Category: News

Business Advice: My 3 Point Plan to revamp and save MoviePass…

Theater subscription service MoviePass is losing $20 Million every single month and is on its way to an embarrassing shut down if it doesn’t make some big changes with some fresh ideas to shake up the current wtf-were-they-thinking system. Luckily I have those changes that can save them right here for them to ignore and close-anyway over but don’t say I didn’t tell-ya-so.

Some ways I thought of that I expected the company to try by now and still recommend to them here publicly and free of charge are:

Offer more services than just the theater Subscription thing

Pre-Orders – Compete with services like Fandango and offer users a one-account place to order theater tickets online without a membership and then add some perks to those who DO get the membership and want things like additional tickets for non-MoviePass holders.

Rentals – Compete with the all-but-ignored DVD mailing wing that still exists under Netflix and the once-popular-but-still-available RedBox rental system. Maybe even merge with or acquire RedBox and let any MoviePass members rent from any RedBox kiosk with their MoviePass card at a discount, with special-tier’ed members getting access to unlimited movie rentals (*just one at a time but otherwise “all you can watch”).

Streaming – Get in on this space. Currently there exists Netflix, Hulu, the WalMart owned Vudu as the top paid services. I recommend acquiring or duplicating the model of free/ad supported services like Pluto TV and Tubi, which both stream online and through smart TV apps. MoviePass should make the brand synonymous with movie watching whether its at home or in theaters and then cross market the platforms to each group so that a person watching an older movie on their MoviePass app on TV at home gets a steady feed of trailers and promotions for movies currently in theaters and coming soon.

Offer a Premium Pass Membership

MoviePass never let you see 3D or IMAX movies under any circumstances. This seems like a big waste instead of just offering an up-sell membership tier that would include those formats. Find some other perks you can pack into a package and make this the $40/month plan. It’ll take some mathing out to figure exactly what it would make sense to provide under this plan but in addition to definitely allowing 3D & IMAX showings, I would look into things like waving online pre-order fees, discounting a % on additional tickets, and rolling in some of the other suggestions in this list into coverage under this plan.

Create a “Priceline for Theaters” service and bring back the “dollar theater” model

Offer a basic plan – obviously call it something else – and make it the cheapest but with the most blackouts on locations, days, and showing time restrictions for $6.99/month.

If the service could create relationships with theater chains to gain insight to their slowest days and showtimes and then offer a MoviePass tier to fill those slowest slots, that could be a win-win for everyone that seems eminently doable. Just like how travel services like Priceline work with airlines and hotels to fill their unused seats and rooms at a discount.

Anyone grow up with a “dollar theater” (usually $3 or so) near them? The concept (playing older movies at an extreme discount and less fancy movie house) appears to be in very little practice anywhere anymore but MoviePass could bring it back. With the Basic ButNamedSomethingElse tier Membership, offer users 1 free movie a month on their card and additional movies at “dollar theater” prices for titles that are more than 2 months past their initial release date, or other metrics informed by the inside info you get from theater chain partnerships – ie: use your BasicPass for $3 movies on weekdays and before 5pm on weekends.

Offer a Concessions Perk Addition to the Pass

Work within the established relationship with national chains from my #2 idea and allow the MoviePass card to grant users concession perks like free upgrades on the sizes of their sodas and popcorns, and/or free refills on regular-price purchases, and/or a loyalty punchcard that gives them a freebie of something on their 15th visit or so. To do this you will have to develop a rewards system tech in your app that can apply anywhere and then offer the partnership to any theater anywhere, whether its a national chain, a single-location mom&pop location, a drive-in – whatever. Only AMC, Harkins Theaters, and maybe one other big chain have rewards membership.

Avengers Marketing Wars go to Infinity

I think I tried too hard with that title and it didn’t quite pan out.

But the point here is to cover the interesting extensions of marketing tying into this years super hero blockbuster which is a culmination of 19 previous films leading to this plot convergence that combines almost all of the main characters from all of those other movies. Here is how some major companies are paying big bucks to get consumers to associate their products and services with the empowered feelings associated with super heroes and tying their products to the movie event in various ways, but all with a “be like a hero and buy our stuff” theme:

SODA…

Previous Avengers movies sported Dr. Pepper, (which was recently purchased and merged with the Keurig coffee company) as their official beverage sponsor. “The Avengers and Dr. Pepper… Together we’re one of a kind” with ads tying the soda to being a hero.

