tenets of his faith. He married his high-school sweetheart, who bore him five strapping sons, who in turn have provided him with 18 grandchildren. He is a teetotaller, but not, like George W. Bush, as a break with the waywardness of his youth. Mr Romney spent much of his youth as a missionary, trying to persuade the French to give up wine. He once told a reporter that his greatest failing was that he devoted only one day a week to helping the needy (smugness is clearly a bit of an issue, too). The closest he has come to a scandal is the revelation that in his teens he once forcibly cut the hair of one of his schoolmates, in a prank that strayed across the line into bullying.
在许多方面上，米特•罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）完美地体现了一个虔诚美国人的样子。起码他看起来很像样：衣服熨烫得棱角分明，发胶上得恰到好处，长着方形的下颌的脸上流露着一贯的坚定。他的个人生活看起来无可挑剔。他常常去教堂并且似乎笃行着他的信条。他娶了高中的女友，育有五个强壮的儿子，他们给他带来了十八个孙子。他滴酒不沾，但不像乔治W布什（George W. Bush），他不是后来改邪归正的——他曾在青年时代花了很多时间去传教, 试图劝法国人戒酒（注: 摩门教倡导每一名青年男性在20岁左右去世界各地传教, Romney去了法国）。他曾经对一个记者说过他最大的缺陷就是以前他一周才用一天去帮助那些有需要的人（显然，矫情也是一个问题）。他最大的丑闻（如果算是的话）据他所说，就是在一次恶作剧中他曾暴力地把他同学的头发剪了，结果演变成一次欺凌事件。
Yet Mr Romney does not like to talk about his faith in any but the broadest terms, presumably to avoid reminding voters that he is Mormon, a religion that many Americans find peculiar and some doctrinaire Christians consider heretical. Observers, trying to make sense of his inconsistent stances on abortion, gay marriage and the like, often assume that he is simply feigning abhorrence of them to curry favour with religious voters. But it is just as plausible that he faked the more tolerant views he used to espouse to curry favour with the liberal voters of Massachusetts, where he ran unsuccessfully for Senate and successfully for governor. At any rate, as a church leader Mr Romney is said to have encouraged women to favour child-rearing over their careers and to have discouraged them from having abortions.
尽管如此，除了泛泛而谈一些大问题，罗姆尼并不喜欢谈及他的信仰，似乎在避免让公众想起他是一个摩门教徒。许多美国人觉得摩门教很独特，但一些基督教的教条主义者认为它是异端邪教。专家们试图理解他对于堕胎，同性婚姻和诸如此类的事情的摇摆态度. 他们通常认为他只不过是为了讨好那些宗教选民而假装厌恶它们. 然而, 他也可能是为了讨好麻省的自由派选民而假装采取(他曾经拥护的)更为宽容的态度。在那里他未能成功竞选参议院，然而成功地当上了州长。无论如何，据说罗姆尼，作为一个宗教领袖，鼓励妇女抚育孩子甚于投身于事业，更是反对堕胎。
It is ironic, then, that even when “social issues” dominate the news, Mr Romney says almost nothing about them. For weeks the media have been parsing and probing Barack Obama’s recent decision to endorse gay marriage. Yet Mr Romney simply reiterated his opposition to it before attempting to change the subject.
然而讽刺的是，当社会问题占据了新闻大幅版面的时候，罗姆尼对其几乎不发一词。贝拉克•奥巴马（Barack Obama）最近决定批准同性婚姻，对此媒体数周以来对其进行条分缕析，穷追不舍。然而罗姆尼只是简单地重申了他的对该行为的反对态度，然后试图改变话题。
This is part of the natural rhythm of a presidential election. Candidates tend to play to the base of their party during the primaries, only to quench the fire and brimstone once they have secured the nomination, the better to appeal to swing voters. But it is also a reversal of sorts. Republican strategists used to assume that social issues were a vote-winner for them; now they seem to worry that too much righteous talk will put off centrists by making the party seem unpalatably moralising. Very few Americans rate gay marriage as the most pressing issue of the day, and those that do have surely long ago decided how they will vote; opponents for Mr Romney, and supporters for Mr Obama.
这在总统竞选中是很正常的。候选人在初选当中会迎合他们党派的阵营, 然后再锁定提名以后扑灭火苗, 以便吸引摇摆选民。但这也可以说是开倒车。共和党分析师们过去认为社会问题是他们争取选票的筹码，但现在他们似乎在担忧太多的道德说教会使他们的观点看起来假大空，难以接受，继而失去中立派的支持。很少美国人把同性恋婚姻看作当下最迫切的问题, 而即使某人真的这样认为, 他的投票取向也早已定下: 反对的投给罗姆尼, 支持的投给奥巴马。
Much the same goes for other subjects that rile the conservative faithful. Mr Romney suddenly seems to have few thoughts about illegal immigration, global warming or activist judges. Instead, he devotes himself almost exclusively to talk of the economy, with the odd jab at Mr Obama’s health-care reforms. That, after all, is what swing voters care most about, and the area in which they are most unhappy with the president’s performance.
很多其他让保守的信徒们生气的问题也大致是这么一个情况。看起来罗姆尼突然似乎对于非法移民，全球变暖和激进派的评判没什么想法——他只是只是近乎全身心地投入到单一的经济领域上，偶尔对奥巴马的医疗改革进行抨击。毕竟，那是摇摆不定的选民最为关心的问题，也是他们对总统的表现中最不满的一部分。
It’s not just the economy, stupid不只是经济呀, 傻瓜
The hitch is that “pivoting to the centre”, as the election jargon has it, is an especially awkward manoeuvre for Mr Romney. For one thing, the Republican faithful have always worried that the real Mr Romney is the relative liberal of his two races in Massachusetts, and that the present ardent conservative is the impostor. To allay their fears, Mr Romney must pivot more slowly and less far than he otherwise might. Thus when his appointment of an openly gay spokesman on foreign affairs caused a stir in conservative circles, the campaign quickly fired him.
