Conservative site on Romney: 'Enemies of the constitution ... are not welcome here' Free Republic founder Jim Robinson has a message for supporters of Mitt Romney: go away.
In an email to POLITICO this afternoon, Robinson admitted that the site routinely blocks Romney supporters from posting -- and offered no apologies for the practice:
Free Republic is a pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, pro-small government, pro-constitution, pro-liberty site. Governor Romney is none of the above. His record is that of an abortionist, gay rights pushing, gun grabbing, global warming advocating, big government, mandate loving, constitution trampling, flip-flopping liberal progressive with no core values. That and the fact that he is the chief architect and advocate for ObamaCare disqualifies him for any consideration whatsoever on Free Republic as a potential nominee for the presidency. ... Liberal progressives and other enemies of the constitution and or of Liberty itself are not welcome here. Accounts registered here by liberal progressives and other assorted trolls, malcontents and disruptors will be removed on sight or at the convenience of the site administrators.
The site came under fire from Ross Abraham, a blogger for Mitt Romney Central, who wrote today that Free Republic is just one of several sites (along with RedState, he says) on the right-wing Internet that are pretty much off limits to Mitt Romney's supporters.
Now, for some reason, these editors/moderators are so insecure in their prejudice against Gov. Romney that they ban people who openly support Gov. Romney. Free Republic (mostly because of it’s [sic] owner Jim Robinson) has purged all of the Romney supporters they could from the site in two waves of purges over the last few years. The anti-Romney and anti-Mormon bigotry evident at Free Republic now is absolutely sickening.
But Free Republic has made no secret of its dislike for Romney -- Robinson has written a handful of posts that are hostile to Romney this year.
He posted on "why we can never support Mitt Romney" earlier this month, saying Romney has "violated nearly every plank in the Republican party's official pro-God, pro-Life, pro-Family, pro-Constitution, pro-Liberty platform."
And in May, Robinson explicitly said Romney supporters are not welcome:
I'd rather shut the place down than be involved in any effort to install abortionist/gay rights pushing RINOS like Romney or Giuliani into the White House!! Do NOT push this crap on FR. Take your business elsewhere!!
It's unclear what the situation is at RedState, though, the other site named in Abraham's story. I reached out to Erick Erickson for comment, but didn't get a response.
Nate Gunderson, who also writes for Mitt Romney Central, said he doesn't know the whole background with RedState but that Abraham's post was in response to two pro-Romney writers being banned from the site.
"I know that Red State is typically not a Romney friendly zone, but I concede to them the right to run their website as they wish," he wrote in an email. "It is a real possibility that these two may have over stepped their bounds."
He said he's not really concerned with the sites' practices and that he hasn't reached out to them at all.
"There are those who don't like Romney and may never come around to him," he said. "I think there are enough sensible voters out there that it won't really matter."