This time around, however, competitor Coca Cola outbid Dr Pepper to secure a $40 Million dollar contract with the franchise which includes its global markets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw6zAJKsal0

Before Infinity War, Coke ran this Marvel integrated commercial during the 2018 Super Bowl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3KSdUtEb0

CARS…

Action movies and car manufacturers have a history of tie-in marketing.

This tie-in is my favorite one as they partnered with – Infinity. Heh.

The QX50 is also evidently featured in Infinity War, not that I would be able to spot it.

CAR INSURANCE…

Geico, in Geico fashion, runs a campaign that typically has nothing to do with its product but gets the name out there in the public mind via a goofy sketch, their cute mascot, and slogan over the logo at the end.

LOANS…

Quicken Loans jumps in the fray. Makes me wonder why Rocket Mortgage missed out on tying in with Rocket Raccoon on this one.

Here, a hip racially ambiguous millennial female casually strolls through disaster under the smooth crooning lyrics “Its your thing… do what you’re gonna do” – but like the Dr Pepper theme – she is basically a super hero herself because she uses this one product/service. “The mortgage process doesn’t have to be a battle”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOi1yJmA-yk

Honoring funeral procession motorcades is a really nice gesture

I attended a funeral last June and was in one of the cars going to the cemetery. Evidently I have had the luck to have so far, not attended very many funerals (or at least very many where the burial site was driving-distance from the funeral service) – so much so to the point that I didn’t even know the motorcade was a thing. I had only consciously registered it when President Reagan died in 2004 and the motorcade passed near where I was living in Thousand Oaks on its way to the Reagan Library where he would be buried. But as I learned – the body isn’t just delivered and everyone just shows up at the burial but rather is taken from the church to the cemetery by the hearse along with a line of cars – which…is what a motorcade is… am I explaining this poorly? I feel like I’m stumbling over this description and clunky set of recollections which I’m only now live-piecing together.

Point is – when we drove down the main street of town, an older gentleman on the sidewalk stopped and bowed his head and put his hand over his heart until the procession passed and that image stuck with me as such a classy gesture. He presumably didn’t know who was in that hearse, and had no obligation to give it any mind, yet he paused and showed respect – not really to a stranger, but to the strangers loved ones. After all, life is for the living – and funerals aren’t really about “showing respect for the dead” but rather they are gatherings that use that conceit as a way of giving excuse for the surviving friends and family of the deceased to congregate, grieve collectively, and console each other. To have a stranger show the human kindness to other strangers that silently says “I’m sorry for your loss” in such a completely “you didnt have to do that” way is really touching.

What made me think of this story was this post on Facebook in where the same thing happened except the single guy on the street is replaced by a bunch of kids who stopped playing basketball and knelt.

While attending a family funeral the procession passed a group of young boys shooting hoops. Take a look closely. They took a knee not out of disrespect but honor. They was not an adult insight to tell them to stop playing. This meant a great deal to our family. May God bless each one as I feel they will achieve greatness.

California ranked “worst state in the Union”

More specifically: California has the worst quality of life.

California – the state I live in –  has the highest state income tax in the nation, the highest sales tax rate in the nation, the highest gasoline tax in the nation, the 8th highest corporate income tax rate in the nation, the highest “minimum corporate tax” in the nation (each corporation must pay at least $800 to the state just to exist – even if it does not make a dime in profit) — and all for what? State revenues continue to decline, crime and traffic and other misery makers remain stagnant and trends arent heading in a positive direction for the Golden State.

Greg Gutfeld notes:

It’s a case where being No. 1 means, really, you’re No. 2. A new study ranks California dead last of all the states in quality of life, making it tops at being on the bottom.

States were ranked on everything from education to opportunity, from infrastructure to crime. But California scored low for one simple reason: It’s impossible to live there unless you are super rich or homeless — then come one, come all.

