Conservatives force gay Romney spokesman to resign

Discussion in 'Elections & Campaigns' started by raytri, May 1, 2012.

  1. texmaster

    texmaster Banned

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    Is that really a surprise? There is only their way.
     
  2. ColoradoGirl

    ColoradoGirl New Member

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    As a conservative christian, I am very irritated about this. If he was the best man for the job, he should have it. My fellow christians better get a clue, we are in a fight of our lives for our freedom and our children's future. We need to put down certain ideology for the time being and ban together. God was pretty pissed at the Israelites when they became "stiff necked". He left them to their fate. If we don't get our act together, we might as well just start calling each other comrade now.... :(
     
    TaraAnne and (deleted member) like this.
  3. k995

    k995 Well-Known Member

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    Ah so romney cant even control his own people, wauw a quality any president needs.
     
  4. mdrobster

    mdrobster Well-Known Member

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    I agree with your commentary in this post. Also this incident highlights how parochial the Republican party has become to even placing ideology over country.
     
  5. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    I never said that I approve of homosexuality except when it involves gay marriage.

    Homosexuality is disgusting behavior and I'm sure Romney can find a spokesman less tainted than this guy was.
     
  6. texmaster

    texmaster Banned

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    [​IMG]
     
  7. TaraAnne

    TaraAnne Banned

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  8. texmaster

    texmaster Banned

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  9. Frowning Loser

    Frowning Loser Banned

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    If Homosexuality is disgusting behavior how do you propose society deal with gay men and women in terms of where they can live, whether they are allowed to have same sex unions, where they can socialize, what schools they're allowed to attend, and what kind of employment they're allowed to have?
     
  10. JP5

    JP5 Former Moderator Past Donor

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    Let me see if I understand this correctly. So.....this guy is openly gay; meaning he speaks out on issues regarding his sexuality freely. Right? But when some group....or members within some group.....ALSO speak freely and openly about their views regarding gay marriage; he gets mad and quits???? Doesn't make sense. Being against gay marriage does NOT mean someone is homophobic. I don't know what he thinks it means, but it doesn't mean that. I know this....because I have discussed the issue before personally with someone who is gay and who ALSO does not support gay marriage. I think he was wrong to quit over something like that. It's their perogative to speak freely on issues; just as it is his.

    It also has nothing to do with all conservatives as implied in the OP. I see nothing "forced" either. If the guy gives up this easily, he's not much of a fighter....and Romney is probably better off without someone who has no more tenacity that he apparently does.
     
  11. Radio Refugee

    Radio Refugee New Member

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    Doesn't pass the BS detector. Prove your point with quotes from something other than rumor and innuendo in the opinion section.

    Sorry, I forgot you don't need more than that for the smear job. Carry on.

    War on women, anyone? Romney's rich. Go with that.
     
  12. TaraAnne

    TaraAnne Banned

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    I posted a link where the man in question was feeling heat. I also doubt you talked to anyone in the gay community that is against gay marriage. I highly doubt it. Honestly it sounds like a reason to justify your opinion. People who are against gay marriage are bigots there is no legal basis to deny it. There is only a religious objection and that is what it boils down to. So please stop the I have a gay friend that is against gay marriage. Also quit fooling yourself that someone is not homophobic because they are against gay marraige. This is just a really poor statement that is not not in anyway shape or form true. Also with as much hate from the right on gays and their right it is laughable that you would post something like this. Good job at trying to justify being a bigot we see right through it.
     
  13. Radio Refugee

    Radio Refugee New Member

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    Well, that settles it.

    Thanks.
     
  14. Makedde

    Makedde New Member Past Donor

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    I don't know why the cons would pressure this guy to resign. There is no reason for them to worry about him. Its pretty pathetic that they would stoop this low.
     
  15. HT!

    HT! Well-Known Member

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    Just because he is taking credit for the win, doesn't mean he deserves the win. Team Mittens claims that they urged him to stay.

    And Jennifer Rubin is a bigot.
     
  16. Agent_286

    Agent_286 New Member

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    The Richard Grenell Fiasco: How a Cynical Political Move Blew Up in Mitt Romney's Face

    By Michelangelo Signorilo | HuffPost | 05/ 2/2012 7:14 am

    “A week ago a Washington reporter contacted me to discuss Mitt Romney's hiring an openly gay foreign policy spokesman, Richard Grenell. She thought it was a watershed moment for the GOP and made the comment that if Bryan Fischer, the extreme-far-right American Family Association radio host who attacked the appointment, was the Romney campaign's only problem, then they were doing pretty good.