问题是, 选举届行话的所谓"向中间靠拢"对于罗姆尼来说是特别尴尬的举动。一方面，共和党人始终担心真正的罗姆尼是较为自由开明的，正如他在马萨诸塞州所展现的那样，而现在这个极度保守的只是替身。为了消除他们的疑虑，罗姆尼必须以较原先打算更为缓慢、在更近的范围内进行活动。因此，当他因任命了一个众所周知的同性恋为外交事务发言人时，他的竞选团队很快就解雇了该发言人。
Try as he might, Mr Romney will find it almost impossible to get away from social issues over the next five months. Mr Obama, after all, is doing his best to avoid dwelling on the weakness of the economy. His campaign has, instead, spent the past week trying to stir up indignation about a Republican electioneering outfit that seems to have considered (but decided against) running an ad campaign about Mr Obama’s ties to Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of a church the president used to attend and whose many racist, paranoid and unpatriotic utterances caused him great embarrassment during the 2008 campaign. That ploy forced Mr Romney to spend several days denying that he intended to bring up divisive racial issues, instead of hammering away at the president’s stewardship of the economy.
尽管努力尝试，但罗姆尼发现要在未来五个月摆脱社会问题几乎是不可能的，毕竟奥巴马在竭尽全力避免提及他在经济上的弱点。相反，奥巴马的团队在上周一直致力于激起人们对共和党竞选团队的愤慨。共和党的竞选团曾考虑进行广告战, 对杰里迈亚 莱特（Jeremiah Wright）进行抨击，但最终并没有实施。莱特是奥巴马常去教堂的一个牧师，他那些种族歧视，偏执狂妄及不爱国的言论让奥巴马在2008年的竞选活动中处境十分尴尬。该团队的战略让罗姆尼不得不花费数天来辩解他没有引起种族问题的企图，而不是着重强调总统对经济问题的解决手段。
Mr Obama will be abetted in such diversions by those same Republicans who doubt Mr Romney’s conservative bona fides. They are constantly cooking up new schemes to promote their notion of personal rectitude, in spite of the damage it does to the party’s brand, especially among swinging (in both senses) single women. Last week, for example, Republicans in Virginia’s House failed to approve the appointment of a judge whose sole disqualification seemed to be that he was gay. Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, are trying to restrict access to abortion in Washington, DC, a city none of them represents. And several states will hold referendums on gay marriage on election day.
奥巴马将从这些视线转移中受益, 而始作俑者正是那群怀疑罗姆尼对保守主义的忠诚的人. 他们不断地炮制新手段来显示他们对端正品行的理解，虽然他们对党名誉造成的损害甚于建设，尤其是对于那些芳心未定(双关)的单身女性来说。例如说上周共和党人在维吉尼亚州下议院否决了对一名法官的提名，而原因似乎仅仅是该候选人是同性恋。同时，他们正尝试在国会推动限制华盛顿特区堕胎的权限，虽然在那城市他们一个代表也没有。另外还有几个州会在选举日就同性婚姻进行公民投票。
What is more, dogmatic legislators are not the only troublesome Republican voices. Anyone with a gripe and a fortune can now weigh in on the election via a “super PAC”, a new sort of campaign group that can raise and spend as much as it wants on advertisements as long as it does not have any formal ties to a party or candidate. It was thanks to a super PAC that Mr Wright found himself in the news again, for example. Others have sprung up to fight abortion and gay marriage. Whatever the impact on Mr Romney’s fortunes, in short, the religious right shows no inclination to let him run the election campaign he wants.
此外, 教条的立法者并不是共和党中唯一伤脑筋的声音。任何想发牢骚的有钱人现在都能通过“超级政治行动委员会”（super PAC）——一个新型的竞选团队，它能让你在广告上筹集并花费任意的钱，只要它和任意的党派和候选人没有任何正式的关系——而在选举中占据一席之地。例如多亏有了它莱特才能在新闻中再次有了出现的机会。还有其他人起来反对堕胎和同性婚姻。无论对罗姆尼命运的影响是什么，总之，宗教的力量并没有让他随心所欲竞选的意思。
背景：
1. 摩门教徒是指称信仰 摩门经的信徒。在摩门教徒中最主要的宗派是耶稣基督后期圣徒教会，由于其他宗派比较起来相对地小，所以摩门教徒通常即指耶稣基督后期圣徒教会的会友。摩门教是后期圣徒运动的主流和延续，摩门教徒的官方名称是后期圣徒（中文旧译为末世圣徒）。他们有一夫多妻的传统。
2. Jeremiah Wright 全名Rev. Jeremiah Wright，美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马（Barack Obama）的牧师。他曾公开发表一些带有种族色彩的煽动性言论，引起各方争议。
查阅的单词短语： 英文 中文
hammer away at 接连说明，反复谈论
dwell on 老是想着, 详述
难句：
1.Yet Mr Romney does not like to talk about his faith in any but the broadest terms
2.But it is just as plausible that he faked the more tolerant views he used to espouse to curry favour with the liberal voters of Massachusetts, where he ran unsuccessfully for Senate and successfully for governor.
3.This is part of the natural rhythm of a presidential election. Candidates tend to play to the base of their party during the primaries, only to quench the fire and brimstone once they have secured the nomination, the better to appeal to swing voters. But it is also a reversal of sorts.
4.dogmatic legislators are not the only troublesome Republican voices.
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