During a recent fundraiser, a woman asked House Speaker John Boehner this question: “Can you make me love Mitt Romney?” His answer: No. “The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney,” he said.
As if that weren’t lukewarm enough, he added, “Mitt Romney has some friends, relatives and fellow Mormons … some people that are going to vote for him.” Romney is no doubt glad to hear that piece of good news—friends, relatives, fellow Mormons, at least, are going to vote for him. “But that’s not what this election is about,” continued the Speaker.
Really, Boehner? Then what is this election about? Apparently, he believes that Americans are going to overwhelmingly vote against President Obama, even if they don’t love Romney. Sounds like people just can’t wait to line up at the polls and, uh, pull the lever for the man they don’t particularly like.
In an apparent attempt to clean up Boehner’s gaffe, ‘someone’ close to the Speaker made a statement to The Hill today that, “From Boehner’s perspective — there’s a lot of comfort there, and he feels good about [Romney].” Hmm, comfort. How reassuring and motivating.
It would no doubt be more helpful if Boehner stopped giving every indication that he doesn’t love Romney. The same article in The Hill points out that he waited until April to endorse him—after it was inevitable that Romney was going to be the GOP’s nominee. Since then, the two men have met exactly once and attended exactly one rally together. GOP operatives say that the lack of contact shouldn’t be taken as a sign of discontent.
Oh, okay. That’s a very convincing endorsement from at least two people who don’t want to be identified as talking about the relationship between the Speaker and the candidate. I can hardly wait for the ads to come out—the ones where Boehner says, “Vote for Romney. I sort of know the guy, kind of like him, and he inspires a certain level of comfort.”
I’d be delighted if you joined me on Facebook, or checked out my blog.
Many conservative and tea party Republicans regard candidate Romney in the same way that many young women feel about their betrothed … in an arranged marriage.
Most Independent and many moderate voters view him as a blind date gone bad.
And of course, most progressives can barely tolerate listening to the guy.
In other words, “falling in love” with Romney is setting the bar a tad too high.
In my own considered opinion, falling in like with the guy would be setting the bar a lot more than a tad too high.
:)