Fooled Me Once, Mitt, but You Won’t Fool Me Again

Note: As a contributor to more than one site, I am posting this here first to gauge the reaction. This piece is strong in rhetoric, but I feel it’s fair. My reason for debuting it at conservative superiority is that hopefully Brandon won’t mind my rather strong feelings on the subject discussed, and if they are to harsh, he will correct them without killing my account! These are my personal feelings on the matter, and not necessarily views agreed upon by the website administrator.

Fool Me Once? Shame on You Mitt, Because It won’t Happen Again

Today, former governor Mitt Romney might very well have lost my vote. I’m not talking about my primary vote, since I wasn’t going to vote for him there anyhow. I am talking about my general election vote. Why, you ask? Well, let me explain. I don’t think I can hold my nose and presume he is the lesser of two evils anymore. Although I’ve never been of a big fan of the former governor from Massachusetts, I have been slow to publicly accuse him of pandering and flip-flopping in the past. Today, he went beyond mere pandering, and crossed that line. Last night when I was posting on the Larry Craig affair, I even went back and changed my post because someone accused me of using the situation to attack Romney by linking to articles that connected him to Craig. I was, at the time, disturbed by the fact that Romney pulled the youtube video of Craig endorsing him, but I was willing to let that slide. Today’s actions, I can not and will not let go without calling it for what it is.

Now here is my beef (analysis courtesy of Jonathan Martin)…

Craig was one of Romney’s top two backers in the Senate and had worked to round up support there for the former governor. After Craig’s bathroom encounter was reported, the Romney campaign moved to distance itself from the Idahoan, issuing a terse statement last night that it was no longer associated with Craig and that it didn’t want the senator to be a distraction.

But the candidate himself went much further today, seeking to tie Craig’s alleged search for a gay liasion to the broader pattern of corruption permeating Washington in recent years.

“I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton,” Romney told Kudlow, in remarks reported on the network’s First Read blog. “I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we’ll just forgive and forget.”

“And the truth of the matter is, the most important thing we expect from… an elected official is a level of dignity and character that we can point to for our kids and our grandkids, and say, `Hey, someday I hope you grow up and you’re someone like that person.’ And we’ve seen disappointment in the White House, we’ve seen it in the Senate, we’ve seen it in Congress. And frankly, it’s disgusting.”

Former Governor Romney is apparently the ultimate opportunist and the ultimate hypocrite. Governor “Morality” has turned into nothing more than a man, in my view, with questionable integrity, at best. People can accuse former Senator Fred Thompson of being lazy or flipping on abortion, and have solid evidence to criticize him for it. People can accuse former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani of being a philanderer, and out of step with mainstream conservatives on a majority of social issues, and have a valid argument. However, as many faults as either men have, both are willing to fight for what they believe in, without using their own supporter’s downfall to blame the beltway.

You see, instead of staying out of the Craig fiasco, which would’ve been the wise thing to do, Romney had to come out and publicly humiliate him, causing him even more damage than he had already caused himself. Earlier this summer, Giuliani had two representatives of his campaign publicly embarrass him. Instead of throwing them under the proverbial bus, the former mayor dealt with it himself; sparing his those at fault the embarrassment of having their own candidate publicly crucify them. For all I know, Giuliani very well could have tortured them with broken glass and rubbing alcohol in private for the damage they caused, but publicly he did not feel the need to cause more pain and suffering to those men’s’ families. He apparently understood that the last thing that the children of those accused needed was more piling onto their father, husband, son, brother, or friend. Governor Romney did just that.

In an argument I had last night with a prominent blogger and Romney supporter who I have a great amount of respect for, he said something to the effect of I’d have a problem with this if Romney knew about it beforehand (paraphrase). Well, it seems as though every prominent elected official, not to mention a large portion of the country, were aware of this man’s past transgressions. As organized and well researched as Governor Romney’s campaign is, if he didn’t know about it, then I have seriously overestimated his competence. By saying the above-mentioned statement, Romney appears to be feigning ignorance, and washing his hands of it. First of all, this man has put in a great deal of effort on behalf of Mitt Romney. He has lobbied senators on the governor’s behalf, and served as a campaign chair. He has worked to gain as much muscle for the campaign as possible. Apparently, Romney can overlook Craig’s shady past as long as it suits his purpose, but the candidate with the claim to higher moral standards has no remorse of washing his hands of Craig when it comes back to haunt him. He is first in line carrying the bucket of tar and feathers. It reminds me of Night of the Hunter, the classic movie starring Robert Mitchum. In it, there was a family who would not hear of anything bad about the mysterious preacher who had come into town, but when the man murdered the local widow he married, they were led the mob with pitchforks in hand to string him up before the court could deal with him, all the while feigning ignorance and shoving the utter torture and emotional roller coaster that the children of the widow were having to deal with.

