Richard Grenell Gay Flap Had 'Blown Over,' Mitt Romney Campaign Staff Thought

Richard Grenell Flap Had 'Blown Over,' Mitt Romney Campaign Staff Thought

Richard Grenell's notice that he intended to resign took Romney
campaign staffers by surprise. WASHINGTON -- Former Romney spokesman
Richard Grenell left the campaign because he felt like his reputation
was being destroyed by criticism and he was unable to defend himself,
according to sources who have spoken with Grenell and understand his
thinking.

But by the time Grenell gave notice last weekend of his intention to
quit, the Romney campaign viewed any controversy about his hiring as
having largely evaporated, and Romney aides were surprised when they
learned of Grenell's wish to resign.

"In the scale of things, we didn't view it as a major story and in
fact thought it had blown over," a source close to the Romney campaign
said of the controversy around Grenell.

"The main source of the criticism was from a person on the far right
that Romney had taken on before," the Romney source said.

The "far right" figure is Bryan Fischer, with the American Family
Association, whom Romney had condemned in October for "poisonous
language." (Romney's criticism at that time was not related to any
Fischer comments about sexual orientation, however, but resulted from
Fischer's attacks on Mormonism, Romney's faith.)

The criticism of Grenell's selection as a Romney spokesman came from a
few sources: First came comments from Fischer on Twitter, in an April
23 blog post and during an April 24 appearance on CNN.

Then an April 24 blog post on the National Review's website elicited a
back and forth over whether conservatives should be concerned that
Grenell would advocate for gay marriage inside a Romney White House.

On April 25, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council expressed
dismay at Grenell's hiring.

Around the same time, Gary Bauer, the founder of American Values,
became the most serious political figure on the Christian right to
publicly criticize Grenell's hiring. Bauer wrote in a letter to
supporters that he worried that Grenell's hiring might signal some
support by Romney for gay marriage. But he added, "We should not
exaggerate this. Homosexuals were part of the Reagan Administration
and the Bush Administrations. Our concern is policy."

In a Wednesday interview with HuffPost, Bauer said, "I never called
for [Grenell] to be replaced and I think the most important thing here
is the policies."

The Romney campaign believed it had responded loud enough to the
Grenell-related grumblings but not so aggressively that this would
elevate the comments of conservative critics and make the story an
even bigger one, according to an insider with knowledge of the
campaign's thinking; the Grenell crisis was considered an issue for
the campaign but not, say, a four-alarm fire or even three-alarm.

Several top Romney campaign officials tried to persuade Grenell to
stay on and enlisted former Republican National Committee chairman Ken
Mehlman, another openly gay GOP figure, to appeal to him as well,
according to a source with knowledge of Mehlman's involvement. Mehlman
declined to comment to HuffPost.

But Grenell thinks the Romney campaign staffers could have and should
have done more to quiet conservative leaders and that they lacked the
willingness or ability to publicly confront or privately persuade
those leaders, according to sources familiar with his thinking.

Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, a group dedicated to
promoting gay conservatives, agreed. "Those attacks would not have
carried the weight that they did had there been a strong pushback from
the campaign," LaSalvia said in an interview.

But even LaSalvia expressed some uncertainty about why Grenell felt
compelled to quit. "Certainly Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins were very
loud publicly. There was also the National Review piece," LaSalvia
said. "But I just don't know what was going on behind the scenes that
would have elevated this to such an issue."

The Romney campaign has pointed out that it distributed statements
defending Grenell, from a spokeswoman and from Grenell's former boss
at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, conservative firebrand John
Bolton. But the Romney campaign did not blast the statements out to
its entire email list but instead provided them to reporters upon
request. This added up to a more passive defense of Grenell than an
active one.

Boston headquarters did not object to Grenell's sexual orientation, as
Romney campaign officials have stated and as Grenell has privately
told associates. But the campaign's delicate handling of the pushback
-- providing statements upon request rather than boldly sending
Grenell defenses far and wide –- does indicate some nervousness about
the risk of alienating Christian conservatives uncomfortable with
homosexuality and strongly opposed to gay marriage.

Because of his Mormon faith and some moderate positions on social
issues, Romney has never been popular with the conservative
evangelical base of the Republican Party. Many conservatives say they
will still vote for Romney because they so strongly oppose President
Barack Obama. But this amounts to a fragile alliance between Romney
and these voters.

So the Romney campaign had to tread carefully in defending its hiring
of a man who was not only openly gay but who also had agitated
publicly for Obama to reverse his opposition to gay marriage.

Precisely because of the political circumstances, some gay Republicans
in Washington were not sympathetic to Grenell's plight and faulted him
for acting unprofessionally.

"It should have been obvious to him that as an out, professional gay,
which is different than just being gay, who has engaged on the issue
of marriage and a number of other issues publicly as an activist, when
he joined the presidential campaign he had to know that the Bryan
Fischers of the world were going to hit him," said one openly gay
Republican political operative. "He had to know."

"If you want to be a gay rights activist, there's GOProud and [Human
Rights Campaign] and a number of things that you can do. But if you
want to try to elect Mitt Romney president, then get on board and do
your job, which is to talk about foreign policy," the GOP operative
said. "He broke every rule of every book of the political staffers on
a presidential campaign: It isn't about you."

Another openly gay Republican who did not want to talk on the record
or even on background expressed similar sentiments about Grenell.

But those who have talked to Grenell said he felt "boxed in" because
he was not able to publicly defend himself, from critics on the right
as well as those on the left who were slamming him for his habit of
making intemperate comments on Twitter. After taking the Romney job,
Grenell erased many of his controversial tweets one by one. Then he
simply erased all his tweets before a certain point in time. That only
brought more attention to the matter, and Grenell issued an apology.

The Romney campaign told Grenell to "be quiet and not to speak up
until it went away," said a source familiar with the matter, referring
to criticism of his sexual orientation. A source close to the Romney
campaign said Grenell was asked to lay low only on the issue of his
tweets about Callista Gingrich and First Lady Michele Obama, for which
he, in fact, had already apologized.

The Romney campaign has said Grenell had not been sent out to talk
about foreign policy issues before this week because he was not
scheduled to start until May 1. But that explanation did not make
sense to some, including one former high-ranking Bush administration
official.

"Why wasn't Rick the spokesman in the last couple of days, when
foreign policy was paramount?" former Bush White House press secretary
Ari Fleischer asked the Washington Post's Greg Sargent. "That's the
piece I don't understand."

"I don't know why he wasn't the spokesman on foreign policy for the
last several days. It's something that nobody understands," Fleischer
added.

Last week Grenell was "instructed to shut up" before a foreign policy
conference call with reporters, eroding his standing with journalists
on the beat, Andrew Sullivan reported and HuffPost confirmed.



As of Wednesday afternoon, Grenell's Twitter page still identified him
as a "Romney 2012 foreign policy and national security spokesman."

This story has been updated to include mention of an Andrew Sullivan
piece about Richard Grenell.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/richard-grenell-flap-mitt-romney_n_1472188.html

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy



--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
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