Before he set off for a seven-day trip to Britain, Israel and Poland, Mitt Romney aimed to show voters back home what a real statesman looked like, not someone who “apologises” for American greatness.
Yet within hours of setting foot in London, the campaign for the Republican presidential hopeful was downplaying his overseas tour, saying Americans don’t pay much attention to what happens beyond our borders — especially what the foreign press says about Romney.
This is true. We don’t pay much attention to international news. We don’t even pay much attention to our own news. But when big-deal newsmakers like Romney do something dumb and embarrassing and easy to mock, well, that’s when we tend to pay attention.
Of course, I’m talking about Romney’s remarks just before the opening of the 2012 Olympics in which he expressed worry that London wasn’t up to the job of hosting the winter games. This aroused the various shades of indignation among the British punditocracy, harsh words from Prime Minister David Cameron and — most delicious of all — ridicule from London’s theatrical mayor.
“There’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we are ready. Are we ready? Yes we are!” Boris Johnson yells at a crowd of 60,000. All that was missing was a soundtrack by Gary Glitter.
Over the course of a day, Romney blew up his own case against President Barack Obama’s foreign policy — which was, in brief, that Obama has somehow diminished America’s standing abroad, and publicly expressed shame for American military might.
That was already a fairly weak case given the president’s record on Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt — and on the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. About the only thing Romney has sunk his teeth into is the Obama administration’s “bragging” after the terrorist’s death, and frankly, that’s weak too — however much he “bragged,” only those who already hate Obama would hold that against him.
So whatever credibility Romney had in his case against the president’s foreign policy withered away after David Cameron said it’s easy to host an Olympics in the middle of nowhere, a dig at Romney’s tenure at the 2002 summer games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
London, however, was fun-and-games compared to Israel, and it is there that we probably find Romney’s real agenda. Indeed, it’s the agenda he’s had from the beginning of his White House run — locking in support from the GOP’s conservative and radical right wings.
Here’s the typical pattern of American presidential elections. During primaries, candidates appeal to the margins of their parties, but once the general election begins, as it now has, candidates broaden their message to appeal to centrist voters. Obama has been doing that, but Romney, contrary to expectation, hasn’t. Sometimes, in fact, is feels like he’s still competing in the Republican primary.
A case in point. Earlier this month, Romney spoke to the annual convention of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), our highest-profile civil rights organisation. Other than making the rounds, as politicians do, many wondered why. Depending on the poll, Romney has the support of one or three per cent of African Americans, so he didn’t go there to win votes. To the contrary, he ended up pissing people off, this time by saying he’d get rid of “nonessential” programs like “Obamacare”.
Using the word “Obamacare” in another setting wouldn’t have been controversial. But champions of civil rights know “dog-whistling” when they hear it, and “Obamacare” has quickly become part of the lexicon of white nationalism. This is not to say that Romney is a racist. I don’t think he is. But he wasn’t speaking to the NAACP. He was talking to that part of the Republican Party — probably working-class white Southerners — that responds well to a white candidate appearing to “stand up” to educated and affluent blacks.
Same thing in Israel. There, Romney said Jerusalem was the true capital of Israel. He also said no American president should publicly disagree with Israel. And later, he said Israeli “culture” is the reason for its prosperity relative to appalling poverty among Palestinians.
Yeah, these are not statements made by a man carving out a place in the middle of the political spectrum. To the contrary, Romney is consolidating his influence over the fringe — to wit, two kinds of outer-wing voter: 1) white evangelical Christians to whom Israel plays a central role in the biblical story of the apocalypse, and 2) ultra-conservative Jews who believe that Israel can do no wrong.
Obama has presided over the deepest economic nadir since the Great Depression, and as the first African-American president, he’s the object of various and sundry forms of racism and conspiracism (think: birthers). Romney is hoping to build a coalition among disillusioned mainstream voters as well as energised fringe voters. In another context, Romney would be a lamb to the slaughter, but as it is, most of the polls show him dead-even with the president.
So, yeah, it was fun to watch Romney trip and fall in Britain, but as his spokespeople said, Americans don’t pay attention to the foreign press. Hopefully, they will pay attention soon before it’s too late.
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