Ann Coulter Sabotages Mitt Romney and GOP

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Sept 23, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

                 Roving conservative pundit Ann Coulter gave a free X-Ray into the presidential race on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos when she observed Democrats have ditched the African American community.  “Democrats are dropping the blacks and moving on to the Hispanics,” said Coulter, suggesting that they’d find a welcomed home in the GOP.  Like conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Coulter’s a one-trick-pony for bashing liberals.  Her ilk has pushed the Republican Party so far to the right that it’s gone over the deep end.  When President Barack Obama shellacked Sen. John McCain (R-Aris.) in 2008, the GOP faced some deep soul searching.  When they completed their inventory, they repeated the same mistake in 2012, where the otherwise moderate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney picked Tea Party-favorite Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for his VP.

            McCain’s choice of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sunk his presidential ambitions, pushing his ticket too far to the right.  Romney did exactly the same thing picking Ryan.  Since announcing his pick Aug. 12, Ryan has become a lightening rod for all that’s wrong with today’s GOP.  Put simply, the Party is too radical for popular taste.  Most folks don’t want to reverse Roe v. Wade, banning women from getting abortions.  Most fair-minded folks don’t object to same-sex marriage.  And most folks want to preserve their Medicare and Social Security.  Ryan said Aug. 12 he welcomed the Medicare and Social Security debate with Democrats.  When he spoke to the American Assn. of Retired People Sept. 21, he was practically booed off the stage.  When Ryan speaks about Medicare and Social Security he gets Mitt into hot water.  He’s difficult to muzzle on the campaign stump.

            Coulter’s remarks on national TV show her tone deafness to mainstream voters.  With Romney and Ryan promising to streamline government, the black community knows that means targeting their federal jobs.  Romney and Ryan won’t say what they plan to do to fix the U.S. economy, only hint at shrinking government.  Hearing Coulter talk of how liberals have trashed American society, including the civil rights movement, sends Orwellian chills through anyone’s spine.  Liberals and progressive thinkers were responsible for the civil rights and women’s movements, giving people like Coulter a public platform.  “That’s why the Democrats are dropping the blacks and moving to the Hispanics,” said Coulter, implying that liberals have tossed blacks under the bus.  Blacks and Latinos know that Democrats are more aligned in assuring them civil rights and equal economic opportunity.

            When the GOP’s Standard Bearer Mitt Romney talks of more tax cuts for the upper class, it breeds suspicion from middle class voters.  Releasing his tax return Sept. 21, Romney showed what’s wrong with the tax code that permits millionaires and billionaires the loopholes needed to pay a lower tax rate then their butlers or doormen.  Romney pays only 14.1% yet seeks more tax cuts for his income bracket.  “I think what- the way liberals have treated blacks like children and many of their policies have been harmful to blacks, at least they got the beneficiary group right,” said Coulter turning the whole civil rights movement on its head.  Ann wants blacks to believe they’ve been abandoned by liberals.  TV viewers watching the RNC convention in Tampa saw a very homogeneous White demographic in Tampa.  If there were blacks and Latinos present, they didn’t make it to the cameras.

            Coulter has a tough sell telling blacks they’re better off in the Republican Party.  “There is a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws.  We don’t owe the homeless.  We don’t owe feminists.   We don’t owe women who are desirous of abortions, but that’s – or – gays who want to get married to one another.  That’s what civil right has become for much of the left,” said Coulter, insisting that civil right laws only apply to blacks.  Putting Coulter on national TV frightens mainstream voters that have watched the GOP hijacked by the Party’s extreme right wing.  Ann doesn’t win the GOP votes, she drives independents and moderates into the Democratic Party.  What the GOP doesn’t get is that wacky conservatives, like Coulter and Limbaugh, present terrible PR for the Republican Party.  Their shrill voices on national radio and TV make the GOP look like a group of white racist extremists.

            Keeping the likes of Coulter on national TV before the Nov. 6 election only helps Obama’s chances of reelection.  Romney and Ryan have already scared off so many mainstream seniors on Medicare and Social Security, it’s going to take a Herculean effort to fix the damage.  Right wing fanatics like Coulter also display to mainstream voters how totally out-of-touch the GOP has become.  Suggesting that Democrats have tossed blacks under the bus is beyond laughable.  In case Coulter forgets, the president happens to be black.  So is Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr., the same man the predominantly white House voted to censure July 28 on bogus charges he withheld documents from Congress.  Coulter insists that civil rights only apply to blacks—they don’t apply to gays, immigrants, women or other minorities.  Keeping Coulter talking is the best free advertising before Election Day.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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