Virginia Military Institute Pushes Against Romney's Requests

From Mother Jones:

When Mitt Romney addressed a crowd of cadets at Virginia Military Institute on Oct. 8, he was supposed to give a major foreign policy speech that steered clear of partisan politics. That's because VMI personnel observe the US military's tradition of political neutrality when in uniform. But internal emails obtained by Mother Jones show that Romney's campaign pushed to burnish his commander-in-chief credentials by maximizing military optics around the event. Members of Romney's staff sought to use the VMI logo in their campaign materials, requested that uniformed cadets be let out of class early to attend Romney's speech, and asked VMI "to select a few cadet veterans and give them a place of honor" standing behind Romney during his address.

As the campaign pushed for these requests, VMI officials pushed back, concerned that they were for partisan purposes. Each request was denied by the state-run institution, whose students serve in the US military's Reserve Officers Training Corps, so that VMI would not be seen as endorsing Romney's candidacy. The Romney campaign also pressured VMI to play host to "15 to 20" retired admirals and generals at the school who traveled there to endorse Romney; VMI eventually relented to that request.

The nearly 70 pages of email communications between VMI and Romney's staff were released to Mother Jones as part of a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request. They show that even as VMI officers agreed to host the speech and give their cadet corps what they saw as a once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunity, they were wary of the campaign's intentions.

~

Romney's people pushed political requests, however. Noonan later asked VMI to accommodate "no more than 20" retired senior military officers, who would endorse Romney while he was at the school for the speech. Calling this a "new twist" on the original request, VMI Chief of Staff Jeffrey Curtis seemed unenthusiastic. "This isn't something where we're going to roll out a red carpet for them," he wrote to a coworker. Nevertheless, the Institute found a place to host the officers, after setting ground rules "that allow us to remain non-partisan, non-political."