When the time came for Mitt Romney to stand up and take a stand, he cowered behind aides and homophobes. The question remains, if Grenell was being forced out by the forces in the Republican Party, why didn’t Romney or his campaign stand up and say, “No!” Greg Sargent writes:
But whatever you think of Grenell, the problem for gay Republicans like GOProud remains that the Romney campaign didn’t meaningfullly stand up to the attacks while they were going on. As Jennifer Rubin notes, prominent social conservatives were not privately asked to quiet the storm on the right. Romney’s aides may be right on the question of whether Grenell was or wasn’t asked to leave, but it’s hard to see how that changes the broader story here, or makes this whole affair any less of a referendum on Romney’s leadership or willingness to take on extreme voices within his own party.