    Fast-forward several days: Bryan Fischer is holding Grenell up like a jackal he's just captured and skinned alive.

    "So this is huge, ladies and gentleman," Fischer bellowed on his radio
    program yesterday, after hearing the news that Grenell had resigned. "This is absolutely huge, that a homosexual activist in a very prominent place in Mitt Romney's campaign has stepped down.

    He has resigned, and it's very clear from The Washington Post that he has resigned because of pressure put on the Romney campaign from the pro-family community. So, ladies and gentleman, this is a
    huge win, and it's a huge win for us in regard to Mitt Romney."

    Actually, I believe this is a big win for progressives and for gay journalists and commentators, as well. We drew out the conservative leaders in addition to Fischer, like Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, and other commentators on NationalReview.com and The Daily Caller, by bringing forth and continually highlighting the true facts about Grenell, which, to most Americans, are completely acceptable, but which, in the eyes of the evangelical right, make him a radical homosexual. As I wrote in a post last week, Grenell isn't just gay, like some other gay
    Republicans who stay quiet about their homosexuality. He's a gay man who very publicly expressed that he wants to get married to another man and who believes President Obama isn't adequate on LGBT rights.

    Why is it this a win? Because Grenell was being used for cover by a candidate with abhorrently anti-gay positions, a man who has promised to "propose and promote" a federal marriage amendment if elected president. I don't buy the argument made by some that it was a measure of progress that Romney hired a gay man as his foreign policy spokesperson when he's using that gay man to make himself appear moderate to independents while promising the GOP base that he'll make gay people into second-class citizens. Actual progress in the GOP will come when their presidential candidates stop bowing to bigots and refuse to sign their extremist pledges. Otherwise, it's all window dressing.

    We were proven right that Grenell was being used for cover by virtue of the fact that Romney so easily cut him loose the moment the cynical scheme blew up in his face. Predictably, I've started to see some in the media buying the Romney campaign's late and desperate counterspin in which campaign officials claim that they were supposedly begging Grenell to stay but that he left on his own for personal reasons.

    But even Jennifer Rubin, the conservative Washington Post blogger who broke the story of the resignation and who later was contacted by "senior officials from the Romney campaign and respected Republicans not on the campaign" who said they tried to persuade Grenell to stay, doesn't seem to be buying it. She's the only one who appears to have been in contact with Grenell himself, having received a statement from him, in which he pointed to "the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues" as his reason for resigning.

    After referring to the claims of the campaign senior officials, Rubin notes:

    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.

    If that reflects the sentiments of Grenell himself, it means he believes that they had thrown him under bus from the beginning, as soon as the criticisms started. In resigning, he was simply crawling to the curb.

    This entire fiasco presents a hard truth to our media, which seems to want to think otherwise: Mitt Romney is anti-gay, no matter what he supposedly truly believes (and can we please not forget he's a devout Mormon?). He can't be anything else and keep the support of his party because the chasm that separates the GOP base from the rest of America is now bigger than the Grand Canyon. The Ohio Arts Company does not make an Etch A Sketch large enough for this.

    The GOP has gone so far to the extremes that it's preposterous to think Romney or anyone can pull it back anytime soon. You thought Rush Limbaugh was something? Meet gay-bashing, Muslim-bashing, immigrant-bashing, you-name-it-bashing Bryan Fischer, today crowned as the new king of the GOP.”.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/the-richard-grenell-fiasc_b_1470145.html
    .....

    Again the super conservative has Mitt Romney boxed completely in the corner and when ordered to throw Grinell under the bus, Romney did just that.in his efforts to secure a strong, vetted group of aides with knowledge of national security experience. Rick Grinell would have been a superior senior aide for Romney who knows nothing at all about foreign affairs nor national security. After all, he is just another wealthy corporate raider who is running for president, or something political for over six years now.

    Romney has very few close friends...there is only his family, business partners at Bain Capital, and the LDS Mormon Church which has numerous trusts and which Romney has given countless millions to in the past, along with stock, and other investments. We have learned that he has Swiss bank accounts with undeclared assets.

