Ahead of tonight’s foreign policy debate, former Governor Mitt Romney completely ignored questions about whether he would engage in direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Romney was questioned yesterday after performing the coin toss in a flag-football game between his campaign press team and the reporters who travel with him on the stump.
Asked point blank if he would engage in one-on-one talks with the Iranian government, Romney dodged:
[A]n aide quickly jumped in, “Guys this is a football game, come on.”
“I thought you were talking about one-on-one talks with the President, I was about to answer,” Romney said, laughing.
Another reporter asked Romney if he feels ready for Monday’s debate, to which Romney responded, “Ready for football!”
The pointed questions come after reports this weekend that the White House has agreed in principle for the first time to having direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program. These talks would come some time after the Nov. 6 elections, as the Iranians would want to know whether they’d be dealing with an Obama or Romney administration. Such a move would be a major shift in the current negotiating strategy, which revolves around the P5+1 group acting in concert when dealing with Iran.
The report goes on to say that Romney’s senior foreign policy advisor Dan Senor refused to answer the question on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. It looks like they’re having a real hard time spinning this into something bad, so they’re just going to try to pretend it never happened or that it’s not a very important development.
Of course, another possibility is that they don’t want to tip their hand before the debate tonight, where the subject is all but guaranteed to come up. Still, there are only really two possible positions — they will or they won’t. It wouldn’t be hard for President Obama to prepare for both.
