Senate Republicans Not Happy With Mitt Romney's Grandstanding

Meet the new cuck, same as the old cuck.

Sen. James Lankford will occasionally take issue with President Donald Trump's tactics and rhetoric. But he's not sure what Mitt Romney was thinking with his biting condemnation of the president before he was even sworn into office.

"It kind of felt like the same thing Trump does to everybody, Romney does to Trump. Smack you, and then want to negotiate," said Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma. "It is funny to me that while he was complaining about President Trump's personal attacks, he was personally attacking President Trump. I don’t know if he sees the irony in it."

When Romney heads into his first Republican Conference meeting later this week, he might face an awkward reception from many of his fellow Republican senators. Some are scratching their heads about why Romney ripped Trump in a Washington Post op-ed; others are angry about reopening an intraparty divide. And it could color how Senate Republicans view Romney over the long term, raising questions about his effectiveness in the GOP conference.

"Focusing on our political opponents that are trying to annihilate us and embarrass the president is probably a more productive focus, rather than just criticize what the president is, how he does things," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the former whip who is running for reelection as a Trump ally.

Senate Republicans say that many of them have to run for re-election on a ticket with Trump in 2020, and see Romney's efforts to create a new NeverTrump Vote Out The Republicans campaign hurtful.

Although Politico doesn't mention this, Romney stinks, as he has always stunk, of rank opportunism and severely conservative lies, and he's probably appealing to Pierre Omidyar and Bill Kristol's other NeverTrump funders for a possible primary challenge in 2020. He may not be decided on that course, but he probably wants to keep his self-serving options open.

posted by Ace of Spades at 03:00 PM

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