New Presidential limousine spotted with digital zebra camouflage

Prez Trump is getting a new ride. Normally I would have no interest in a “new car coming out” story, and I still don’t, but secrecy around the launch had this interesting tidbit. Pictured below is the new Presidential limo (read: one from the upcoming fleet, that is), spotted on public roads near GM’s “proving grounds” (I guess that’s the property where they prove their cars actually run?). Unsurprisingly, it is cloaked to conceal itself before officially launched, but surprisingly-to-me, it’s this:

I’ve seen jacketed yet-to-launch cars being stealth-tested in the Los Angeles area before and they’re draped in all black. Wtf is up with this television static design? It looks like its wearing a giant QR-code. Can I snap a shot with my phone and go to a Prez-car website? I assume it is supposed to be urban camouflage that dizzies your eye in the same way zebra stripes confuse predators from being able to hone in on a single one but this manifestation of that concepts seems like it would attract more attention to itself than project a “nothing to see here, folks” vibe.

While poking around this news item though, I found out the vehicle is also more badass than you might have expected:

The presidential limousine has tear gas cannons and a night vision camera, as well as a pump-action shotgun. Extra weapons, an oxygen supply and bottles of the president’s blood type are also on board. The fuel tank is armor-plated and encased in foam to prevent it from exploding. The kevlar-reinforced tires are puncture and shard-resistant, with steel rims that allow the car to continue driving if the tires are destroyed. 

More specs of the new Trumpmobile can be read here.

Media Freakout, Arrests made, after daycare workers found to have given toddlers melatonin gummy bears

3 women at an Illinois day care were arrested for giving melatonin gummies to 2-year-olds in their care before naptime.

The story sounds mostly funny to me as melatonin is a natural antioxidant your body makes when its dark as a signal to the brain to start shutting down into sleep mode. It’s not a sleeping pill chemical or anything you can overdose on or hurt yourself with – it’s a natural calming aid that aids rest. It’s not a drug, not a prescription, not something that causes psychoactive hallucinations or liver damage or any kind of organ failure or distress. Of course, whether its harmless or not, I wouldn’t be okay with a childcare provider giving a supplement to my kid without asking, so that part is a problem – but something to be arrested over?… Why? What crime could this possibly fall under? The charges reported so far just say “two counts of battery and two counts of endangering the life of a child”, and this dramatacism is where I got to a “wtf?” enough level to where I had to find a way where this made sense.

This photo of the daycare taken from Google Maps’ Street View appears in a lot of the reports covering this story, along with the mug shots of the 3 women (which I’ve chosen not to include in my own reportage here because it seems unfair that they are being vilified as child abusers when they’re really only guilty of being poor-judgement chuckleheads), which are both stylistically things you include in serious crimes – not a story that amounts to “daycare helps kids take naps”.


The scene of the crime

The only side effects of melatonin I could find were the effects it is meant to have on the body (drowsiness, dizziness, tiredness) and perhaps a head or stomach ache. It’s allegedly possible to be allergic to melatonin and develop swelling or skin rashes, so that part makes more sense, but with no instances of any such damage (which I think would be extremely rare given the nature of the supplement), idk what the freakout over is exactly. And yes, there was a freaking of outs. In addition to the arresting of the workers (aged 32, 19, and 25), the story of the arrest was on dozens of national outlets all reporting the case as if it were an actual case of battery and child-life endangerment when it clearly isn’t.

That makes the story worth logging as its the ignorance of the supplement fueling the sensationalism of an alleged danger, when at best it was just an inappropriate move that was worth somewhere between a strongly worded reprimand and a firing. A criminal record, not so much.

PS: You can buy melatonin gummies @ Amazon here

Keurig is buying Dr Pepper Snapple Company

Home coffee pod device maker Keurig Green Mountain has announced it has agreed to buy the soda company Dr Pepper, whose official corporate name is Dr Pepper Snapple Group, in an $18.7 billion deal.

This is of interest to me because I’m a stock holder in DrPepperSnapple and saw my shares jump 20something percent this morning – 42% from when I first bought them.

Only problem is I only own 2 shares… lol. I bought them for that-one-girl-who-fans-know-about-and-everyone-else-doesn’t-need-to cuz it’s her favorite drug so I figured we might as well own a piece of it (for the record, my “don’t get high off your own supply” plan did not work).

Keurig stated today that Dr Pepper Snapple shareholders will receive $103.75 per share in a special cash dividend and keep 13 percent of the combined company. Dr Pepper Snapple shareholders like me still must approve the deal, so maybe I’ll go against it and ruin it for everyone with my 2 votes.

