Noah Rothman:
Perhaps the most striking element of a vexing election year has been how many partisans on both sides of the aisle appear to have edited 2012 out of their memories. Republicans who have fallen in line behind Trump seem to have forgotten the maxim expressed by Jeb Bush, among others, who warned against running a red-meat campaign in the primaries that would doom you in the general election. Even as the Trump campaign furiously shakes the Etch-A-Sketch, Democrats are also indulging in a bit of convenient amnesia about the 2012 race and, in particular, Mitt Romney.
As one of the foremost Republicans steadfastly refusing to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Romney has earned a Strange New Respect from his erstwhile political foes on the left.
“He was in it for the right reasons,” Obama 2012 campaign spokesperson Stephanie Cutter mused wistfully. “He truly believed in wanting to make this country better.”
“I don’t think anybody would have truly expected this country to go to hell in a handbasket,” confessed Obama’s 2012 press secretary Ben LaBolt, ruminating on the prospect of a Romney victory.
“I think I was right, and Mitt Romney and John McCain were wrong on certain policy issues, but I never thought that they couldn’t do the job,” President Barack Obama said in early August.
“I know they’re going to abide by certain norms and rules and common sense,” Obama added, as he recalled ruminating on the prospect of his loss, “will observe basic decency, will have enough knowledge about economic policy and foreign policy and our constitutional traditions and rule of law that our government will work.”
This warm recollection for the goodness and decency of Governor Romney is rather off-putting when recalling how the Obama campaign apparatus sought to portray him as a bigoted plutocrat who was complicit in at least one negligent homicide.
The Super PAC Priorities USA Action, which has transformed from a pro-Obama group to a pro-Clinton group in this cycle, literally accused Mitt Romney ofcomplicity in a preventable death. Why? Because he ran the restructuring firm Bain Capital that liquidated a failing steel mill, resulting in the cancellation of a health insurance policy for a terminally ill employee. The ad was so noxious that Team Obama denied any knowledge of its production, but it was Cutter whohosted a conference call with reporters in which Joe Soptic, the widower and alleged victim of Romney’s callous indifference, told the same tale he related to Priorities’ cameras.
Mitt Romney tried to throw his weight around in Utah by pushing the NeverTrump narrative along with many false stories.
He even backed a 3rd party candidate who can’t even make most state ballots.
So, how much influence does the Mormon church have in Utah’s politics?
The leaders, Romney included, insist Mormons not vote for Trump.
So, what a shock.
Utah’s latest poll shows Republicans here favor Trump by 15 points over any and every other candidate!
Mormons place unusually high importance on matters of religious tolerance owing to the extreme difficulties their own religion had with institutionalized State persecution. They probably view Trump’s statements regarding Muslims in a completely different way than other Americans.
Oh, what would it have been like to have had an actual leader for the past 8 years.
@Bill:
Or at least one that can accurately read a teleprompter without stuttering.
The demac-RATS want to totaly control everything and everybody they want world goverment nothing less