Meet the Romney Campaign’s Snarkiest Wonk
Since Lanhee Chen joined the Romney campaign in March last year, his public pronouncements have been liberally seasoned with snark. Tweeting about Newt Gingrich during the first Florida debate, he wrote, “Thanks for explaining why you were forced to resign in disgrace, Mr. Speaker.” In April, he tweeted: “[David Axelrod] says Obama to be judged on his record. Like record high prices for gas?” In another tweet, he ridiculed “Obama’s ‘pretty please’ foreign policy.” And in a blog post on economic policy, Chen couldn’t resist a few personal potshots: “The President will have all year to elaborate on how his time as a community organizer helped him understand the implications of tax increases for investment decisions,” he wrote. “He can also describe for voters how his law school lecturing duties showed him the extraordinary economic potential of the nation’s energy resources.”
Chen is not the only member of the Romney team whose qualifications appear to include a set of brass knuckles. Romney’s pugnacious adviser Eric Fehrnstrom, for instance, is a proud alumnus of Boston’s take-no-prisoners tabloid culture. But Chen is the campaign’s policy director, a position generally occupied by more wonky types who refrain from day-to-day brawling.
And yet that hasn’t stopped him from routinely indulging in some fact-free mudslinging. In January, he characterized Obama’s tenure as “an unmitigated disaster” that has brought about “one of the most anti-competitive, anti-business-friendly environments in the entire world.” A few months later, he asserted that the president has a point of view that “punishes success.” So what is Lanhee Chen’s role in Romneyworld—egghead or hothead?