Ric Grenell resigns because his boss is beholden to a party base that fervently embraces bigotry. Grenell served Republicans in Congress and the Bush White House’s UN delegation for years.

I’m not surprised anymore when I find out a woman, person of color or LGBT person is a Republican staffer or candidate but I am surprised when anyone is shocked when they get put in their place by their party’s base. This is the party platform. It’s what they believe. If you carry the banner of a candidate who subscribes to most or all of these beliefs, you choose to live with the consequences of those beliefs. When pundits guess that the intentionally vague Romney is a moderate or will tack to the center, they need to understand that Romney needs to energize his base to win and he can’t do that and moderate enough to be in the center of any political spectrum.

And Romney’s statement that they begged Grenell to stay is bullshit and spin. Grenell’s no newbie, he was qualified to be a neo-con foreign policy spokesperson, and he’s already worked for Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and the Bush Administration as UN spokesperson in the aughts. Romney is literally to the right of the 1990’s Gingrich led Republican delegation and the George W. Bush White House.

Update: this is the surprise I was talking about

“The Romney campaign should have spoken up publicly in defense of Rick against the attacks over the past two weeks,” GOProud’s executive director Jimmy LaSalvia said in an interview with me just now.

“This was an opportunity to send an important message that Mitt Romney wants everybody to get behind him and to support his camapign,” LaSalvia continued. “They let that opportunity pass.”

How can you expect the Republican Party to support you when a plank of the party’s platform is that you are a person to be campaigned against?