Trying Not to Dislike Mitt Romney – But He Makes It So Hard Not to Do So

Mitt Auditioning for the “Craven Hall of Fame”

Politics should be fun, it should be entertainment, it should be informative, a national debate about the policies of government and which candidate can best make the nation a better place for everyone.  But politicians have ruined all of this.  Their drive to gain electoral office and impose their views on the rest of us is so great that they will do anything, say anything and be anything to win.

This is not totally a partisan issue with Republicans and Conservatives as the villains.  A recent ad by an outside group supporting Mr. Obama tried to link Mr. Romney to a cancer victim, implying that Mr. Romney’s past practices caused cancer and death.  The ad was denounced as it should have been. 

But in Mr. Romney’s campaign the theme of outrageous acts is so great that the scale is far from balanced, and Mr. Romney continues to pollute the campaign.  Case in point is his recent tirade against Democrats by accusing them of abandoning God, saying he was the supporter of God, Democrats were not.

But at a Saturday afternoon rally here, Mr. Romney did not just recite the Pledge of Allegiance; he metaphorically wrapped his stump speech in it, using each line of the pledge to attack President Obama.

“The promises that were made in that pledge are promises I plan on keeping if I am president, and I’ve kept them so far in my life,” Mr. Romney said, standing among old airplanes in a hangar at the Military Aviation Museumhere. “That pledge says ‘under God.’ I will not take ‘God’ out of the name of our platform. I will not take ‘God’ off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart. We’re a nation bestowed by God.”

The tirade was of course a reaction against the Democratic platform that had a recent scuffle over whether or not to include “God” in the document.  But most of what Mr. Romney was saying was pure demagoguery. 

But Mr. Obama has never suggested taking “God” off the nation’s coins, as Mr. Romney’s remarks also seemed to imply. When asked to comment, the campaign said that Mr. Romney was simply highlighting instances where “In God We Trust” was on public display.

Mr. Romney apparently has no qualms about associating with some of the most disreputable people in public life.

Mr. Romney’s ramped-up stump speech came as Pat Robertson, the televangelist whom Senator John McCain of Arizona once called an “agent of intolerance,” was sitting in the front row behind the stage. The men met and chatted briefly before the event.

All politicians engage in ugly acts, and most recognize afterwards that what they did in the heat of battle was wrong.  Mr. Romney is different.  He seems to enjoy the ugly side of politics, to revel in it, to bask in the glow of sleaze.  Has any man other than Richard Nixon ever wanted to be President this badly and been so willing to say anything, do anything to be President?