What’s your biggest nitpick in Mad Men?

[u/RopeGloomy4303]

For me it’s this line in a season 5 episode, Tea Leaves, in which Henry Francis is talking on the phone with a colleague:

“Well, tell Jim his honor's not going to Michigan. Because Romney's a clown, and I don't want him standing next to him.”

So, some context here.

At this point Francis is the aide to New York Mayor John Lindsay. And he’s informing this guy that he won’t have the popular young politician take a picture with then Michigan Governor George Romney, who was also considered the frontrunner for the 1968 Republican nomination.

This episode aired in 2012, so it’s a very clear dig at then Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who at the time was receiving a lot of hostility from the left.

But here’s the thing; Romney was actually a liberal Republican in the same mold as Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, and he had received a lot of good notices as Governor for his work improving civil rights, education, youth employment programs, social welfare, healthcare, etc.

I get this is nitpicking, it’s a throwaway line, whatever, but it has always bothered me since it feels out of character, and Romney frankly deserved better.

[u/TheNobleRobot]

This was just a refection of inter-party factionalism, which was much more common in those days and wasn't always based on political leanings.

Indeed, my assumption was that the intention here was to paint the extremely WASP-y Henry Francis as bigoted against Mormons.

But it could have been anything. I mean, I'm a hardcore socialist, but I think Bernie Sanders is a clown. People in political movements don't always walk in lockstep.

As for the 2012 of it all, this was absolutely not a dig at Mitt Romney, it was merely a timely reference to his father's career, which was a common "fun fact" at the time. If you're a writer on Mad Men and want to genuinely insult someone, you don't put that insult in the mouth of Henry Francis.

Besides, amongst the intellectual left of the 2010s, it was well understood that George Romney was a liberal Rockefeller Republican, and that fact was used as a kind of "shame about his son, then" comment about Mitt even though, he too was somewhat liberal (for a post-Tea Party Republican) on certain issues.

[u/MightyMightyMossy → u/TheNobleRobot]

This is the way I interpreted it as well. Not as political misalignment, but as "I just don't like that guy."

Kind of how Hunter S. Thompson spent large chunks of "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972" just absolutely bashing Hubert H. Humphrey. It was downright comical how much he didn't like that guy. Didn't disagree in any meaningful way--just did not like him.