The Romney endorsement

If Mitt Romney had held onto his delegates until the convention, there was, in combination with Huckabee’s continuing campaign, a slight chance of stopping the nomination of McCain. Any means of doing so should have been pursued. So I am disappointed that Romney endorsed McCain today and asked his delegates to support him. As a result, we now face the certain nomination of a 71 year old mediocrity in obvious poor health, whose strongest beliefs are for open borders, for keeping our troops in Iraq for a hundred years, and for sticking it to conservatives every chance he can get. The Republican party has committed hara-kiri, while the Democratic party seems to be moving toward the selection of a nonwhite leftist messiah who will “unify” us (i.e., unify us around leftism) and take care of all our needs.

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Update: I must say regretfully that Romney does not look good in my eyes by rushing to endorse McCain just one week after Romney’s poor showing on Super Tuesday. A week ago Romney was fighting McCain with all his strength—and now, poof, he’s endorsing him? It doesn’t feel right. Huckabee, the fellow with the oddly engaging manner and no discernible substance (his main message being his constantly reiterated sense of wonderment that he’s in the race at all), is still in the race, and no one seems to be hating him for it. So why couldn’t Romney have been more like Huckabee? Romney would have looked stronger if he had at least waited for a while. As it is, by rushing to endorse his chief rival, he makes it seem as if his own candidacy was meaningless. He lets down the people who backed him—who backed him, moreover, as the non-McCain. Romney is a highly rational person, and he gave rational, responsible-seeming reasons for giving his endorsement to McCain now. But what Romney misses is the intangible. And it’s the intangible that makes for leadership.

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A reader writes:

The non-white comment is gratuitous and actually makes a reader feel bad.

LA replies:

Obama’s non-whiteness is central to his appeal and his significance. Look at the post on Mark McKinnon, the McCain campaign aide who has said he will quit the campaign if Obama is the nominee because he doesn’t want to oppose a man of color for the presidency.

Reader replies:

That’s not his fault. He’s tring to transcend! Shelby Steele calls him a “bargainer,” not bringing up race so that whites feel good and like him. He can’t win no matter what he does!

LA replies:

Fair point. At the same time, we must see what is there. Obama is not just another candidate. There is this messiah-like phenomenon around him which would not exist without his half-non-whiteness and which is lifting him to the Democratic nomination.

Second, though he does not talk about his race, his race is an implicit part of his theme that he will “unify” us, he will make us transcend (racial) differences.

Also, remember Michelle Obama’s talk in New Hampshire that I discussed last month. For her the main theme was, if (white) people vote for her husband, they are transcending their fears, if they don’t vote for her husband, they are not transcending their fears. The whole thing revolved around Obama’s nonwhiteness. Do you think Obama is unaware of his wife’s speeches?

Reader replies:

You’re not being fair, you could say his appeal has something to do with non-white but overall I stick to what I said. When you said non-white, it made me feel bad and I had been enjoying your comment and suddenly I felt I shouldn’t even be reading this.

LA replies:

I think you’re being too sensitive, I have not said anything negative about Obama personally vis a vis his nonwhiteness. I have said that a major reason to oppose his election is that white America will fall at his feet, and that phenomenon is related to his race. As an icon of America”s racial/moral transformation, he will not be opposed. Thus the combination of his radical leftism with his nonwhiteness makes him uniquely dangerous politically. If you don’t think that’s a legitimate argument, I’m sorry. But I do.

To repeat what was said recently by a blogger and I picked it up:

“You may not be interested in race, but race is interested in you.”

LA continues:

The reader reiterated in further communication that my reference to Obama was bigoted, meaning my description of him as

a nonwhite leftist messiah who will “unify” us (i.e., unify us around leftism) and take care of all our needs.

Somehow the reader believes that it is bigoted to attach any racial description to Obama, that it is bigoted to mention the fact that America is contemplated electing a person of color as president for the first time and is swooning over this fact. Somehow, this historic actuality should not be discussed. To attach the adjective “nonwhite” to Obama, even when it is in the explicit context of his being a “leftist messiah who will ‘unify’ us,” is bigoted. I respectfully disagree.

Dave B. writes:

The reason Romney got out of the race when he did, and subsequently decided to back McCain, is because he wants to run for President again and “they” (“they” being Republican party leaders, big time donors, etc.) told him that he better get behind McCain, and completely eliminate the prospect of a brokered convention, or he’s got no future as a Republican candidate. How else to explain his sudden change of heart?

Terry Morris writes:

“A week ago Romney was fighting McCain with all his strength—and now, poof, he’s endorsing him? It doesn’t feel right.”

No it doesn’t feel right, it is strange. There’s also the little matter of McCain handing over his delegates in one state (West Virginia) to Huckabee in order to prevent Romney from gaining any traction in the race. And now, after having been the victim of McCain’s “dirty pool” tactics, Romney turns around and prematurely endorses McCain, handing his delegates over to McCain thus putting his delegate count over the top and Huckabee out of contention, and providing Huckabee with an easy out, in one fell swoop. Very strange indeed, almost as if the three conspired to secure a McCain nomination. It doesn’t look good on any of them in my opinion.

LA replies:

Yes. We know the reality, that those who are defeated in a tough battle for the nomination end up (except in very rare cases like 1912*) supporting the person who defeated them. But they don’t rush to do so. Yes, Thompson and Giuliani endorsed McCain immediately after they dropped out, but that was different, because Thompson and Giuliani had frequently stated their admiration for McCain even when they were candidates. But while that love fest was going on among Thompson, Giuliani, and McCain, Romney ran against McCain, just as McCain ran against Romney. So, even if Romney ultimately had no choice but to endorse McCain, he should have taken more time over it and, frankly, showed more regard for his own dignity.

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* In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt opposed his anointed successor, President William Howard Taft, for the Republican nomination, because he felt that Taft was not being true to Roosevelt’s progressive legacy and was too much in league with business interests. When Taft won the nomination, Roosevelt left the Republican party and formed a new party, the Progressive party or Bull Moose party. Roosevelt came in second in the general election, Taft came in third, and the Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 14, 2008 07:09 PM | Send