Our political Quote of the Day comes from conservative columnist George Will who has this to say about presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney continuing to link himself up with the country’s most famous birther, PT Barnum spiritual descendent, Donald Trump:
“I do not understand the cost benefit here,” Will said on the “This Week” roundtable. “The costs are clear. The benefit — what voter is gonna vote for him (Romney) because he is seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious it seems to me.”
“Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics,” Will added. “Again, I don’t understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?”
The problem for Romney is that as Trump continues to seek the public spotlight with more outrageous comments (or even forms a Super PAC), Romney will be asked to disavow him. And evasive half-disavowels will keep the spotlight on TRUMP and off Romney’s economic message.
Plus there’s this: many independent voters and those who are revolted by the whole birther narrative and would never vote for a candidate who embraces it or clearly enables it will conclude:
Birds of a feather.
(P.S. Trump isn’t an eagle. He’s a bald eagle — with a comb-over.)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.