If this was an isolated incident of overlooking someone’s past, then perhaps I could be more understanding, but it is not. Let me introduce those who are unfamiliar with him to Robert Lichfield. Lichfield is the Utah finance chair for the Romney campaign. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, 133 plaintiffs have alleged that Robert Lichfield, co-chairman of Romney’s Utah finance committee owned or operated residential boarding schools for troubled teenagers where students were “subjected to physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.”

In fact, according to Reason magazine:

133 plaintiffs filed a civil suit against Romney’s Utah finance co-chair, Robert Lichfield, and his various business entities involved in residential treatment programs for adolescents. The umbrella group for his organization is the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS, sometimes known as WWASP) and Lichfield is its founder and is on its board of directors

And if that is not enough for you, let me introduce you to former ambassador Mel Sembler, the Romney campaign’s national finance co-chair, from the same link:

But the link to teen abuse goes far higher up in the Romney campaign. Romney’s national finance co-chair is a man named Mel Sembler. A long time friend of the Bushes, Sembler was campaign finance chair for the Republican party during the first election of George W. Bush, and a major fundraiser for his father.
According to the L.A. Times, California investigators said that at Straight teens were “subjected to unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threats, mental abuse… and interference with daily living functions such as eating, sleeping and toileting.”

It appears, to my eyes, that Mr. Romney is willing to name people with shady pasts to his campaign team. This leads me to two possible explanations. My first conclusion is that Romney is an incompetent judge of character. Remember, these are not just supporters whose actions should have no reflection on him. These are people that he named to personally represent him. This theory does not hold up under scrutiny though. Romney is running as the CEO whose accomplishments in the business world are near legendary. It reminds me of why I am not a fan of CEO candidates. Executives in the business world who reach the status of a Mitt Romney get there by ruthless, win at any cost type of tactics. They don’t make these types of mistakes repeatedly, which leads me to my second conclusion. Romney, the CEO, is a stop at nothing to win candidate. To this type of nominee, winning is the only thing, whether it is making the sale or getting elected to office. They change their persona to fit their potential buyer’s preference. They are politically amoral. They are able to distance themselves from their personal feelings, so long as they win. Of course, to run the country one has to be able to make tough decisions that can cause pain to a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean using as long as they fit your need.

By what I’ve seen today, Mitt Romney showed how he treats people who no longer fit into his agenda. Now, in all fairness, I called the GOP leadership out about this. I agree that Senator Craig’s actions are reprehensible. However, I am not ever going to run for office, and as of yesterday, I had no idea who Larry Craig was. To me, he’s just another politician whose own hypocrisy caused his downfall. He was much more than that to Romney. Right after Craig issued a denial of all the charges, Romney made his despicable statement. I’m curious if Romney feels that as president, he would have the moral authority to be the judge, jury, and executioner. As he has shown with his judgment of character, it is not a thought I am ready to have to deal with.

In the end, he can possibly change my mind, but he is now at the bottom of my list, slightly behind John Cox. If we end up with a Romney vs. Clinton match up, right now I would vote for Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia. I may not agree with him on all the issues, but I believe he is trustworthy.

To conclude with even more ridiculousness, I leave you with a quote today from famed Romney supporter Hugh Hewitt, who believes that Craig cheating on his wife with a man is apparently worse than David Vitter cheating on his wife with a prostitute. Hewitt gave Vitter the benefit of the doubt, but not Craig.

I realize that I did not say this about Senator Vitter, but Craig’s behavior is so reckless and repulsive that an immediate exit is required. I don’t believe him. Read the statement by the arresting officer. He must think the people of Idaho are idiots.
But even if I did believe him, this would make his judgment too flawed to be in the United States Senate in a time of war. He has to go.

-Hugh Hewitt, who apparently can tolerate affairs as long as they’re heterosexual.