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Democrats Do Web Video Ad on Mitt Romney’s Embracing Birther Donald Trump’s Support (VIDEO)


May 29, 2012 by

The Democrats have put up a new ad focusing on presumptive nominee Mitt Romney’s embracing the support of the country’s most famous birther, Donald Trump. The Team Obama ad contrasts Romney’s response with the response of Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2008:

MSNBC’s First Read poses these questions:

*** Playing the Trump card: Here’s a little thought exercise: What if a chief Obama surrogate/fundraiser happened to be the nation’s foremost critic of the Mormon faith, who argued that it was nothing more than a cult? Or what if the Obama campaign was holding a fundraising contest with a celebrity who believed that 9/11 was an inside job? Or even if Obama held a joint fundraiser with Bill Maher? It’s hard to differentiate those hypotheticals from Mitt Romney’s association with Donald Trump, who in recent days has said that hitting Obama with Jeremiah Wright is fair game and that there are still doubts about Obama’s place of birth. The Romney-Trump association tonight includes a fundraiser with “The Donald,” as well as an upcoming fundraising dinner contest with him. Why hang out with someone — multiple times — who could overshadow you, for all the wrong reasons? Could you imagine John McCain or George W. Bush doing something similar?

Actually, you can’t. It’s because they had backbone.

Increasingly, Romney most resembles this:

UPDATE: There is a lot of blog reaction to Romney refusing to distance himself from Trump HERE. I disagree with those who say it doesn’t matter. It’s going to chance off some independent voters who are turned off by the birther narrative — and not because of politics but because of the mentality it reflects and says about those who don’t repudiate it. Romney may raise some money by wooing Trump and in his choice of words basically legitimizing him; Trump will start grabbing some headlines since that’s what he does, Romney will be asked to respond and it’ll distract from Romney’s economic message.

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3 Comments

  1. RP
    May 29, 2012 | 10:29 am

    Since few watch MSNBC, not much damge will occur. Those that do watch MSNBC would vote for the Democrat if John Edwards was the candidate.

  2. The_Ohioan
    May 29, 2012 | 2:26 pm

    RP

    You are right. Not that few watch MSNBC, but that fewer watch MSNBC than watch FOX. Which is why Romney feels no great impetus to distance himself from Trump. He can say he’s not a birther and still, not just accept Trump’s endorsement, but rejoice in it.

    I don’t think you are correct, however, that MSNBC watchers would vote for John Edwards if he were now the candidate. Of course he isn’t the candidate because MSNBC watchers wouldn’t vote for him now.

  3. RON BEASLEY
    May 30, 2012 | 12:25 am

    In just a few short hours OTBs Doug Mataconis went from thing it wouldn’t make any difference to this

    Notwithstanding the argument I made this morning that this would not be an issue that would matter in November, I have to wonder how much longer the Romney campaign can afford to let itself be associated with nonsense like this. At least until the jobs numbers come out on Friday morning, this is going to be a very slow news week and the Trump/Birther story is likely to dominate media coverage for the next several days, if not longer. There is no good that can come of this for Romney. Even leaving aside the crazy that Trump brings to the party, the closer Romney associates himself with a guy like Trump, the more he reinforces the “rich guy” meme that the Obama campaign keeps pushing, and the more he undermines his own argument about being a man with the right judgment to lead the nation. Perhaps I will end up being proved wrong, but I don’t think this will end well for the Romney campaign.