Rand Paul isn’t wasting any time slapping his soon-to-be Senate colleague for his op-ed attack on Trump.
Paul referred to Romney as a “big government Republican’ who never liked Reagan and then implies that Romney is a faux conservative because he’s more worried about virtue signaling about Trump’s character than Trump’s “actual conservative reform agenda”:
Like other Big Government Republicans who never liked Reagan, Mitt Romney wants to signal how virtuous he is in comparison to the President. Well, I’m most concerned and pleased with the actual conservative reform agenda @realDonaldTrump has achieved.
https://t.co/vNvp2ZwyK7— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 2, 2019
Wow.
And this is part of what I suspect would happen. Romney comes out swinging a bat at Trump and not only alienates people who want to see Trump succeed at solid conservative agenda, but also his own Republican colleagues who have participated in accomplishing a conservative agenda.
The only friends Romney has truly made with this op-ed is Democrats and staunch anti-Trump Republicans. And the media, of course.
Even Shapiro wondered on Twitter what Romney was thinking with this strategy:
Even if you agree with the sentiments here, I don't get the strategy. If this is just seeking Strange New Respect from people who hated Romney in 2012 the same way they hate Trump today, that's not likely to reunify conservatives around the principles Romney is espousing. https://t.co/8wtBiOyTDs
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 2, 2019