Mitt Rom­ney kept qui­et last week when the sub­ject was rape and God’s will. He remained silent the week before when the news was all about Illi­nois fac­to­ry work­ers plead­ing with him to stop his alma mater Bain Cap­i­tal from off­shoring their jobs.

A simple statement from Romney would have sufficed: winning by means of voter suppression and registration fraud is craven and beneath the dignity of anyone seeking public office. But he said nothing.

At no time this year did Mitt denounce Repub­li­can employ­ers who threat­ened their work­ers if Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is re-elect­ed or con­demn repeat­ed Repub­li­can leg­isla­tive attempts to sup­press Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes.

Through­out the cam­paign, Mitt Rom­ney con­front­ed numer­ous George Wash­ing­ton moments — oppor­tu­ni­ties to estab­lish an aura of hon­or. It takes mox­ie to tell fel­low Repub­li­cans that vot­er sup­pres­sion is un-Amer­i­can. Only a guy with strong­ly held prin­ci­ples would stand up to the firm he found­ed and insist they stop the moral­ly bank­rupt prac­tice of off­shoring jobs from prof­it-mak­ing Amer­i­can fac­to­ries. At every turn, Rom­ney chose the igno­ble path. He kept his mouth shut rather than speak up for what’s right.

Just last week, an oppor­tu­ni­ty for right­eous­ness land­ed in Romney’s lap. It hap­pened when the Repub­li­can can­di­date for U.S. Sen­ate in Indi­ana, Richard E. Mour­dock, said he opposed all abor­tions, even in cas­es of rape, and sug­gest­ed that God intends rape to hap­pen. Here’s what Mour­dock said:

​“Even when life begins in that hor­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion of rape, it is some­thing that God intend­ed to happen.”

Rom­ney could have specif­i­cal­ly renounced this view – that God intends women to be raped and become preg­nant as a result. And he could have under­scored that posi­tion by end­ing tele­vi­sion ads in which he endors­es Mourdock.

But he didn’t. A cam­paign spokes­woman said Mitt ​“dis­agreed” with Mour­dock on that rape thing, but still sup­ports him. Since then, Mitt has refused to answer ques­tions about Mourdock.

And he’s kept air­ing his Mour­dock endorse­ment ads.

Clear­ly, Mitt val­ues a Repub­li­can-con­trolled U.S. Sen­ate over a decent stand on rape.

Just the week before, height­ened news cov­er­age of the plight of work­ers at the Sen­sa­ta fac­to­ry in Freeport, Ill., gave Rom­ney anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to do the right thing.

He chose to do nothing.

The 170 work­ers at Sen­sa­ta will lose their jobs at year’s end when Bain Cap­i­tal fin­ish­es ship­ping the car sen­sor fac­to­ry lock, stock and machin­ery to Chi­na. The work­ers have repeat­ed­ly peti­tioned Rom­ney to inter­vene with Bain, a firm he cre­at­ed and still prof­its from, to stop the offshoring.

Rom­ney stiffed them. The can­di­date who claims he would cre­ate 12 mil­lion jobs if elect­ed pres­i­dent failed to make an attempt to save the jobs of these 170 work­ers at a suc­cess­ful, mon­ey-mak­ing Amer­i­can fac­to­ry. He didn’t send the work­ers his con­do­lences for per­son­al­ly prof­it­ing from their calami­ty. He has nev­er even acknowl­edged the Sen­sa­ta work­ers’ existence.

At vir­tu­al­ly any moment as he ran for pres­i­dent over the past two years, Rom­ney could have very pub­li­cal­ly deplored Repub­li­can attempts to sup­press Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes. That’s because vir­tu­al­ly con­tin­u­ous­ly over that time, Repub­li­can-con­trolled leg­is­la­tures, Repub­li­can gov­er­nors and oth­er GOP offi­cials have con­coct­ed a vari­ety of mea­sures to wrest from Democ­rats their right to vote. These include pass­ing oner­ous pho­to ID require­ments, lim­it­ing ear­ly bal­lot­ing and aggres­sive­ly purg­ing vot­er rolls.

These mea­sures dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect minor­i­ty, poor, dis­abled, elder­ly and women vot­ers, all of whom tend to vote Demo­c­rat. Among the most egre­gious exam­ples occurred in Ohio where the sec­re­tary of state tried to lim­it poll hours in Demo­c­ra­t­ic-dom­i­nat­ed coun­ties and extend them in Repub­li­can-con­trolled coun­ties.

At any time dur­ing the mas­sive pub­lic­i­ty over any one of these inci­dents across the coun­try – from Maine to Mon­tana and Flori­da to Ari­zona – Rom­ney could have stood up and spo­ken for fair­ness. He nev­er did – not even after the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee was forced to fire a shady vot­er reg­is­tra­tion firm that was caught in Sep­tem­ber sub­mit­ting hun­dreds of fraud­u­lent reg­is­tra­tion forms in Flori­da or after a Repub­li­can oper­a­tive in Vir­ginia was crim­i­nal­ly charged in Octo­ber with throw­ing com­plet­ed vot­er reg­is­tra­tion forms in a Dumpster.

A sim­ple state­ment from Rom­ney would have suf­ficed: win­ning by means of vot­er sup­pres­sion and reg­is­tra­tion fraud is craven and beneath the dig­ni­ty of any­one seek­ing pub­lic office. But he said nothing.

Sim­i­lar to vot­er sup­pres­sion is the attempt at vot­er coer­cion that has been made by numer­ous employ­ers this year. Just this past week, Mike White, own­er of Rite-Hite, a Mil­wau­kee indus­tri­al equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­er, threat­ened his work­ers with ​“per­son­al con­se­quences” if Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is re-elect­ed. Ear­li­er this month, time­share mogul David Siegel, who is build­ing him­self a 90,000-square-foot, $100 mil­lion home, threat­ened to lay off his work­ers if Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is re-elect­ed. Arthur Allen of ASG Soft­ware Solu­tions and the Koch broth­ers of Geor­gia Pacif­ic, told their tens of thou­sands of work­ers they’d suf­fer fall­out if Rom­ney loses.

Rom­ney could have act­ed as a shield for work­ers by con­demn­ing this intim­i­da­tion. Instead, in a June con­fer­ence call with busi­ness own­ers, Rom­ney encour­aged bul­ly­ing. He told the busi­ness owners:

​”I hope you make it very clear to your employ­ees what you believe is in the best inter­est of your enter­prise and there­fore their job and their future in the upcom­ing elections.”

What Amer­i­cans want is a pres­i­dent like George Wash­ing­ton. The general’s appeal is not the quirky wood­en teeth or odd half-fin­ished por­trait. It’s the nev­er-tell-a-lie, step-down-from-pow­er nobil­i­ty of the guy. Rom­ney, by con­trast, has shown he’s will­ing to win with­out hon­or. He doesn’t seem to know Amer­i­cans won’t elect a can­di­date they believe lacks nobility.

Full dis­clo­sure: The Unit­ed Steel­work­ers union is a spon­sor of In These Times.