For candidates seeking presidency of the United States, one of the inescapable rites of passage is parading your suitability for the post in certain key foreign capitals.
In 2007 the Democratic candidate, the relatively junior Senator Barack Obama, did it with great aplomb and success. When 200 000 Germans filled the main street in Berlin to welcome him with unbridled warmth, it resonated successfully across the United States from sea to shining sea.
Many who treated his attempt to become numero uno and commander in chief of the world’s most powerful nation state less than seriously, suddenly started paying attention to what he was saying and doing. The realization that this African American could occupy the White House excited the best hopes and worst fears of a country battered by the mediocrity of George W. Bush.
A confident, experienced and charismatic wordsmith, his advisers had few fears letting him loose outside the United States. In this election year, the Republican candidate Mitt Romney decided to visit Britain, Israel and Poland. Unlike candidate Obama, his visits left many asking how could such an indiscreet international neophyte expect to become president.
His first faux pas was in London where he said the special relationship between Britain and the United States was based on a “shared Anglo-Saxon heritage. The White House does not appreciate that shared heritage”. How are those many voters who are African American or Hispanic to interpret that remark?
Questioned about London’s readiness to host the Olympic Games, Romney, who played a major part the last time the United States hosted them, gave a mint undiplomatic response, causing the savage British Press to label him Mitt The Twit. The acerbic Mayor of London Boris Johnson publicly made fun of his grossly inappropriate comments.
Adding to this major blunder, Romney spoke publicly of having met with the head of MI6, the top security agency. It is well known that such meetings are never spoken of publicly. His revelation opened a can of worms, including what qualified him for such a meeting.
Adding to his blundermania, he shocked his closest advisers by claiming that his wife was “a Welsh girl”. This is a clumsy lie. His wife Ann was born in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, thousands of miles from Wales. Is this the type of man who would be president of the United States?
A country embarrassed
If his visit to London was intended to impress his principal host there, Prime Minister David Cameron, the outcome of his visit embarrassed the entire country, none more so than Cameron his ideological fellow traveller.
The iconoclastic British Press plastered the mistake-prone Romney openly asking if a rookie on banana skins could possibly beat Obama. If his visit to London was conceived as a charm offensive intended to influence the important political class and win friends across all sections of the society, he will look back at this visit with great disappointment.
After the disasters of London his advisers were hoping for “a miracle in the Holy Land”. Relations with Israel are critical to American foreign policy and it is an important destination for its politicians. But again the timing of his arrival coincided with the beginning of the solemn feast day of Tisha B’av, resulting in the shifting of a major fund-raising event to a less propitious time and location.
Another cause for concern was Romney’s parading of his relationship with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told Vanity Fair magazine that he “remembered him for sure, but I don’t think we had any particular connection”.
Demonstrating his chronic case of misspeak, jokes are proliferating about “Romney’s guide to international diplomacy”.
Israel is also important because of the moneybags Jews control in the United States and the support Obama attracted from them in the last election. If Romney, a Mormon, can swing some of this support in states like Florida and New York, his visit to Israel’s Wailing Wall would not have been totally in vain.
Overall, what should have been visits impressing the host countries, and cementing the expectation that should he unseat Obama the United States and the traditional close relationship with Britain and Israel would be in safe hands, morphed into a tale of repeated mistakes calling into question the suitability of the candidate for the world’s most powerful post.
It never ceases to amaze me that with its great universities and highly significant contributions to science and technology, it cannot from among its 260 million population find a more organized and cerebral Republican candidate to fight Obama.
The most daunting headline I saw in one of the quality British Sunday papers captured graphically the widespread reaction to Romney’s disaster visit: Watch Out, World, Here Comes The Romneyshambles.
There is enough gloom and doom already encircling the world. Lord, put a hand to save the White House!
• Peter Simmons, a social scientist, is a former diplomat. Email ppksimmons@hotmail.com
