Former senior aides to Mitt Romney have hit back at the “hypocrites” in the Republican party who just days before the election were clamoring for jobs in a Romney administration and are now belittling him.
“I’m sure Governor Romney is finding out now who his real friends are,” said a former adviser.
“There were one or two well-known figures who were late committing to support him, were the most eager to curry favor when it looked like we would win and are now out there trashing the governor.
“In politics, when you win you are a genius and when you lose everyone calls you an idiot. But to see the way certain craven hypocrites are acting right now really sticks in the craw.”
Speaking on MSNBC, Dan Senor, a former top foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, accused some of the former Massachusetts supporters of being fair weather friends.
At a big event in Ohio just days before the election, he said, there were leading figures cozying up to Mitt Romney and trying to land cabinet positions.
“Tens of thousands of people, you could feel the energy, a hundred top-tier Romney surrogates were at the event,” he remembered.
“I’m backstage with some of them – I won’t mention their names – but they’re talking about Romney like he’s Reagan.
“<<His debate performances were the best performances of any Republican nominee in presidential history. He’s iconic>>. They were talking about him because they believed he was going to win in four or five days. And in fact, some of them were already talking to our transition to position themselves for a Romney cabinet.”
Within days, however, there was a “stunning” turnaround as the same people turned on Romney with a vengeance.
“They were on television, it was unbelievable, it was five, six days later, absolutely eviscerating him,” Dan Senor said.
But the other senior adviser, who declined to be named when criticizing senior Republicans, singled out Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Newt Gingrich as among those who had been quickest to lambast Mitt Romney.
After Mitt Romney told donors on a post-election conference call that many voted had plumped for President Barack Obama because he had offered them “gifts”, Bobby Jindal said Romney’s comments were “absolutely wrong”.
He said: “We have got to stop dividing American voters. We need to go after 100 per cent of the votes, not 53 per cent – we need to go after every single vote.”
That was a reference to Mitt Romney’s notorious “47 per cent” comments in which he said that proportion of voters was dependent on government and would inevitably back a Democrat.
Newt Gingrich called the “gifts” comments “nuts” and “insulting” to voters.
The anonymous adviser said: “Bobby Jindal wanted very, very much to be Vice President. He appeared publicly with Governor Romney after the 47 per cent comments, which the governor himself said were totally wrong.
“Newt Gingrich made it clear to us he wanted to be part of a Romney administration.
“Both these guys – and others – were the governor’s best friend when it seemed he was on the brink of becoming our 45th President. Now they’re calling him a bum. Real profiles in courage.”