Keurig Dr Pepper will trade publicly after the deal closes, which is expected to happen in the second quarter. A new ticker symbol hasn’t been announced yet, the company said. Keurig will stay in its Waterbury, Vermont, headquarters, and Dr Pepper Snapple will remain in Plano, Texas.

Back when I bought the shares, I didn’t know Dr Pepper was its own company. I’d have guessed it’s a Pepsi property but no.
-It’s big brands besides Dr Pepper and Snapple are Motts, Shweppes, & Bai teas.
-Smaller brands like Squirt, Calamato (ew), Cactus Cooler, RealLemon, & Crush…
-But also big name 2nd tier companies like A&W, Yoo-hoo, Hawaiian Punch.
– and then has weird distribution rights I don’t fully understand where it owns 7Up in the united states (but Pepsi owns it in Europe) and it owns the Canada Dry drinks in North America only and the Coca Cola company owns it in the UK.

This is my 2nd win for my 2 measly shares, as right after I bought them in November 2016, Dr Pepper Snapple announced they would make a cash purchase of Bai Brands for $1.7 billion, sending the stock rising. It had previously purchased a minority stake in the company for $15 million in 2015.

Keurig is owned by a European holding company that owns Krispy Kreme, they just bought Panera bread a few months ago, Peets coffee, and some tea store brand called Mighty Leaf. so they’re gonna synergize their products in each others brand storefronts.

Everyones merging these days because power companies are becoming titans that gobble up so much marketshare, a team-up and then combination is the only way to compete. Hulu for example is owned by “everyone who isn’t Netflix” (21st Century Fox, Disney, Comcast [parent owner of NBC], & TimeWarner) and still has half the subscribers as it. That might change as late last year The Walt Disney Company announced it would buy 21st Century Fox and thus it’s stake in Hulu, making Disney a majority owner of that brand. What it will do with it exactly hasn’t been announced but we do know that Disney is making it’s own Netflix competitor in some form. Disney owns ESPN, so whether there is a Disney streaming service, Hulu, & ESPN stream as 3 separate services or one or 2 is unknown at this time.

Viacom (cable company that owns brands like MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Logo) and The CBS Corporation are going to probably merge in response to Disney and Fox’s marriage. The first 2 have always essentially been one company anyway since both corporations are majority owned by billionaire Sumner Redstone.

Merging is the future. Now who’s ready to buy some Dr Pepper single-serve soda pods?

Logan Paul did nothing wrong in that Japanese forest

His critics are just jealous jackals piling on, opportunistically taking their chance to take him down because he’s popular/more popular than them.

I barely know who Logan Paul is. I learned about him a few months ago from a brief course by my nephews. If you aren’t familiar with him: He’s a dude in his early 20s that makes silly videos on YouTube that get millions of views. I’ve watched a few clips and didn’t love them, but who cares? They weren’t poorly made and didn’t showcase a total lack of talent or entertainment value like I think a lot of other popular YouTubers with unearned popularity have. He’s high-energy and has a goofy-bro style delivery that is charming enough even if the content doesn’t land for you specifically as an audience member as it didn’t really for me. I don’t say any of this to be a hipster douche about the guy – I’m only setting the table with the disclosure that I’m not and haven’t been a fan, so my defense of him is not from an emotional place of personal defense – it’s just what is right.

Second disclosure: I haven’t actually watched the video… As I suspect 90% of the media and celebrities commenting on it likewise haven’t. I’m basing my defense on what those outlets say is so terrible about its content – none of which is actually terrible. I do have access to the video and intend to watch it at some point, at which point I will update this post below.

WHAT THE CONTROVERSY IS OVER:
There’s a forest in Japan where people go to kill themselves. Logan Paul did an episode of his web show where he goes into it thinking the video would be about the eerie possibly-haunted nature of a creepy death forest and unexpectedly comes across a real body hanging from a tree. People got mad because he included this in his video and that’s basically it.


