Mitt Romney’s Stockholm Syndrome Behavior

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/30/mitt-romney-s-stockholm-syndrome-behavior.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29

Mitt Romney’s Stockholm Syndrome Behavior
by John Avlon May 30, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Now that he’s finally won the GOP presidential nomination, Romney should be moving toward moderation, but he’s still captivated by extremists like birther Donald Trump—and acting as if his captors are his friends.


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It is a remarkable achievement—he is not just the first non-Protestant to capture the evangelical party’s nomination, but a formerly moderate governor of Massachusetts whose signature achievement was health-care reform will lead the Tea Party insurgency of 2010 into a presidential election.

But having finally outlasted the fringe festival, Mitt Romney seems reluctant to put the reality show behind him. He spent the night of his nomination victory in Las Vegas with Donald Trump, the last big-name bloviating birther.

With friends like these, the etch-a-sketch moment that campaign manager Eric Fehrnstrom infamously promised may be a long time coming. You can take the candidate out of the primary—but can you take the primary out of the candidate?

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The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza pointed out via Twitter that this June marks the 20th anniversary of Bill Clinton’s Sister Souljah moment. Bubba was behind in the polls at the time, losing to both Ross Perot and George H. W. Bush. But when the rapper known as Sister Souljah called for a month for black people to kill white people—as a respite from epidemic black-on-black violence—Clinton seized the opportunity to condemn an extremist on his side of the aisle at a Rainbow Coalition convention. Jesse Jackson howled at what he regarded as a “Machiavellian maneuver,” but Clinton’s declaration of independence from the far left sent a signal about his capacity for real leadership that could re-center his party and realign politics.

Romney’s repeated reluctance to take such a stand speaks to the extent to which he is still being held hostage by the right wing reality-show primaries. It reeks of Stockholm Syndrome—Romney seems to think his captors are his friends. If the lure of big money isn’t enough to cause him to break the birther embrace, what will? Where is the red line that Romney won’t cross in his pursuit of political gold?

The fact that his long-fought-for nomination victory is being overshadowed by this radioactive distraction ought to be wakeup call enough. Romney is now the leader of the Republican Party and it’s his responsibility to stand tall and set a tone that shows a capacity to be president of the United States. Failure to confront and condemn ignorance and hate indicates precisely the opposite.