Trumped By ROSS DOUTHATIn the world of pious baloney that is modern presidential politics, Mitt Romney’s campaign has distinguished itself by being weirdly, even endearingly honest about its political calculations. Throughout the presidential selection process, the Romney camp has repeatedly pulled back the curtain of highmindedness to acknowledge more cynical realities.
This habit starts at the top. Think of Romney’s famous debate explanation for why he fired a landscaping company after learning they were employing illegal immigrants (“I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals!”), or his attempts later in the primary season to defend delaying the release of his tax forms, which emphasized the hay that Democrats might make with them rather than any principled reason for non-disclosure. But it extends down the chain of command as well. The description of the general election’s arrival by Eric Fehrnstrom, a key Romney adviser, as an “etch-a-sketch” moment, in which the slate of base-pandering primary season positions could be shaken clean, was unusually dunderheaded precisely because it was so unusually honest, saying out loud what most campaign operatives would only say behind closed doors.
The same thing happened Tuesday, after Donald Trump used the occasion of a joint fundraiser with the Republican nominee to embarrass Romney with a burst of “birther” nonsense about President Obama’s constitutional qualifications for the presidency. Responding to the inevitable questions about Trump’s paranoid pose, Romney issued an anodyne bit of evasive politician-speak — “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 then followed it up with a characteristic Romney-ism: “But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”
I need to get 50.1 percent or more. Most politicians no doubt sigh inside and think pretty much exactly this when they’re embarrassed by a crank whose unqualified support (and with it, the support of other cranks, perhaps in crucial swing states) they feel they need. But Romney can’t help himself: He comes right out and says it.
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