George Soros: there 'isn’t all that much difference' between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama

Mail Online

This isn't exactly the kind of endorsement the Romney campaign is looking for. It's probably even less welcome than the purported nod for Newt Gingrich from crooked GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham sent from his jail cell.

Speaking in Davos, gathering place for the global elites and upscale chattering classes, billionaire investor George Soros - loathed by conservative activists for his"zillion-dollar left-wing radical agenda machine" - seemed to be pretty much OK with the notion of a Romney presidency.

"Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in," he told Chrystia Freeland of Reuters in a videotaped interview. "If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them."

Soros theorised that "Romney would have to take Gingrich or Santorum as a Vice President and you probably have some pretty extreme candidates for the Supreme Court" but the "Obama administration is a bit exhausted" so presumably - he implied - a Romney administration would at least have the advantage of renewed vim.

"So it won't be that great a difference and I think there won't be a great deal of enthusiasm on either side of the battleground. It will be more civilised than the previous elections have been."

Hmm. First of all, I wouldn't hold my breath on Romney choosing Gingrich or Santorum as veep. As I suggested last night, Gingrich is rather more likely to be Romney's Ambassador to the Moon than his number two. Santorum, despite the good campaign he has fought, is unlikely to make the cut, not least because he lost his home state of Pennsyvania, a key swing state, by 18 points in 2006.

And I, er, wouldn't hold my breath about an Obama-Romney general election being "civilised".

As Rush Limbaugh suggests, Soros may well be making mischief here by feeding theRomney as RINO meme. "He's endorsing Romney, 'Romney, that's cool, no difference, I could go either way that way'," Limbaugh said on his radio show today. "Now, Soros knows that he's hated by the Republican base. So if he's playing psychology, he's trying to shtup Romney, if you will."

The Obama campaign views Romney as wounded and Democrats and their union allies are doing their best to hurt him further in Florida. Their thinking is that this might just help Gingrich secure the nomination or make Romney a less formidable candidate in the general election - in their view, a victory for the Left either way.