Romney's recent antics are just a part of a play to put him in contention for a 2024 presidential play.
I guess he can run as a Democrat.
Romney faces party scorn, isolation after impeachment vote: 'He is ostracized'
By
Marisa Schultz | Fox News
Exclusive: 'Fox News Sunday' anchor Chris Wallace interviews Republican Senator Mitt Romney about his decision to vote to convict President Trump on abuse of power article of impeachment.
Mitt
Romney will have a long road to redemption with the GOP – at least as long as President Trump is in office.
For those closest to the president, the business titan who was the party standard-bearer just eight years ago may never be forgiven over his dramatic vote to convict Trump on abuse of power this week. He could face primary challenges on top of the sustained scorn of Trump backers in his own state. His own
family has a beef with him. The U.S. Capitol will become an instantly more challenging labyrinth of relationships.
“In a political sense, he is ostracized. He is excommunicated. He has lost all credibility. He should hire lots of security guards -- I don't wish him any physical harm, but people are furious!” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, who already disinvited Romney from the popular
CPAC convention this month. (Romney won the CPAC straw poll in 2012.)
As for whether Romney can be forgiven by Republicans, Schlapp had a terse answer: “Never.”
'He has lost all credibility. He should hire lots of security guards -- I don't wish him any physical harm, but people are furious!'
— Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union
An effort in Utah to allow voters to recall their senators suddenly picked up steam. Although the author of the legislation said the bill was never aimed at Romney specifically, the effort caught fire since Romney’s impeachment vote on Wednesday,
the Deseret News reports.
The bill, sponsored by GOP Utah state Rep. Tim Quinn, would create a process by which a recall vote could go on the ballot after a petition by voters. Quinn said he’s been inundated this week with phone calls and emails that are “100 percent positive to the bill.”
The American Conservative Union is backing the recall legislation. But Schlapp said Romney should do Utah voters a favor and just resign.
"That would be the honorable thing [to do]," he told Fox News.
Romney isn’t up for reelection until 2024.
Other Trump loyalists said Romney will be paying the price at the ballot box.
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who attended the impeachment vote, said Romney will be a “one-term senator.”
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., an outspoken Trump backer, said: “I don't see punishment coming, other than from the voters of Utah."
Dan Eberhart, a GOP fundraiser, said that Romney’s actions will certainly invite a primary challenge.
“Romney has been waiting to thumb his nose at Trump in the highest-profile way since his arrival in the Senate,” Eberhart said. “Romney is now the first senator in history to convict a president of his own party. That’s going to have a lasting impact on how he’s seen within the Republican Party.”
Intense Trump supporters viewed Romney’s defection as the ultimate betrayal and the final chapter of a long and troubled relationship between the two powerful men. Romney was complimentary toward Trump when he needed his endorsement for president in 2012 and for Utah senator in 2018, but in between, he ripped Trump as a “fraud” and a “phony” and refused to back him as president -- instead voting for his wife, Ann, whose name he wrote on his ballot.
On Wednesday, an emotional Romney cited his strong faith as the reason he had to follow his conviction and explained: “God demanded it of me.”
Trump tore into that rationale at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. After brandishing newspapers with the headlines “ACQUITTED,” Trump told the crowd, “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong."
Schlapp said Romney’s justification of faith was particularly galling.
“Him trotting out his faith and God was insulting to those of us who believe in God and believe differently than him on this vote," Schlapp said. "I also think it's strange that he puts God in the drawer and then pulls him back out … depending on the political circumstances that impact Mitt Romney.”
Romney's vote put him at odds with the other GOP senator from Utah, Mike Lee, who said his colleague made the Democrats happy.
"I think Republicans are very upset about it. And I, for one, disagree with it and disagree with it strongly,” Lee told Shannon Bream on “
Fox News @ Night.”
Outrage on social media against Romney was swift and fierce—with Trump’s oldest son, Don Jr.,
posting a meme of Romney calling him a “p-ssy” and tweeting that the 2012 GOP presidential nominee should be expelled from the Republican Party.
Others branded Romney a traitor or a sore loser who is still bitter that Trump won the presidency when he couldn’t.
President Trump tweeted out a video that accused Romney of being a “Democrat secret asset.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jerseyan who left the Democratic Party after refusing to impeach Trump and joined the GOP, said Romney was wrong for his vote. Van Drew’s pledge of support to Trump was rewarded with a big Trump rally on the Jersey Shore last month.
“I think it was counterproductive for him, and the Republican Party, and he was wrong,” Van Drew said of Romney. “In the end, he lost so he has to decide for himself if that was worthwhile.
“You make your bed.”
