Mitt Romney made the biggest blunder of his candidacy today – at least so far. Previous missteps have mainly involved him making badly worded statements. Overall, Romney has been remarkably well disciplined when it comes to broader campaign decisions. Dragging his feet releasing his tax returns may have caused problems, but he remedied that by releasing them. Today’s embrace of Donald Trump is a colossal blunder that will come back to haunt him.
To start, Romney’s entire candidacy was based on the idea that he was the most serious and presidential candidate in the race. Publicly accepting the endorsement of a reality show tabloid figure makes him look silly. Remember, Romney didn’t do a joint appearance to accept the endorsement of Jon Huntsman, a former governor and U.S. ambassador.
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Trump is also a loose cannon who will say anything for headlines. At this afternoon’s event, Romney shook Trump’s hand, said he was “honored” by his endorsement and said it meant a “great deal” to him. Now, any of Trump’s crazy statements, past or future, can be linked to Romney in a 30-second attack ad by showing footage from today’s circus. The DNC could put out an ad, for instance, of Trump’s birther statements spliced together with clips of Romney and Trump. For Democrats, it’s a gift that will keep giving should Romney become the nominee.
A number of theories have been floated as to why Romney would want to do this: To thwart Newt Gingrich who had indulged Trump, to prevent a third party run, and perhaps to appeal to a certain subset of the Republican Party. Politico reports that, “A Romney adviser said Thursday that Trump continues to have a following among very conservative voters…” I doubt many conservatives who didn’t support Romney up till now will be swayed by this, that Trump would have presented much of a threat had he endorsed Newt Gingrich, or that he would have actually run as a third party candidate. But even so, this announcement doesn’t prevent Trump from running as a third party candidate if he actually wanted to. And seriously, Romney wants to be president and he’s so afraid of what Trump will do that he goes to his Las Vegas hotel to publicly kiss his ring? As Tony Blair once said, “Weak. Weak. Weak.”
Of course, there’s something more important at stake here. Regardless of whether or not Trump has a following, his statements questioning Barack Obama’s birth certificate were disgraceful. It’s an embarrassment for Romney to elevate him like this. That shouldn’t be seen as within the bounds of acceptable discourse in the Republican Party.
