Mitt Romney has claimed that he wants to keep his campaign’s focus away from absurd distractions like birtherism, but his campaign has kept close ties with many who refuse to abandon the conspiracy theories.
Here are six notable birthers on Team Romney.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett has apologized for any embarrassment he caused his state when he revived a widely discredited conspiracy theory about President Obama’s birthplace by requesting verification that the president was born in Hawaii.
The apology came on the same day that Hawaii officials finally responded to Bennett’s request for “verification in lieu of” the birth certificate, which he said last week could be a precondition for placing Obama’s name on the Arizona ballot.
“If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said Tuesday in an interview with radio station KTAR.
Obama’s name will appear on the ballot “as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has,” Bennett said.
One of the more amusing things revealed last week when Arizona’s secretary of state came out as birther curious was that Hawaii officials just simply don’t believe he’s qualified to investigate Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
Sure, Ken Bennett says he’s the man in charge of deciding whether President Obama is eligible to be on Arizona’s ballot in November, but the response from people in Hawaii’s government has been: Prove it. In essence, they’re giving Bennett a taste of his own medicine, making him jump through a series of hoops to prove he has the legal authority to investigate the matter…
Hawaii officials have plenty of reasons to push back. Birtherism is a conspiracy theory fueled by a fringe group of writers and activists unwilling to believe Obama is a natural born citizen and therefore eligible for the presidency no matter how much evidence they get.
The effect is that Hawaii has been overloaded for years with requests for verification of the president’s birth certificate, getting as many as 50 new requests a month. Hawaii officials have passed laws and filed sworn affidavits to deal with the matter. The White House has even gone as far as to release a copy of the president’s long-form birth certificate to the public. Yet requests like Bennett’s still keep coming.
Emails Show How Hawaii Stiffed Arizona Secretary Of State’s Birther Investigation
(Via Quick Hits Headlines.)
Arizona Goes Birther: Secretary Of State Says It’s ‘Possible’ Obama Won’t Be On Ballot
The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he’s not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.
Bennett’s comments came in an interview late Thursday with conservative radio talk show host Mike Broomhead on Phoenix station KFYI.
Arpaio: Obama’s birth certificate not authentic
The birth certificate is perfectly authentic — unlike you, Arpaio.
This is Rick Perry’s desperate bid to get out of fifth place in New Hampshire and Iowa.
…[I]n addition to the above Gallup findings, Public Policy Polling finds Trump has dropped to a meager 8 percent in a 2012 GOP primary matchup, tied for fifth place with Ron Paul. As Dave Weigel notes, Trump’s numbers are “collapsing like a poorly built McMansion.”
“Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”
