Talk about lowering the bar on the behavior of a major candidate. Here we go again:
For the second time in as many weeks, Mitt Romney’s campaign taunted President Barack Obama outside a speech.
Romney’s campaign bus circled Obama’s fundraiser at Boston Symphony Hall Monday night several times, according to Romney deputy press secretary Ryan Williams and verified by several onlookers who said it was honking its horn as it passed.
Williams told BuzzFeed that the bus made “a few” laps before local police closed the roads around the venue before Obama’s arrival. They plan on bringing the bus back after Obama leaves to attend another fundraiser.
A question for Romney’s advisors: could you imagine Ronald Reagan allowing that to happen? Or even Richard Nixon (Nixon would have made sure it was not a bus clearly from his campaign)?
Or Dwight Eisenhower?
Or Barry Goldwater?
Or Gerald Ford?
Or George H.W. Bush?
Or Bob Dole?
Or George W. Bush?
Or John McCain?
Am I a bit wrong here or is this a campaign for President of the United States and not for college student body President?
Mr. Romney: take my advice. Put that bus driver and those who advise him on the roof of the bus — or throw them under the bus. ASAP.
How do you think this will go over with those in the crowd who may be wavering?
What image do you think independent voters will get from this?
But it fits in with the way our partisan politics works now: it’s in your face, aggressive stunts. Waging a campaign on the basis of assertive policy debates is so borrrrrrrrrrrring..
FOOTNOTE: And if the Dems retaliate in kind then they’re demeaning their candidate just as much as the GOPers involved are demeaning theirs.
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.