    It appears to be true about his liking to fire people, but Grinell decided to resign and leave. If this is the way Romney handles problems within his campaign, then I am looking forward to the election process and the various debates he will be forced to show up for if he wants to be president...and folks, frugal Romney really, wants to be president.....
     
  17. HB Surfer

    HB Surfer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  18. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  19. HB Surfer

    HB Surfer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    [​IMG]
     
  20. raymondo

    raymondo Banned

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    Excellent .
    Completely demolishes the theory that a colliding asteroid destroyed all Dinosaurs .
    Let us capture and place you into a special breeding programme so that we have a chance for our sons and daughters to visit and listen to you happily recount your old tribal beliefs .
    Generations of children will be then able to experience the horrible Past in their own Present .Could provide excellent comedy therapy for the Disadvantaged .Well done for coming out of your closet .
     
  21. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    I don't propose anything.

    You are the one who brought that up.
     
  22. Unifier

    Unifier New Member

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    Oh yeah, like that really made a difference. Get real. You closed-minded people are going to call us that no matter what we do unless we just parrot whatever you claim to believe. So explain to me what exactly we've lost here because I'm not seeing it.
     
  23. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    The children of homosexuals will make a pretty short line at the museum.
     
  24. Agent_286

    Agent_286 New Member

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    .........

    The Muzzling of Ric Grenell
    Excerpts:

    By Andrew Sullivan | The Dish | 05/01/2012

    "Sources close to Grenell say that he was specifically told by those high up in the Romney campaign to stay silent on the call, even while he was on it. And this was not the only time he had been instructed to shut up. Their response to the far right fooferaw was simply to go silent, to keep Grenell off-stage and mute, and to wait till the storm passed. But the storm was not likely to pass if no one in the Romney camp was prepared to back Grenell up. Hence his dilemma. The obvious solution was simply to get Grenell out there doling out the neocon red meat - which would have immediately changed the subject and helped dispel base skepticism. Instead the terrified Romneyites shut him up without any actual plan for when he might subsequently be able to do his job.

    To my mind, it's a mark of his integrity that he decided to quit rather than be put in this absurd situation. And it's a mark of Romney's fundamental weakness within his own party that he could not back his spokesman against the Bryan Fischers and Matthew Francks...

    I might add that the private conversation among many Republicans in this town is that this was unjust and unfair. The Romneyites are correct when they say they tried to talk him out of it. But they kept and keep their views quiet. The gay-inclusive elements in the elites simply do not have the balls to tackle the religious right. And this is particularly true of Romney, as this case now proves.

    The Christianists gave Bush a pass on social issues because of his born-again Christianity. They trust Mormon Romney not an inch. And this week demonstrates without any doubt that Romney will therefore not be able to deviate from their wishes an iota. He has no room to maneuver. The notion that he could be a moderate on social issues in office is, alas, a pipe dream.

    Remember: Grenell was told to be silent solely because he was gay. He was accused in National Review of being a potential fifth columnist for Barack Obama, simply because of his support for marriage equality, which he was never going to speak in public on anyway. His job was to speak on national security, a job for which he was very well prepared and very, very neoconservative.

    But the bigots won."

    see:
    http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast...med-as-part-of-the-call-a-reporter-asked.html
    .....

    We all should realize that Romney sold his soul when he agreed to demonize Obama's Affordable Care Act..which is almost an exact copy of Romney's own Mass. HealthCare Bill which was a distinct success. You gotta be a willing shill to denigrate your only success for the good of the party in exchange for their support to make you the next president. He is now for all intent and purposes owned by the party, but Romney lost a potential winner in Grinell, who was exceedingly well prepared on the national security neoconservative agenda.

    I don't know if the LDS Mormon Church is going to go along with that, though, where Romney has been a 'bishop.' Their philosophy mandates religion before country. btw: on the short list for VP is Marco Rubio, an ex-Mormon...what a duo that would be.

    It appears that Romney digs another hole to fall into each time he surfaces in a brief press conference....I wonder if he will try to buy off the press corps..or send in his private attack ads instead...

    What Grinell prefers as his lifestyle should not even be an issue in his job as national security adviser; a person's religion should be of closer scrutiny.
     
  25. Agent_286

    Agent_286 New Member

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