The African World

Romney and the Right: They hate him...but they hate
Obama more.

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. - BC Editorial Board
Black Commentator
June 14, 2012

http://www.blackcommentator.com/476/476_aw_romney_share.html

What is interesting about the relationship of the
extreme political Right to Romney is that they actually
hate him. This is not speculation. If you review the
language of the Republican primary season it is clear
that they actually despise him. They do not believe
that he is a real conservative. They do not believe
that he even has a belief system. Some of the so-called
Christian elements do not trust his Mormonism. So, one
could say that there is an alignment that should result
in the extreme Right sitting out the election...

Except for one thing: they hate Obama even more.

Their attitude towards Romney is an alliance of
convenience rather than an alliance of trust and
respect

So, November 2012 is shaping up to be something similar
to November 1968. The Goldwater Republicans at that
time had no love for Richard Nixon. They saw him as
much too soft. But Nixon was the candidate at the
moment and the Right saw in Nixon cover in order to
give them more time to move their agenda. They turned
out to be quite successful, all things considered.
Though the Watergate scandal got in their way, it did
not block their road to power; it just delayed it.

Obama's re-election would be difficult under the best
of circumstances, but he is not facing the best of
circumstances. Although he prevented total economic
collapse, his overall program of responding to the
economic crisis has been weak. His healthcare reform,
while truly historic, was a vast compromise and even
with that faces the possibility of being blown up by
the Supreme Court. And internationally, though the US
has largely withdrawn from Iraq, the war in Afghanistan
and Pakistan continues, to name only two locations.
This has demoralized much of Obama's base. What is
worse is that that very same base was not mobilized by
its leaders in the first two years of the Obama
presidency to pressure the Administration.

Karl Rove, then, was quite correct in pointing out that
the Romney road to victory, should it happen, is
brought about through a demoralization of the Obama
base. It is also the case that it comes through playing
the race card and voter suppression tactics.

Romney is not the candidate that enthralls the Right

Yet it is the strategy of the political Right that is
quite noteworthy. Their aim is to destroy the Obama
presidency, but more importantly, to destroy the
possibility of a two party system. While it is
absolutely the case that Obama has done all he can do
to save capitalism, and in that sense is nothing
approaching a socialist, the political Right wants to
remove obstacles to the extension and possible
completion of their political agenda. Their attitude
towards Romney, therefore, is an alliance of
convenience rather than an alliance of trust and
respect. He serves as their battering ram.

Therefore, do not rest any significant hope in a split
on the Right because Romney is not the candidate that
enthralls the Right (the way that the Right was taken
with Ronald Reagan). All that the Right is concerned
with at the moment is that Romney is not Obama.
_______________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill
Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute
for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of
TransAfricaForum and co-author of Solidarity Divided:
The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward
Social Justice (University of California Press), which
examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA

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