Six International Newspaper Columnists Who Actually Like Mitt Romney

The Republican candidate has boosters in unlikely places -- from Canada to the Congo.

BY URI FRIEDMAN | MARCH 8, 2012

It's become one of the most unassailable truisms of the 2012 campaign season: Mitt Romney is likely to be the least-favorite favorite -- the most forlorn frontunner -- to win the Republican nomination for president (or, as the National Review's Rich Lowry put it this week, the candidate of "Eh, I guess"). The foreign press has picked up on the theme as well. "Romney: The Candidate That No One Loves," Austria's Die Presse proclaimed in a stinging post-Super Tuesday headline. Congratulations on the wins, Mitt!

Yes, as we've chronicled before, news outlets in countries as diverse as China, France, Germany, Iran, Mexico, and Russia have lashed out at Romney for his hawkish stances on Russian aggression, European socialism, Iranian nuclear ambitions, Chinese economic policy, and illegal immigration. And there's certainly more venom out there to survey. In recent months, Mexican columnist María Antonieta Collins has declared that Romney's "arrogance" about the poor makes her "sick," South Korean political science professor Moon Chung-in has warned that a President Romney could escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula, and Russian commentator Dmitry Babich has argued that Romney's perception of the recent Russian presidential election "is no more realistic than Santorum's vision of Dutch pensioners in the hands of euthanasia's enthusiasts" -- to name just a few examples.

But is any of the overseas coverage positive? It turns out there are columnists -- some in unlikely places -- who have expressed varying degrees of support for Romney. Here's a look at six of the most interesting cases.

AYESHA HAROON

News outlet: The News International (Pakistan)

Where she stands: Haroon, a former editor of the News who is now based in New York, seems to admire the old northeastern moderate, not the conservative firebrand of the Republican primary season. In a column last month, she expressed support for something Romney has been distancing himself from on the campaign trail: the health-care reform legislation he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. Romney shouldn't be apologizing for trying to cover the uninsured, she argued, but he is, in an effort to placate the Republican base. In an op-ed for the News a week earlier, Haroon scolded Romney for saying he was "not concerned about the very poor." His "electoral focus is the middle class," she conceded, "but how can a presidential candidate dismiss an entire block of vulnerable citizens as being not important enough for his concern?"

Money quote: "Republicans build their campaign in the U.S. on the framework that government should not be in politics. We hear the same argument in Pakistan -- especially by technocrats in Islamabad. But the fact remains, as Mr. Romney realized during his governorship, that social-welfare programs are essential for a government to remain relevant for the vulnerable and the poor. If a government cannot improve the lives of its masses, then what good is it?"

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

 

Uri Friedman is an associate editor at Foreign Policy.

RFKFLA

8:31 PM ET

March 8, 2012

Mr. Romney's religion and conservativism

My comments to the Washington Examiner and Sean Hannnity, FoxNews.
Well when it comes to any sport, if they win by one point, then it is a weak win. In baseball it always that close, but in your eyes it is always a weak win. The sport fans and others like myself, consider a win is a win and maybe your paper is a weak win over another if you only have few more readers than the others. Let's stop the bias and get on with the GOP election. If anyone had listened to Mr. Romney in the debates and not once, but serveral times, he has said his program was right for Mass., but it may not be right for other states. As president he would allow the states to do their own health insurance program. The difference here is Santorum is deaf and as a wife would say, "selective hearing." Mr. Romney is a true capitalist and he has shown it more than Santorum or Gingrich who lived off "our money" for a number of years. Secondly, they try to separate his religion with the Evangelicals, however, are you and others like the two trying to say his religion is wrong with your point of view. Are you saying the Jewish religion is also wrong, the Hindu religion is wrong? You people sound like the Muslim world separating the Sunnis from the Shittes here in the US and yet we have a constitution that everyone seems to enjoy except his religious beliefs. He tithes to his church 10% or more, let us ask those others are they that generous to their church of belief? I am a moderate conservative, meaning one has to think for themselves not the sheep to slaughter like the ultra right or left, but no one has really defined conservative concept without using Gingrich or Santorum and I even question their's. Please stop being bias, like the others and if you want to see the GOP win in November, then start showing your colors as a GOP or leanings anyway and stop this madness.

 

JOHN NEWCOMB

9:14 AM ET

March 9, 2012

Romney's Russian comment reverberates...

Romney's view of corrupt Russian elections is actually very close to concerns raised by Secretary of State Clinton, which were originally raised by the international team of OSCE observers - much (not all) of the corruption in the elections happened prior to election day, in the systemic bias built into the Russian electoral process that favours just one candidate - the incumbent: http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/88661

 

JERICA DELBUSTO

8:46 PM ET

April 5, 2012

Mitt Romney

In my opinion, It is sure that, Mitt Romney is well-positioned to grind out a primary victory, but make no mistake, there is not a swelling of enthusiasm for him among Republicans. He's just wearing down his opponents with millions of dollars in attack ads. Mitt Romney began his career in business. He worked for the management consulting firm Bain & Company before founding the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984. In 1994, he ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts but was defeated by longtime incumbent Edward Kennedy.
In 1999, Romney stepped into the national spotlight when he took over as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. He helped rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics from financial and ethical woes, and helmed a successful Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002.