Why Mitt Can’t Tell The Crazies To Get Lost

[babylonsister]

http://www.nationalmemo.com/why-mitt-cant-tell-the-crazies-to-get-lost/

Why Mitt Can’t Tell The Crazies To Get Lost
May 8th, 2012 12:21 am Joe Conason


In the cliché of the season, Mitt Romney is supposed to be executing a graceful “pivot” away from the grating extremist stupidity of the Republican primaries, the better to persuade us that he really is a Massachusetts moderate, or a moderate conservative – or at least something less repellent to independent voters than a Tea Party yahoo. He stumbled in mid-pivot, however, when a woman posing a question to him at a Cleveland event on Monday said President Obama “should be tried for treason,” and Romney acted as if he didn’t hear her slur.

The presumptive nominee told reporters afterward that “of course” he didn’t agree with the woman’s remark — as if he had failed to check a box on a form — but his alibi was too late and much too little. When someone slanders the President of the United States as a traitor, the responsible reaction is to respond loudly and forthrightly. Shrinking from the duty to correct the extremism of your own supporters, as Senator John McCain did without hesitation four years ago, is yet another sign of weak character and poor judgment.

Romney’s instinct is to appease the same far right forces that his father George and other conscientious Mormons broke with many years ago, although such fringe ideological obsessions held sway at the highest levels of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. He is entirely familiar with the John Birch Society paranoia and white supremacist bigotry that notoriously defaced Mormonism in those times, both of which exert an unwholesome influence on Tea Party Republicans today. Somehow, he cannot bring himself to speak up when confronted with that old nightmare mentality.

Instead Romney consistently seeks to ingratiate himself with anyone who expresses a distaste for Obama, no matter how demented. The same scenario has recurred again and again, as it did in the town of Bexley, Ohio in early March, where a man who claimed to have a concealed-carry permit asked whether the former Massachusetts governor will “allow me to keep my gun and protect myself and my family and my home and not come and get my gun? Because I want to keep it to protect myself and my wife and my family — and against a tyrannical government, which I think we are approaching and we are in, very close.”

snip//

The problem is not that Romney is missing opportunities to reach the benighted yahoos in his party, who are mostly beyond reason. It is that he lacks the fortitude to do so when he thinks honor and honesty might cost him. And it means that if the cranks continue to dominate Congress, as they do now, no moderating voice will emanate from a scared and silent Romney White House.

[KharmaTrain]

1. Willard's Only Chance...

...is to energize a base that doesn't like him or trust him. There's a large portion that will cause they hate the "colored fella" or "socialist" or whatever cartoon image you want to put upon President Obama and Rmoney needs to keep these people "energized" in hopes they'll hold their noses and vote for him in November. A 10% rushpublican drop off in November (similar to the Democratic drop off in '10) could not only mean a large Obama electoral victory but also help sweep Democrats into House and Senate seats as well. Willard knows he hasn't made the sale to the great unhinged and continues to pander to them...or fear them. Taking on a rushbo or any critic opens up those floodgates of resentment that he's hoping to avoid. Just pop over to freeperville and see how well they've glammed onto him. These are those "10 percenters" whose votes he needs to have any chance...expect the rhetoric to get worse as the campaign gets more desperate...

[exboyfil]

2. To paraphrase Bush

Some people call you crazies, I call you my base. (Bush- Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.)

[tanyev]

3. If he thinks the cranks in Congress would work with him as president,

then he's truly deluding himself.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. He won't need a Republican-controlled Congress to work with

he'll just sign whatever they want him to sign

[tanyev]

5. Yes, that's what they assume would happen.

I have to wonder if Romney understands and accepts that's what would happen. And even if he accepts that, wouldn't he want them to participate in the pretense that he's the guy in charge? I don't think they would. A person with any shred of self-respect would find the situation intolerable.

Hopefully, we'll never see how it would play out because he gets trounced in November by President Obama.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. Exactly

The challenge for us is ensuring that as many people as possible understand that this is what we're facing in this election and that no matter how "moderate" Mitt will try to pretend to be, he will gladly obey the whims of the right-wingers in Congress and embrace their agenda. Thankfully, Mitt's worst enemy so far has been.........Mitt.

[HopeHoops]

7. Without them, he wouldn't have ANYONE in the audience.

[AlinPA]

8. If the teabaggers push him on it, he will call the president a traitor. He has no other choice.

Crazies run the GOP now. Watch for him to line up with the birthers, too.

[Carla in Sequim]

11. Which reminds me...

The last time Romney was pressed for his tax returns, he or a spokesman said he would when the president shows his birth certificate (again).

And speaking of those returns, how can we start a new push for them? Now is the perfect time to start hounding him. Is he vetting his audiences?

[mulsh]

9. I think Willard whole heartedly agrees with the crazies.

So far in this campaign nothing has occurred that makes me think otherwise. In fact I haven't seen much evidence of his ability to think or react at all.

[WI_DEM]

10. Willard is one of the crazies.

[Sarcasticus]

12. The words "gutless wonder" come to mind.

Willard B Wimpy.