Members of the Republican National Committee gathering in Arizona were invited to meet with Mitt Romney in private Friday and have their pictures taken with the presumptive GOP nominee, but there was a price of admission: loyalty.
RNC members and state GOP chairmen were welcomed into the private reception only after signing a form pledging to support Romney as a delegate to the national convention in Tampa.
CNN via
Political Wire
Not everyone was willing to do so.
All three members of Iowa's conservative RNC delegation – party chairman A.J. Spiker and committee members Steve Scheffler and Kim Lehman – attempted to enter the reception but were rebuffed after refusing to sign the delegate pledge.
The dispute became heated in the hallway outside, with the Iowans demanding to know why they had to sign a form to get their picture taken with the former Massachusetts governor.
There was also a little check box so that RNC members could pledge to support Romney but keep it a secret.
Also interesting was that the form asked RNC members to "pledge to vote for Mitt Romney at the 2012 Republican National Convention on all ballots until Mitt Romney has been nominated."
This raises a number of questions to my simple little aardvarkian mind.
1) Is Mitt actually still worried about the nomination?
2) Is it SOP to treat the most powerful people in your party like this? Did Obama do things of this sort in his (much closer) battle with Clinton? Did Bush ever do this sort of thing?
3) Would such a pledge be legally binding?
Answers, a.k.a. guesses:
1) I think he's mainly worried about optics ... but that bit about "until Mitt ... nominated" suggests he's worried that not all the delegates people think belong to Mitt really belong to Mitt.
2) No, it isn't, and this shows Mitt's ruthless ambition rather clearly. And this sort of crap will cost him in ways he doesn't understand.
3) No, I don't think it would be. It would be embarrassing but I don't think Mitt could sue for breach of contract. Legal eagles, beagles, and Smeagols feel free to weigh in.
But the main take away? Mitt Romney is weird. This is weird behavior.
To borrow a line from The Big Bang Theory, Mitt Romney is one lab accident away from being a Super Villain.