Rob Port
Say Anything Blog
5/1/2012
The Romney campaign drew the ire of social conservatives by hiring an open gay foreign policy adviser named Richard Grenell. The Family Research Council was griping, as were some folks at the Media Research Center.
This week Obama turned up the volume on foreign policy issues, what with his ball spiking on the bin Laden operation and his trip to Afghanistan, and one would have expected Grenell to be a part of the Romney campaign’s response. But he wasn’t, and according to Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post, Romney’s decision to keep him under wraps combined with criticism from social conservatives was enough to make him want to quit the campaign.
The Obama campaign has responded, and while there is an element of blatant point-scoring here, I find myself sort of agreeing with their position…
The article continues at Say Anything.
CAJ note: If this man is qualified enough to work for someone of Ambassador John Bolton‘s stature, why shouldn’t he work as an adviser for presumed candidate Romney?
Update: The Kitchen Cabinet posted:
AWKWARD: Richard Grenell, the openly gay foreign affairs spokesperson hired by the Romney campaign has resigned. Grenell was highly-respected as a right hand to John Bolton at the United Nations. In an open letter reported by The Washington Post, Grenell states:
“While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team.”
The Romney camp has now responded via campaign manager Matt Rhoades: “We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons. We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill.”
That is a perhaps too subtle retort to those calling for Grenell’s head, that he was not hired to advise on gay issues but on foreign policy matters.
UPDATE (3:50 p.m.): Right Turn has learned from multiple sources that the senior officials from the Romney campaign and respected Republicans not on the campaign contacted Ric Grenell over the weekend in an attempt to persuade him not to leave the campaign. Those were unsuccessful. During the two weeks after Grenell’s hiring was announced the Romney campaign did not put Grenell out to comment on national security matters and did not use him on a press foreign policy conference call. Despite the controversy in new media and in conservative circles, there was no public statement of support for Grenell by the campaign and no supportive social conservatives were enlisted to calm the waters. Beyond his statement, Grenell has declined further comment today.”
…actually, there’s not a lot of evidence that hard-right conservatives “hounded” Grenell from the campaign. (Allahpundit has a huge roundup, “Openly gay foreign-policy spokesman for Romney campaign resigns; Update: “He wasn’t under wraps”.”)
Sure, there was some pushback, but it was pretty localized around a few figures on the religious right, Bryan Fischer, for example (“Re: Richard Grenell: Romney has some splaining to do“), and Tony Perkins, “Conservatives Engage in Some Hire Learning“…
Read the whole thing at American Power.
Update 3: We have linked to GayPatriot’s posts here. The real story appears to be that the original story has probably misrepresented the Romney campaign.
Update 4: Skeptical that Romney campaign kept Grenell “under wraps”
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