Lunchtime Blotter: Romney Hearts the Donald

Apart from those poor Apprentice contestants, Mitt Romney might be the only person in America who takes Donald Trump seriously.  Particularly after his crusade to win the GOP nomination by proving that Barack Obama wasn't born in this country went up in flames around this time last year, with Obama releasing his long-form birth certificate and then utterly embarrassing Trump as he sat stone-faced in the audience at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it seemed as though most Americans who even care had dismissed Trump as the worthless fat gadfly he is.  

 

Except Mitt Romney.  While the Obama campaign sends out fundraising gimmicks to supporters like me advertising the chance to earn a trip to high dollar dinners with Obama and Bill Clinton, or George Clooney, the Romney team mimicked this tactic with its most marketable celebrity last week, offering supporters the chance to "Dine with the Donald."  Romney's bromance with Trump extends even further back to the dog days of the GOP primaries in February, when the former Massachusetts governor staged an elaborate ceremony to celebrate Trump's endorsement, capping it off by remarking wistfully that “there are some things that you just can’t imagine happening in your life. This is one of them.”  Note that this delight in the endorsement of a bombastic real estate magnate most famous for saying "you're fired!" on TV came during the height of Romney's attempts to endear himself to blue-collar Republican voters who viewed him suspiciously, which might be a curious decision if Romney didn't actually see something in the guy.  The question is, what?

I'm not going to get too far into why Mitt Romney thinks so highly of a celebrity who continues to go on the record pushing a ridiculous conspiracy theory that the President of the United States was not born in America, as Trump did again the other day.  To me, however, the bigger issue is Romney's continued inability to stand up to the most extreme voices in his own party.  We saw it in February, when Mitt waited three days to say anything about Rush Limbaugh calling a young woman a slut for testifying in favor of birth control before Congress, and then offered only the tepid half-response that they were "not the words he would have chosen" (what words would he have chosen?), after he was finally confronted by reporters.  And we're seeing it again now, when after Trump overshadowed his own fundraising appearance with Romney by again questioning the president's birth certificate on the very same day, Romney gave another aw shucks, isn't-it-unfortunate-that-I've-embraced-so-many-ridiculous-people-in-my-craven-desire-to-become-president sort of answer: 

“You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

Look, we know Mitt Romney is a politician's politician if one ever existed, from the hair to the shameless flip-flopping.  So we shouldn't exactly expect him to be known for his moral courage and bravery.  But at what point is enough enough?  Earlier in May, when the speaker introducing Romney at a rally in Ohio remarked that President Obama "deserves no more credit for killing terrorist Osama bin Laden than Ronald McDonald does for making a Big Mac," and a female questioner argued that the president should be tried for treason, Romney again said nothing until pressed by reporters after the rally to take a position on whether or note he agreed with the woman's statement. Contrast this with John McCain, who said this, while onstage, to a woman who referred to Barack Obama as an "A-rab" during a town hall-style rally:

"No ma'am.  He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

Even that wasn't exactly a strong denunciation of the worst rhetoric coming from the far right, but it's clear that McCain at least had some guts that Mitt Romney appears to lack (he also took the microphone away from the woman).  And even if these are calculated decisions by the Romney campaign to avoid picking a fight with hardcore conservatives (which itself would be a sad statement of how far out there the Republican Party has gone), the former governor has failed time and time again to stand up to just about anyone.

Presidential campaigns are primarily about the issues, but they are also tests of moral character.  We are not just electing someone to implement or repeal Obamacare, to raise or cut taxes for the rich, to advance one foreign policy or the other.  We are also electing an individual who we trust to represent our country well and make good decisions when crises come up that no one today can even imagine.  If Mitt Romney can't publicly condemn Donald Trump, or take a supporter to task for saying the president should be tried for treason, how will he handle himself while in office?  Can we trust him to stand up to Vladimir Putin?  If an ally says something incendiary, will a Romney administration be able to smooth it over if this is the kind of gutlessness that is coming from the top?

The Romney campaign would love to dismiss this latest Trump dustup as a distraction from the real issues, but until their candidate shows an ability to be his own man, and not be defined by the statements of others, these zany remarks by surrogates will and should continue to be fair game.  in 2008, Barack Obama eventually issued a strong condemnation of Jeremiah Wright.  If Mitt Romney wants to show that he has anything resembling the intestinal fortitude it takes to be president, he should take notes and do the same with Trump and the rest of the crazies who give energy to his campaign.