I guess there was a little time-delay in this becoming news, but it is one more reminder that it is going to be painful to watch Mitt Romney try to rally the conservative movement to his side during the convention in August and throughout the fall. The people just don’t like him.
But at a June 30 fundraiser in Wheeling, W.Va., Speaker John Boehner offered a surprisingly frank assessment of the dynamic that surprised some in the audience.
Aside from Romney’s “friends, relatives and fellow Mormons,” Boehner said, most people will be motivated to vote for him in opposition to Obama.
The Ohio Republican made the remarks when an unidentified woman asked during a question-and-answer session: “Can you make me love Mitt Romney?”
“No,” Boehner said. “Listen, we’re just politicians. I wasn’t elected to play God. The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. I’ll tell you this: 95 percent of the people that show up to vote in November are going to show up in that voting booth, and they are going to vote for or against Barack Obama.
“Mitt Romney has some friends, relatives and fellow Mormons … some people that are going to vote for him. But that’s not what this election is about. This election is going to be a referendum on the president’s failed economic policies.
First of all, could it be any clearer that Speaker Boehner has absolutely no interest in doing anything that will improve the economy?
Second, by suggesting that no more than five percent of the electorate is going to show up to vote for Romney, and that most of that five percent will either be Romney’s coreligionists and/or members of his extended family, Boehner is basically saying that no one likes the guy.
Republicans generally don’t like their presidential candidates (Reagan and the younger Bush being the exceptions), but then Republicans are also consistent failures at electing candidates that they don’t like.
I have this recurring image of Romney as the Chevy Chase character in National Lampoon’s Vacation. But, if Clark Griswold hadn’t chugged beers with his son and chased Christie Brinkley around, if he’d strapped a dog to the roof of his car instead of his dead Aunt Edna, I don’t think anyone would have watched.