Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney’s Campaign Spokesman, resigned from the campaign early this week. Grenell was openly gay and he felt that he did not have the ability to stand up for himself as others were trashing his reputation.
Grenell’s hiring was widely criticized by the Conservative wing of the Republican Party at first. It is said that Grenell wasn’t criticized for being gay but for being an advocate of gay rights.
Romney’s campaign was supposedly surprised by Grenell’s decision to leave as he felt that any controversy surrounding him had evaporated.
A Romney source said,
“In the scale of things, we didn’t view it as a major story and in fact thought it had blown over. The main source of the criticism was from a person on the far right that Romney had taken on before,”
The person the Romney aide was speaking about was the president of the American Family Association, Bryan Fischer. Romney had already condemned Fischer in October for using “poisonous language” (it should be noted that Romney had no objection to Fischer’s remarks about gays but to some remarks he had made about Mormonism).
It was said that the way in which Romney’s campaign handled the issue of releasing statements made by others in support of Grenell only upon request. That supposedly irked Grenell who was more of the opinion that Romney’s support should have been more proactive.
This issue is a snapshot on what Mitt Romney is going to encounter as he moves more towards the general election. What he is banking on is that conservatives will hold their nose and vote for him because they hate President Obama so much and that his moderate stances on the issues will carry the day with independents.