The Log Cabin Republicans made it their mission to highlight Mitt Romney’s repeated political flip-flops, so it should come as no surprise that they take pleasure in Romney’s back-out.
We are a bit surprised, however, by the levels of self-congratulation in their reactionary press release, which you can read after the jump:
Via NY Observer:
Mitt Romney’s decision to withdraw from the Presidential race was a smart one. After Super Tuesday, it became clear that Mitt Romney had no chance to win the GOP nomination. Governor Romney ran an aggressive campaign, spending tens of millions of dollars to hide his record and to distort the record of his opponents. In the end, voters did not find this version of Mitt Romney to be credible. Too many voters learned the truth about his record, and that record didn’t match his new found conservative rhetoric.
Log Cabin led the way in telling voters the truth about Governor Romney’s record. In both Iowa and New Hampshire we ran an aggressive advertising campaign pointing out the litany of Romney flip-flops.
Today is a great day for the Republican Party. Nominating a candidate like Mitt Romney would have been a recipe for disaster in November and would have ensured a White House victory by the Democrats.
Log Cabin is proud to have played an important role in sparing the Party from a nominee like Mitt Romney.
Good for you, Cabinites! Now, why don’t you take aim at your boyfriend, John McCain. He said he didn’t favor a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but then supported it in his home state. That may not be as egregious as Romney’s many sins, but deserves a mention, no?
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hisurfer
Yeah, good work – Romney lost, in part, for not being homophobic enough for the Republicans. Sure is a proud day for the Log Cabin.
Charley
Log Cabinettes, you guys are laughable. Romney never heard of you and you had no impact on his leaving. You tried to give the last presidential candidate Bush $1,000.00. He sent it back. If that was $1,000,000.00 you might have had a voice. You have no power in the GOP party ..
John Smith
Sorry, Charley. When you’re running as a Republican in the one party Democratic state of Massachusetts, you need all the help you can get and Mitt Romney actively courted gay support. Gay voters were the margin of victory in 1990 that elected libertarian Republican Bill Weld as Governor, and Romney tried to persuade gays in 1994 that he was more gay-friendly than Senator Ted Kennedy. Romney lost that attempt, though Log Cabin endorsed him. In the Governor’s election of 2002, Romney used similar camouflage and won the State House, but quickly took aim at national ambitions and disavowed most of the moderate positions that got him elected in Massachusetts. I was one of the Log Cabin members in Boston who got fooled twice by this man, and hell hath no fury like… well you know the saying. It was payback time for Mitt.
Lone Ranger and Tonto
MA has equal marriage but despite all the vitriolic homophobia of Dobson and Romney. Politics makes strange bedfellows…even theocon evangelicals or pseudos like Dobson and Mormons.
Thanks to Romney, who resurrected a 1913 law used by the Klan to keep interracial marriages illegal, this nation’s gays could not go to MA to marry unless they remained as residents of MA.
However, note that his Bane group just bought the Clearwater dynasty of radio stations nationwide that keep the right wing nuts on air. He will be back with a fury in 2012.
emb
Valid points, John Smith, but Charley’s point still seems sound: the republican party is homophobic (hell, they’re not “phobic”, they’re openly whatever the gay version of misanthropic is). Given the radically rightwing nature of the base, the theocratic yearnings of a substantial portion of the membership, and the universal agreement among its national candidates for a state- or federal-constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage, if not a general prohibition of homos altogether, I fail to see how the “change from within” mantra really holds any water at all. By all means agree, as a human being, with conservative points of view on various topics (if such POVs can be said to be relevant to human beings), but trying to influence That Party on the gay thing seems to me to be a waste of energy.
John Smith
EMB, the entire Republican party is not homophobic. Heck, during the ’90s Log Cabin members held many key jobs in the Massachusetts State government under 3 Republican governors. Mitt Romney ended that. I’m a lifelong Republican, and my attitude is: “Who let these people in?” meaning the Christian kooks, etc. Nixon’s Southern Strategy worked too well, drawing in all the Southern Democrats to become Southern Republicans with all their narrow-minded prejudices. I was here first, and I’m staying, and I’m proud to annoy the hell out of the homophobes in the GOP, which I admit are too many. Just wanted to point out that many Log Cabin members are guys like me, and Mitt Romney is getting a payback from us for his behavior.
M Shane Walsh
How the Cabinetts can engage themselves withsuch a repugnantly homophobic lot convinces me that they are actually a closet S&M group. They seem to believe that this is a case of making any kind of Faustian deal where they can have a glass of soda and acid at once given the current nature of the republicans ethic now. (a mopre accurate metaphore is that someone be a Buddist member of AlQueda.
The tricky and huighy relevant issue with talking about a Mormons’ beliefs is that they are very different thay either the Catholics or the Petacostals; (Because of our myopia about social conservatism/liberalism, we mistake them as all being the same: wrong:
all different: Mormons were true American outcasts. They would not condone mixed marriages, because of prejudice about color.
About homosexuality , if you read a little recent history they have very mixed beliefs. Indeed my brother who lives in Idaho has a number of openly gay Mormon friends; I know one very supportive family one of whose sons died of AIDS.( Mom wears a pin whereever she goes)
All of those cute little missionaries don’t just ride bikes.
If the Log cabies did thier homework they would have gotten right behind Romney; he’s
the only one they had a chance with. Now they get that old redneck McCain: stupid; but then again they aren’t doing too well anyway.
Timothy
It is true that the Republican Party seems to be the home of a big chunck of the homophobes. And a lot of Cabin-haters scream, “how can you be in that Party?!?”
But ask yourself a question: When it comes time to lobby on an issue of importance to our community, who is going to talk to the Republicans? I’ve been in meetings where a well intentioned liberal gay guy started in on their little prepared talk and watched the Senator or Representative’s eyes glaze over. They speak an entirely different language and the arguments that appeal to a liberal Democrat will turn off a Republican.
Log Cabin speaks Republicanese. And they can talk about issues of importance to a Republican – federalism, economic costs or savings, self reliance, etc.
And before you say, “fuggem, we don’t need em”, go back and check the vote counts on nearly every important piece of legislation that advanced our equality. Every one i can think of passed because of Republican votes – not a lot of Republican votes, but a few. And without those few votes they would not have passed.
The reason there is marriage in Massachusetts is because a whole lot of Republicans refused to support the amendment. The reason the FMA didn’t even get 50% of the Senate is because of Republicans who opposed it (including John McCain).
Yeah, in general Republicans are not too supportive. But without Log Cabin there would be no support. And if no Republicans supported us at all, then there would be a lot more Democrats who would feel comfortable in opposing us as well.