Opinion: Romney Campaign Drops Dog Whistle And Moves To Blatant Racism
Tagg Romney, the son of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said this week that he wanted to walk down on the debate floor on Tuesday and take a swing at the president.
He said it to a rightwing radio talk show host in North Carolina.
Nothing like firing up the redneck base with the imagery of punching Obama.
Obviously the arrogance trait is hereditary.
Tagg clearly shares the disdain for the Office of the President that his father does. Like the moment in the debate when Mitt admonishing the president that "he'd get his turn" after Mitt, in a departure from the negotiated rules of debate, began directing comments at his opponent.
That's fine. Both candidates ended up engaging each other in the Tuesday debate.
But it is telling that Romney changed the rules – after all he is not a person that wants to play by the same rules as everyone else.
And that includes decency. You would think that Romney might want to dial back the heat a bit in the face of his supporters growing comfort with outrageous displays.
At an Ohio event this week a Romney supporter was shown wearing a t-shirt that said "Putting White Back in the White House".
Subtle.
But that seems to be the exact behavior that the Romney campaign seeks to promote.
This week a crack pot with his own website (or Mitt Romney's base) that has promoted the idea that Obama's birth certificate is a fraud and that he was born in Kenya and is now promoting the idea that Obama is gay and has covered it up by murdering his lovers was seen travelling with the Romney campaign as a credentialed reporter.
And Tagg is not the only politician’s kid that is fomenting the racists on the right.
Wisconsin Senate candidate Tommy Thompson's son said to supporters that they should "send Obama back to Kenya."
Again, subtle.
But this is the GOP in 2012. Mitt Romney made a decision to try to divide white voters and try to peel off as many as possible rather than trying to win by uniting the country.
Any vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for a campaign built on division and for a president that rejects 47 percent of the country, because he only needs 50.1 percent to meet his ambitions.
About Bill Buck
Bill Buck is a Democratic strategist, President of the Buck Communications Group, a media relations and new media strategies consulting business based in Washington, DC, and Managing Director of the online ad firm Influence DSP. He has over twenty years of international and national communications experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