The worst thing he did that day was wear those rings

In response to negative reactions, Paul deleted the video and issued this apology on Twitter:

Still not satisfied, the hate continued, so he followed up with a YouTube apology as well which is too pathetic to post. In it, a clearly emotionally rattled Paul apologizes for his alleged lapse in judgement, asks his fans not to defend him, and promises to be better in the future. Good thing I’m not a fan of his so I don’t have an obligation to heed that request: Logan Paul did nothing wrong, doesn’t deserve the hate he’s getting, and the ninny’s saying otherwise are piling on a witch hunt with no merit. Some counter-points I had reading the articles & comments, and listening to people on radio and podcasts comment on the subject:

Laughing?
There are allegations that he laughed and made a joke over it and without knowing much about Paul and not even having seen the video, I’m gonna call bullsh#t. I don’t mean to accuse him of being a puppet that isn’t in charge of his own content, but there is no way his handlers or corporate partners or other people involved in the producing and editing of his video allowed him to mock and make jokes over a real life dead body. He also just doesn’t seem like the type to make suicide jokes a focal point of his entertainment product. His less mature younger brother Jake Paul, maybe. Idk.

“Respect for the dead”
Virtue signaling nonsense. That person didn’t respect their body when they killed it in that forest. Yes, Suicide occurs as a result of pain, but it is not glamorous and shouldn’t be glorified like it’s a sacrament. Further – killing yourself in public by definition makes what is left of you a public spectacle. Sorry/NotSorry if that spectacle you make of yourself is spectacled by others, bro.
Granted, I will agree with this if the video contains Logan pointing and laughing at the corpse swinging in the breeze and makes a crass display about that weak loser on the end of that rope who was just too much of a cwy-baby to handle the relentless emotional pain of existence. Since I’m nearly positive that didn’t happen – these accusations are dumb. One of the attacks on Paul that appears in a lot of the critical reports and negative comments and commentaries is that he was wearing a stupid hat (a pretty dope alien-from-Toy-Story hate to be precise). This is stupidly unfair as the video was a trek through a haunted forest – not crashing a funeral, not invading a sacred area, not tromping through a synagogue/church/or mosque – it was a walk in the forest.

“He shouldn’t have posted the video”
Maybe. But why not? Something that crazy happens in your life and you’re supposed to keep it a secret? You’re supposed to just mention it off camera? Why? Viewers watch video blog personalities to see their personalities on video web logs… Cutting that part out makes no editorial sense. The face of the corpse was blurred and that’s appropriate. Paul claims that he posted the video to further suicide awareness and I see no reason to disbelieve that claim. If I did a video on the ghosts that allegedly haunt the Golden Gate Bridge (the American equivalent to a suicide forest – so much so to the point that the bridge now has suicide nets) and while making a creepy “walk through the San Fransisco fog” scene I happened upon the lifeless body of someone who had jumped and still died in the net – I can think of no possible way that wouldn’t be in the final cut, and not for the purpose of making fun of it. Christ, no. The natural next-step is to show your audience what you experienced and take the opportunity to say “suicide is nothing to friggin play around with. its a permanent solution to a temporary problem and if you’re experiencing pain you feel like you can’t cope with – for the love of hamburgers – call the suicide hotline/seek help at this-or-that source” and so on. By all accounts that is exactly what Logan did – so wtf is the problem?

“He exploited a suicide victim to get views”
As his also-mocked-and-attacked apology statement notes: he didn’t do it for the views cuz he gets those views regardless. That line was mocked because in an apology he included the line “I get views” – the implication being “Logan is such a self-interested douche that even when he’s supposedly admitting a mess-up he promotes himself”. This is stupid analysis. Any overview of his history with content posting shows that he will get millions of views eating a bowl of cereal or just making a goofy face. This is clearly the intent behind the line “I get views” as he is accurately noting that he doesn’t need publicity stunts to shock people into watching his videos – he already a major player, son. He had an interesting subject and something interesting happened while he executed that subject and he included those points of interest. That’s literally his job, my dudes.

Reality TV = Real Moments…
What’s the biggest knock on “reality tv”? It’s so ubiquitous, everyone knows the answer is some variation of “it has no REALITY” harr harr. Accusations of staged scenes and clearly scripted moments on shows that are supposed to be spontaneous have been the criticism of the medium since it has existed. Now, something unscripted and shocking and REAL happens, and every wannabe nanny rushes to wag their finger at that too? No ones making you think it’s awesome entertainment but your attacks are invalid.

Those are the main points I have based on what I’ve seen dummies say about it so far. Like I said – I’ll update the post after I’ve watched the video and either tear into myself for being so profusely wrong, or do a victory lap at how right I was, or maybe some of both (but I doubt it will be both. this seems like a cut and dry type of thing).

