"Dump Romney"?

I receive mass mailings from both the right and left. I never ask the conservatives to de-list me, because the goofy memes they pass along often spark story ideas. Here's one I didn't expect: There's a movement afoot to ask Republican delegates to abstain on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention. They want to dump Romney in favor of someone else.

The folks behind this mass mailing don't mention a web page, and the email address points to something called "Mass Media Distribution." It seems that the movement is headed by these people. I think they're Jews for Jesus.

(Is the term "Jews for Jesus" still used? They claim to be Christians, yet they spell God "G_D." Which, by the way, is a fairly new-ish thing for Jews to do. I haven't seen any English-language examples predating 1970. And before you write in with your tiresome predictabilities: Yes, yes, I know all about the Hebrew tradition. I said "English-language," didn't I?)
 
The Dumpers -- I like that term: Let's get it into circulation -- may be small in number, but they reflect a growing unease in Republican circles. CNN:

"Conservatives still have doubts about Romney," said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. "They continue to worry that he's not conservative enough, and that even when he says conservative things, he doesn't really mean them."

Many conservatives remain chary of Mitt -- but are they ready to join the Dumpers?

The Dumpers who sent me that mass mailing point to Romney's falling poll numbers in the swing states. What really bugs them, of course, is Mitt's religion:

But, the worst is ahead: If Romney leads the GOP ticket, "DUMP ROMNEY" says, voters in the all-important swing states will likely reject him as they learn the content of Mormon dogma, Romney's personal history as a religious leader of that sect, and what those things portend on explosive issues of race, religion and sexuality.

"Learn the contents"? Come off it. Everyone who cares about religion in America already knows all about Mormonism.

Side note: American evangelicals have an odd habit of presuming that you've never heard their rap before. Every time I run into someone who hopes to save my soul, that person seem genuinely surprised to learn that I am already quite familiar with the doctrine of justification by faith alone -- not works, just faith faith faith! In fact, the first time someone tried to blow my mind with that trip was back when Nixon -- or was it Johnson? -- sat in the oval office. The proselytizer's attitude seems to be: "Wait -- you say you know about that, and you're still not going to go to the church I want you go to? No. Not possible! You must have heard a garbled version. Let me restate it for you yet again. And again and again and again. I'm sure I can find the magic words..."

Admit it. You've had the same annoying argument with the same kind of annoying personage, haven't you?

And now let's get back to our main story. Although there isn't much left to tell....

The Dumpers genuinely believe that Romney is too damned librul and insufficiently intolerant of gayness.

"DUMP ROMNEY," both the Tampa convention memo and the book, asserts that the "USA is indeed a 'Chik-fil-a Nation' - a country committed to traditional marriage and sexuality - partly because we're loaded with 'Chik-fil-a Swing States.'"

Their solution:

What if enough of us were to realize just in time and in accord with RNC Rules – which necessarily empower “small-r” republican delegates to derail a doomed train – that one of the GOP primary survivors or AN ENTIRELY NEW NAME can and must be drafted as the 2012 Republican nominee?

What if Santorum, Gingrich, Ron Paul or other liberty lovers were suddenly to recognize, as a function of all the disturbing facts cited herein, what a deep betrayal, what profound negligence it would be to endorse Romney on stage in Tampa?

This is hilarious. As though those Republicans could fare better in the general. (What, no Michelle Bachmann? Hm. Methinks some Chik-fil-aters are a little squicked by the "first husband" visual.)

Personally, I would prefer to see Ron Paul as the nominee, though I don't want him to be President. For one thing, he's the most honest of the bunch. Most of all, I'd like to have the election focus on hardline Libertarian issues. Let's make this election all about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare and the minimum wage. No weasel words, no equivocations, no cosmetics.

I say we should have it out over that stuff, once and for all. Let's brand the GOP forevermore as the party that wants you to work for three bucks an hour. Let's brand the GOP forevermore as the party that wants to put Grandma out on the job market -- or on the streets, or in your back bedroom. And you pay her doctor bills. On three bucks an hour.

Yeah. I'm fine with that.

The Dumpers prefer to talk about religion, of course. They're zealots. In their zealotry, they overestimate the number of people who think as they do.

If they were less fanatical, they might see the obvious: The Republican primary candidate who stood the best chance of defeating Obama was always Jon Huntsman. A Mormon. And even more of a Librul Damned Socialist than Mitt is.

If a successful Mormon governor of Utah is too liberal for today's GOP -- and if Mitt Romney, who ran to McCain's right a mere four years ago, is too far to the left to please our current crew of tea-stained reactionaries -- what the hell has happened to this country?