OK, clusterfuck gaffe machine notwithstanding, I totally understood why Romney (or his advisors, anyway) decided that he should go to England and Israel for the first two stops on his foreign policy trip.
England makes total sense: Staunch U.S. ally, they literally speak the same language, and of course the Olympics, which (should have had) three great feathers in Romney's cap: The connection to his own high point of running the 2002 U.S. Olympics; his wife's dressage horse competing in the current games; and the fact that it's an extremely high-profile, world-wide audience event, perfect for him to get some heavy free coverage.
Obviously he fucked all of that up, but at least it made sense that he'd want to go there.
Israel, of course, also makes total sense: Israel/Palestinian issues, high-profile trouble spot, and of course he gets to try and suck up American Jewish voters in key states like Florida and Michigan (well, mostly Florida; Michigan is most likely a lost cause for him). Add in the high-roller moneymen like Sheldon Adelson, and Israel is a no-brainer.
But the third location, Poland, I couldn't figure out. Why Poland as opposed to, say, Germany, Spain or Norway? (I'm sure he crossed of Switzerland right away, since that just brings up memories of his bank account there). Poland just seemed so...arbitrary.
At first I figured that he just wanted to court the American Polish vote itself. There are 10 states that have a Polish population above 5%, five of which are considered swing states (Wisconsin and Michigan are almost 10%; Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Minnesota are the other three). But that didn't seem to be quite enough to justify that country versus some other possibilities.
So, I asked a Polish friend of mine (she moved here in the '80's before the fall of the Soviet Union) about it. I figured that perhaps there's some hot-button controversial issue going on in Poland right now that Romney wants to exploit.
No, she said. Yes, Poland has their issues like any other country, but nothing in particular is grabbing big headlines there at the moment.
However, she said, the answer is pretty obvious once you think about it for a moment: Abortion.
Poland is 96% Catholic.
Aside from his massive flip-flop over his own healthcare bill, what's the #1 issue on which Mitt Romney is known to have done a complete 180º turn in recent years, and on which Republicans/Conservatives are still understandably wary of him about?
I know the list is long and ever-lengthening, but there's only one answer: Abortion.
In 1994 Romney ran to the left of Ted Kennedy, and claimed 100% support of women's reproductive rights.
Today he's turned into a staunch anti-choice advocate.
Tomorrow he's presumably going to give some sort of Big Speech in the heart of a country that's 96% Catholic. I'm guessing he's gonna use it to try and shore up any remaining concerns by the GOP base that he might actually respect women's ownership of their own bodies.
I'm also guessing that it's no coincidence that the Obama campaign just happens to have chosen this weekend to start running this ad in swing states.
Update: For those who are thinking that Romney's gonna invoke the Reagan/Solidarity issue, if that's on the agenda, he might want to rethink it in light of this new development:
Poland's Solidarity Union Rebukes Romney Upon Former Leader's Endorsement
Upon Romney's visit to the Gdansk shipyards, the site of historic Polish worker strikes during the Soviet era, Solidarnosc issued a press release saying it is "in no way involved" in the Romney meeting with Walesa and had no "initiative" to invite the American candidate to Poland.
The union expressed dismay at Romney's anti-union stances in the U.S., saying it would stand alongside the AFL-CIO, the American labor federation that has endorsed Obama and remains highly critical of Romney.