It’s been the most frequently asked question I’ve gotten from National Review Online readers and conservatives over e-mail and in person since the market chaos and subsequent bailout circus began.
My answer these last few months has always been: Turn on MSNBC. Turn on FOX. Google a conservative candidate for Congress. Romney is liable to turn up.
And yet, a ridiculous item on the Internet yesterday suggested that he’s been in hiding, keeping a “low profile nationally” and unwilling to help out Republicans who aren’t a sure thing.
There are problems with that contention: Why do I keep seeing the man on television? Is any Republican a shoo-in this year? Someone get Norm Coleman on the phone with the good news! Because Romney is scheduled to campaign with the Minnesota senator, who is fighting for his political life against the not-so-funny prospect of Senator Al Franken. The images on his
website blog do not suggest someone who’s decided to sit out the election — they suggest someone still engaged in the election year. Nor does his travelog, as he’s been doing McCain surrogate events everywhere from Pennylvania and Colorado to Nevada and Texas (among other places including Oregon, Georgia, Nashville ... ). Nor do his post-debate spin-room appearances or his interview on
The Laura Ingraham Show this morning suggest that Mitt is standing down on election 2008.
Romney’s been in Virginia helping Keith Fimian in that newly blue-leaning state. He’s campaigned for Michele Bachman, now a favorite of MSNBC. He’s raised money for John Sununu in New Hampshire and Oregon senator Gordon Smith — both of whose reelection prospects are far from guaranteed. The list goes on.
Since Romney suspended his campaign and subsequently formed the Free and Strong America political action committee in April, he has donated approximately $202,000 to 75 GOP candidates, according to numbers made available to
NRO from the PAC. Romney has also made an additional $173,000 in donations through flexible spending accounts to five affiliated state PACS, including $10,000 to the National Organization for Marriage, which is working to pass Proposition 8 in California, and $5,000 to stop a ballot initiative in Massachusetts to decriminalize marijuana.
And when the McCain campaign famously withdrew from Michigan, Romney contributed $50,000 to the demoralized GOP there. According to his PAC, “The total amount of financial support to GOP candidates and conservative causes through Romney-controlled state and federal PACs is $375,000.”
The web piece further blamed former Romney aides for being the source of the Sarah-Palin-is-a-diva complaints coming out of the McCain camp, presumably meant to damage her post-election prospects should the Republican ticket lose next week. The problem with that is: Most of Romney’s inner circle is still his inner circle — some having come from the business world, others being Massachusetts people now running his PAC. Others returned to Washington, and are doing McCain surrogate work, but are far from campaign insiders. Whomever is shooting at Palin from the McCain camp is not doing Romney’s bidding.
The good news for Mitt Romney is folks care what he’s doing. And someone out there sees him as enough of a threat to their ambitions to try to wound him. That rarely happens to irrelevant also-rans.
When longtime Romney spokesman Eric Fernstrom was asked about the former Massachusetts governor’s future on Monday, the longtime aide suggested Romney’s 2008 presidential ambitions weren’t running his life: “Gov. Romney had his shot at the White House, and he lost fair and square.” After a hostile primary season that highlighted some shameful instincts hostile to religious liberty both in the mainstream media and on the Right, you might not blame Romney if he went into retreat. But he never did. Romney got on the campaign trail for John McCain, defending the free-market policies that this successful businessman could no doubt run with, if he were in the driver’s seat.
Romney’s been a team player. Is it because he wants a Cabinet seat? Ask him — but I doubt it. There are easier jobs that taking over a massive bureacracy with limited freedom. Is it because he wants to be president? Ask him, but I don’t think that’s it either — and only time will tell, anyway, who will be Right prospects in a few years.
CONTINUED 1 2 Next >
