WaPo Op-Ed Calls Mitt Romney ‘A Good Man’ In ‘The Right Fight’

In an editorial for The Washington Post, Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, defends the fallen GOP candidate, calling him “a good man” in “the right fight.”

We haven’t heard much from Romney in the weeks since the 2012 election, aside from a few social sightings and a controversial explanation as to why he lost the presidency. In a lengthy op-ed for The Washington Post, his chief strategist Stuart Stevens defends Romney from his post-election critics, arguing that a good man and a good candidate was lost somewhere in the fog of gaffes and attack ads.

“I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of DC’s Green Room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians,” Stevens begins. “Nobody liked Romney except voters. […] He bested the competition in debates, and though he was behind almost every candidate in the primary at one time or the other, he won the nomination and came very close to winning the presidency.”

Stevens also defends Romney because “he raised more money for the Republican Party than the Republican Party did. He trounced Barack Obama in debate. He defended the free-enterprise system and, more than any figure in recent history, drew attention to the moral case for free enterprise and conservative economics.”

He concedes that “The Obama organization ran a great campaign,” and admits that “the Republican Party has problems,” but concludes by defending Mitt Romney not from Democrats, but from Republicans:

“When Mitt Romney stood on stage with Barack Obama, it wasn’t about television ads or whiz- bang turnout technologies, it was about fundamental Republican ideas versus fundamental Democratic ideas. It was about lower taxes or higher taxes, less government or more government, more freedom or less freedom. And Republican ideals — Mitt Romney — carried the day.”

You can read Stuart Stevens’ full column at The Washington Post.