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Wednesday, Feb 22, 2012 5:30 PM UTC

Romney welcomes birther clown Trump’s support

Notorious former fake candidate robo-calls for the "electable" Republican

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Topics: Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, 2012 Elections, Birthers,

Romney welcomes birther clown Trump's supportMitt Romney and Donald Trump (Credit: AP/Julie Jacobson)

Oft-bankrupt make-believe mogul and sexist buffoon Donald Trump is figuratively hitting the campaign trail in support of the man he endorsed earlier this month, Mitt Romney.

The repellent reality television personality has recorded robo-calls for Romney, because nothing makes a person more excited to vote than the sound of Donald Trump invading your personal space and hectoring you for no reason. Citizens across Michigan can look forward to unsolicited phone calls from a recording of the guy who tells D-list celebrities that they’re fired, only instead he will be telling them that the former governor of Massachusetts is “a good man” and former Sen. Rick Santorum is a “career politician.”

Any decent human being with a modicum of shame would be embarrassed to be seen publicly with Mr. Trump, which is partly why Romney refused to be photographed with the grotesque parody of American wealth-worship when meeting with him late last year, but Romney is in desperation mode as he seeks to win the support of a bunch of people who just don’t like him very much. Now Trump is headlining Romney fundraisers and making radio appearances on behalf of the candidate and making sure that Americans know that they can expect Mr. Romney to be as fine a president as Trump University is a (non-accredited for-profit online) college.

Romney, truly the “Trump Steaks” of Republican presidential candidates, is statistically tied with Rick Santorum in the most recent Michigan poll, and running even with Santorum nationally as well, but this Trump endorsement should be a huge help in his efforts to win over the all-important “credulous racist birther moron” vote.

Trump made sure his big endorsement coincided with the premiere of the new season of “Celebrity Apprentice,” and he is also counting on the fact that everyone basically forgot exactly how toxic his own pretend run for the nomination eventually became last year. And basically only liberal blogs are even bringing up the fact that Trump’s “platform” as a candidate was dark insinuations about the president’s birthplace and personal history, and that it collapsed entirely after the president actually released his “long-form birth certificate,” which showed that his already released regular birth certificate was genuine and accurate. (Though a couple conservatives have criticized Romney’s open embrace of Trump, more because Trump is extremely unpopular than because he’s a racist fraud.)

Romney indulging Trump by accepting his endorsement was gross, and Romney recruiting Trump to actively campaign for him should be universally declared well outside the realm of “acceptable” national campaign behavior, but it’s maybe too obviously sad and desperate for people to get up in arms about. (And the political press is uncomfortable explicitly calling a ridiculous con artist a ridiculous con artist, even when it’s post-birtherism Donald Trump, so the lack of “nationally reviled untrustworthy clown endorses candidate” headlines at the traditional news organizations is not terribly surprising.) But it’s also gross that NBC renewed Trump’s contract and launched a new season of his terrible show, and it did it for similar reasons as Romney: He gets ratings, and headlines.

It just shouldn’t be forgotten or ignored that the only substantial difference between campaigning with Donald Trump and campaigning with Orly Taitz is that Trump is considered kosher because he’s a major-network TV star. (Well, and Orly has much better hair.)

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

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