While browsing through the wide selection of presidential candidates, I ask myself an important question: Do I trust this person enough to give them control of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world? I haven’t found anyone deserving of a “”yes”” answer, but a few “”no””s have been more resounding than others.
Yesterday, I went online and created an account on Mitt Romney’s Web site. You may see me going to door-to-door, handing out flyers, talking to people. I’m volunteering because Mitt Romney is a handsome man, a witty debater and a skilled orator, but mostly because he scares the hell out of me and he’s doing well in the polls.
His fervent, idealistic rhetoric about a nuclear Iran, jihadism and the need for a stronger America seems to be working: the Iowa straw poll shows Romney at 36.2 percent to 18.1 percent for Mike Huckabee, his closest competitor. But I’d like to bring the campaign down from the inside – sow a little discord, so to speak.
That’s the strategy recently used by The Log Cabin Republicans, a gay and lesbian coalition within the Republican party. They’ve endorsed Romney and run an ad in Iowa calling him soft on abortion, soft on gun control and accusing him of being anti-Reagan. The genius of the ad is that it uses footage from debates in the ’90s, when Romney was pandering to the left in an attempt to score votes for the Massachusetts governorship. Now he’s pandering to more conservative voters because he needs to win some primaries.
The Log Cabin Republicans don’t actually mention the issue that really set them off: Romney’s support of a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage – that’s the sort of thing that will help him out with the Republican base, and Romney’s
enemies must instead emphasize his consistently inconsistent record as a flip-flopping breakfast waffle of a candidate.
In 1994, Romney wrote a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans. He promised solidarity with their views, writing that “”(w)e must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern.”” Not so much anymore – so it’s understandable that they’d feel betrayed by his complete abandonment of their cause.
The ad is already working: the Internet is ablaze with arguments over the spot, and hopefully the dialogue will inspire fiscal conservatives to read about Romney’s actual views. They’ll be intrigued by his promise of 4 percent of the GDP, bare minimum, to be spent on defense. That comes out to 535 billion dollars, by the way.
We’ve already got 90 guns for every 100 people, and we’ve already got enough nuclear weapons to destroy human civilization. According to Mitt’s site, “”(t)he jihadists are waging a global war against the United States and Western governments generally with the ambition of replacing legitimate governments with a caliphate, with a theocracy.””
It seems strange to hear theocracy criticized by a man who cites Judeo-Christian values as a reason to amend the Constitution. I’m also confused and utterly terrified by the part about a global war. Which jihadists, exactly, are waging a global war? Unless I’m very much mistaken, I think we’re the ones waging a war, and I’m not exactly sure what the supposed jihadists have been doing with their time since the last terrorist attack.
In fact, I’m not exactly sure about anything with Romney – he panders so much he can’t be pinned to any coherent ideology, unless wanting to be president counts as an ideology. Perhaps this is my own lack of political experience, but I cannot for the life of me envision what America will be like under the leadership of this man.
Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon said of Romney: “”Whether you’re a mainstream Republican, a libertarian Republican, or a social conservative, you just don’t know what he really believes.”” He speaks the truth.
Eric Moll is a sophomore majoring in creative writing and environmental science. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.
