Daily Times

Sir: I am writing with reference to “Obama’s re-election hopes rise” by Andrew Hammond (Daily Times, April 17, 2012).
According to a Chinese proverb, “If you live in a madhouse, you must behave like a madman to survive.” In that sense, the Republican Party is essentially a madhouse where even the sane former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is behaving like a ‘madman’ to please the party’s ideologically ‘mad’ conservative base. On February 10, he told the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor”. As Molly Ball at the Atlantic magazine pointed out, Mr Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease”. Indeed, words that commonly follow the adverb ‘severely’ are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.
To please the mad Republican base, Romney has renounced his own crown achievement: the Massachusetts Healthcare Bill. Not to be outdone, another Republican hopeful, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich denounced Romney’s healthcare bill, which he earlier endorsed. But the ‘maddest’ of all is former Senator Rick Santorum who is clearly the favourite of the mad Republican base. Mr Santorum has declared that climate change is a hoax, part of a “beautifully concocted scheme” on the part of the American left to provide “an excuse for more government control of your life”. Although Mitt Romney is likely to get the nomination because of his delegate counts, the mad base will never be satisfied with him because they think he is a closet liberal. The danger is that in order to satisfy the Republican mad base, he might end up picking Santorum or someone mad like him as his running mate. Even some Republicans are disgusted by the antics of these candidates. As a moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snow of Maine said last week, she could no longer follow the rabid partisanship and would not seek re-election.
By trying to please the mad Republican base, Mr. Romney might have already lost the battle as most Americans are likely to reject the madhouse, what once was known as the Grand Old Party (GOP). Other than a miracle, Obama is likely to win in a landslide.
MAHMOOD ELAHI
Ottawa, Canada