Mitt Romney took a hard break from his Republican opponents for the presidential nomination in an interview with a New Hampshire newspaper Monday.
Unlike much of the rest of the GOP field, Romney’s not ready to condemn the booing of a gay soldier at the last debate.
Other candidates have said it was wrong for members of the audience at the debate in Orlando to boo when Army Capt. Stephen Hill asked if he’d still be allowed to serve openly if any of the Republicans on stage won. Some candidates have even said they wish they had said something at the debate instead of standing silent when the boos came.
Not Romney.
“You’d have to look at it,” he told the New Hampshire Union-Leader, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I don’t know when they booed, and I don’t know why people booed. I will tell you that the boos and the applause has not always coincided with my own views.”
Democrats have seized on the silence from the GOP field to rally their base. At the HRC dinner the other night, President Obama called out the GOP field for not speaking up.
“We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s okay for a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the president of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don’t believe in that,” Obama said.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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