UPDATE 1/10/18: YouTube throws Logan Paul under the bus and removes him as a preferred ad partner and cancels his YouTube Red projects in response to this nonsense. Disgraceful.

Nootropic startup’s “brain hack” product less effective than a cup of coffee

This start-up raised millions to sell ‘brain hacking’ pills, but its own study found coffee works better

That’s the headline to this CNBC article, and the story that follows doesn’t betray that thesis. Unfortunately, its stories like these that give casual observers the wrong idea about the actual options available to people to be able to improve and maintain a healthy brain.

The report above is about a startup I’m not previously-familiar with called HVMN, which was originally called the much more descriptive Nootrobox, which they should have kept. Nootropics are brain enhancers and a box of those things is essentially what the company is making and selling so why tinker with the name when it succinctly nails your whole business?

Whatever.

Their product, SPRINT is labeled as a “cognitive enhancement” and was put in medical trials against caffeine and, as the headline states – coffee was more effective in those tests than the SPRINT supplement. As I buy and make and think about selling my own Nootropic blends, this perked my interest but I didn’t find anything very interesting under further scrutiny. When looking at the ingredients of SPRINT, I could have saved them the trouble of hiring a study they would later try to have the name of their product removed from by just telling them the result.

I already knew the findings of the study, not because I’m psychic or a good guesser – it’s just right here in the known capabilities of the ingredients. Nothing boosts concentration better than caffeine and nicotine – in other words – “drugs”. Everything else is long term health and improvement in ability over time. its like steroids vs protein and creatine. The former will jack you up (with downsides) while the former(s) will aid, sustain and facilitate your muscle growth.

It’s poor practice to make fanstasical claims on things that are “only” just “really good for you” because then when your magic is debunked, the legitimate goodness gets thrown out in the court of public opinion with it.

Plus, I read that former Yahoo! CEO Melissa Mayer invested in the company and that should have been a tip off because everything she is involved in is overhyped, underperforming, one-dimensional marketing fluff. When I said that in a message to someone, I was sarcastically retorted “you mean i can’t trust the judgment of this woman who sat behind a roped-off throne at the company Christmas party?” – which was a new tidbit for me. That eccentricity makes me like her more cuz I thought she was just a bland social-justice hire failure but she remains a figure lacking in the talent that the narrative built around her begged her to fulfill.

But the difference between healthy things that aid you over time and things that cause immediate measurable improvement are pretty big and providers of all-natural supplements often drink their own kool-aid marketing and go off the deep end on what their products can do.

Looking at the ingredients, Sprint is only “okay” and not a great supplement. It’s tyrosine, theanine, vinpocetine and B-vitamins with caffeine. That combo is the cheap stuff that’s available in any number of brain pills on Amazon plus vinpocetine (the only premium ingredient in that list). no neurotransmitters like GABA or plant stuff like bacopa, or oat straw or mucana pruriens (legume that helps dopamine production).

AlphaBrain has all of those things and more. I only know about most of these things from reverse engineering alpha brain years back and studying which things are study based proven to have an effect and it’s still the best product for brain health and performance I know of. I still take all its stuff separately though for not a whole lot more per alpha-pill at higher dosage.

Former supporters turn on Romney and embrace the “dog on the roof” meme

This one is a political-nerd thing that requires some back story to it, but:

In the wake of the news that former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will likely run for Senate in Utah in 2018, his detractors have resurfaced the old “dog on the roof” smear that still makes no sense to me. The attack is from the 2007 presidential primary Romney lost to John McCain (who went on to lose the election to Barack Obama in the 2008 election) in where a story the Romney’s told about their family trips including their family dog going with them in a dog carrier on the roof of their car being alleged as some kind of horrible thing – evidently by people who have never traveled with dogs in an automobile before (summary: they *don’t* like to be in the cab of a car and much prefer to stick their heads out the window, or, if possible – be in the open bed of a truck during the traveling. A roof dog carrier is like that, except safer).

This one from a reporter at the conservative Washington Free Beacon incomprehensibly depicts the tortured dog meme being a stand-in for “common sense conservatism” riding on Senator Romney’s car down a road of unchecked Trumpism… huh?
https://twitter.com/HashtagGriswold/status/923977076373426177

Romney was a Trump critic who opposed his nomination…but this is alleging that he will speed down the road to no longer check the president at the expense of what is known as “common sense conservatism”?

If you can explain this metaphor to me, please do…