Mitt Romney, the senator from Utah, has just reminded us why he will never be president. In an act that is drowning in a lack of self-awareness, it has been revealed that Mr. Romney has been operating a Twitter account under a pseudonym since 2011.
We would have learned about this sooner had legacy media been at all curious or capable of doing a basic investigation into the man, but no. Mr. Romney is their anti-Trump; he’s the sort of Republican that Democrats like — a willing passenger on the swamp express, so no need to look closer lest you actually find something.
When Mr. Romney admitted to having the anonymous Twitter account in a recent interview with The Atlantic after managing to keep it secret for eight years, one thinks he wanted to be exposed believing, incorrectly, it would be seen as somehow cool or hip.
Instead, the account is the Twitter equivalent of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s pathetic “please clap” moment to an uninterested audience during one of his presidential campaign stops in 2016. His plea for praise to the bored and unimpressed audience became symbolic of a man who was unable to generate enthusiasm from his own base.
Mr. Romney named his secret account “Pierre Delecto.” I would have had a great deal more respect for him if he was just a tiny bit more self-aware and chose “Pepe Lepew” instead. After all, the name is a play on Mr. Romney’s knowledge of French having spent over two years in France on a Mormon mission in the 1960s. “Delecto” is Latin for “delight.” If only Willard had as much regard for the American electorate as he does for himself.
Mr. Romney explained to both The Atlantic and a group of journalists in the hallway in the Senate that he used the account to keep an eye on the political conversation.
“I like what I like. … I follow a lot of people as a way to keep up with the news and I, you know, followed 600 or some odd people, 700. Just a way to have a private account to see what’s going on,” said the former presidential candidate.
Looking at how he used the account belies that. He promoted and defended himself, and even more pathetically, he “liked” tweets that praised him.
John Nolte at Breitbart noted, “He’s so insecure and hungry for approval, but so cowardly and craven in not wanting to correct or criticize his abusers in the media directly, that he cowers in their mentions under the cloak of just another anonymous nobody. Why doesn’t Romney use his verified Twitter account to makes these points, to set the record straight? Why doesn’t he reach out directly to those in the media when he wants something corrected?”
Why not indeed. Yes, this is what 12-year-old children do. The moment the account was exposed, Mr. Romney locked it down, making its content unavailable to the public.
In other words, he scooted into a kitchen cabinet to hide. Not having a spine makes it much easier to squeeze yourself into secret places.
One of the biggest complaints people have about President Trump is his style. The president tweets and speaks in a transparent and honest manner, all under his own name. He confronts situations transparently and head-on. He does so because he’s not afraid of other people; he’s not unsure about what he believes; he does not say things to placate or to curry favor. And he is sure that this country and its people deserve strong leadership and the truth.
This is another crime that Mr. Trump has committed for which the Pierres of the world hate him — being able to be himself and to own it; to have enough regard for the American people that he’s honest with them; to be exactly the same person in a general election as he is during a primary season. This is very bad news for people like Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Joe Biden and so many others in the rotted establishment.
In the meantime, Mr. Romney is losing Utah, where a new UtahPolicy.com poll shows his approval rating is now underwater, “Romney’s approval rate among ‘strong Republicans’ is actually underwater: Only 40 percent approve of him, while 59 percent disapprove of him. That is rather amazing. … Romney’s problem with the reddest of his party is no doubt because he has been critical of Trump …”
About this rather striking development, Hotair.com says, “This is a fantastic poll for Trump if only because it shows other Republicans in the Senate that not even Mitt Romney is immune from a backlash in Utah for criticizing him. If the first Mormon presidential nominee can be underwater in a state where Mormons are 60+ percent of the population simply because he’s anti-Trump, God help any GOP senator whose political position isn’t as secure in their own home state.”
The Romney First strategy isn’t going over very well in Utah, or elsewhere among Republicans and conservatives. Maybe Pierre is a Democrat, which would explain so much.