The amateur tour can get serious
A day after a Mitt Romney adviser told the Daily Telegraph that he would pay special attention to the special relationship with his Anglo-Saxon confrères (“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special”), the candidate himself blew up that relationship with remarks about London’s lack of preparedness for the Olympics and popular lack of enthusiasm for the games. Things reportedly went better at a fundraiser attended mainly by American expat financiers, who may actually be more Mitt’s type than (Conservative) Prime Minister David Cameron. Or mayor of London Boris Johnson:
Even for an Obamista like me, it is too much to hope that Romney’s awkward performance will be repeated in Poland and Israel, where Mitt is headed next. But there are some ripe possibilities: in Jerusalem, there is the touchy issue of where Christ will reappear on earth. I’m no expert on Mormon theology, but Missouri seems to play a role that makes things awkward for Romney and may surprise many Christians (as well as those Jews still waiting for the Messiah). I won’t even try to guess what gaffes are possible in Warsaw. It is a city so full of both human horror and musical glory that there are lots of possibilities. I hope Romney knows he is supposed to like Chopin.
I’m all in favor of the growing tradition of American presidential candidates going abroad. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have lived in foreign countries (principally France and Indonesia, respectively), which is refreshing for those of us who have lived a good part of our lives abroad (mine in Geneva, Rome, Brasilia and the Balkans). Foreigners don’t vote, but Americans should get some idea of how a candidate will project in other countries.
Then there is the Americans abroad constituency, which is substantial in all three countries Romney is stopping in. More than six million Americans are thought to live abroad. This is a serious number, more than 2% of the American citizenry, a number that could possibly determine the election outcome.
Romney will be focusing on Israel’s many Americans, who provide a goodly number of the settlers in the West Bank. It will not be hard for him to fish for votes among them. All he needs to do is make noises of stronger-than-Obama support for Israel’s security and forget to mention the two-state solution, blaming the failure of negotiations on the Palestinians. This will align him with the settlers who see themselves as the solution, not the problem.
That is a snare and a delusion. Here is where an amateur tour of the world gets serious and dangerous. We can all laugh at a candidate’s advisor who thinks it is important that Romney is more Anglo-Saxon than Barack Obama, who himself has lots of “Anglo-Saxon” genes in him (certainly more than I do!). We can enjoy the gaffe about the Olympics. I’ll even giggle if Romney says Chopin is boring. But if he in effect abandons the two-state solution and lines up with Sheldon Adelson’s settler friends, that will put America at serious risk of electing a president committed to perpetual war with the Palestinians and the Arab world.
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Poland should be a cakewalk – Romney’s identified Russia as our greatest enemy, hasn’t he? (That probably went over well with the new Russian president, too.) In Israel he’s more likely looking for votes in Florida than in the West Bank, but what I’m waiting for is for someone to ask him whether the Mormons still claim that the American Indians are the Lost Tribes of Israel. (And maybe, what particular world he hopes to be named God of if he leads a worthy life on this one. But I figure the Lost Tribes question has a better chance of being brought up.)