Posted on 08/18/2007 8:12:06 AM PDT by hardback
NEW YORK — With his confident style and crowd-pleasing smile, Ames, Iowa, straw-poll winner Willard Mitt Romney looks like a formidable contender for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. If he's lucky, he can leave voters so dazzled that they ignore his record.
Rather than see stars, Andrew Sum and Joseph McLaughlin of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Boston's Northeastern University placed Romney's rule as Massachusetts governor beneath their statistical microscope. Let's hope what they discovered is not contagious.
"Our analysis reveals a weak comparative economic performance of the state over the Romney years, one of the worst in the country," the researchers wrote in the July 29 Boston Globe. Specifically, they found:
-- As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
-- Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
-- Between fall 2003 and last autumn, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly thrice Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
Romney predicted Aug. 12 on "Fox News Sunday" that Massachusetts eventually will harvest his new-business-development seeds. "You're going to see the product of that generate great results for years to come."
Romney's vaunted health-care plan also disappoints. It forces individuals to purchase medical coverage and fines those who refuse. Businesses with at least 11 employees either must offer health insurance or pay penalties.
(Democrats overrode Romney's veto of this provision.) The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, a government panel, defines every health policy's "Minimum Creditable Coverage." So far, the Pacific Research Institute's Sally Pipes reports, monthly premiums average $380, not $200, as Romney forecast. The program may cost taxpayers an extra $276.4 million this year, more than double its original $125.4 million estimated expense.
Romney blames tinkering Democratic state legislators
"I don't know what's going to happen down the road as the Democrats get their hands on it," Romney told the National Review Institute. "I was a little concerned at the signing ceremony when Ted Kennedy showed up."
Romney's Pontius-Pilate-like hand-washing is thoroughly unconvincing. Bay State Democrats would have struggled to hijack health reform based on tax incentives, choice and ownership -- as GOP front-runner and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani recently proposed -- rather than RomneyCare's easily scaled universal mandates, regulatory boards and government-imposed standards. (Romney's campaign did not return calls for comment.)
Romney's administration fades badly beside Giuliani's accomplishments.
-- While Romney couldn't persuade Democratic legislators to lower taxes, Giuliani convinced a Democratic City Council to reduce or scrap 23 taxes.
Consequently, Gotham's top income-tax rate fell 20.6 percent, while Massachusetts' remains stuck at 5.3 percent, despite Romney's unheeded plea to cut it to 5 percent.
-- Though Romney's tax burden (revenue's proportion of personal income) increased 10.8 percent, Giuliani sliced his 17 percent.
-- Public-assistance rolls slid 5 percent under Romney (albeit, after most reductions already occurred), but they tumbled 58 percent under Giuliani, starting before President Bill Clinton signed federal welfare reform.
-- Romney watched unemployment wane 5.7 percent while joblessness plummeted 40.8 percent under Giuliani.
-- Personal income advanced 18.2 percent during Romney's days, while it sped ahead 49.9 percent during Giuliani's time.
It's tricky to contrast Romney and Giuliani. The former mayor led a city of 8 million (up 9.3 percent during his mayoralty), and supervised 215,891 public employees (down 3.1 percent from his arrival, or 17.2 percent, excluding new cops and teachers). Though not a governor, Giuliani governed a metropolis one-quarter larger in population than Massachusetts. Its 43,979 state employees (down 1.4 percent under Romney) served 6.4 million residents (up 0.1 percent).
It would be easier to draw parallels if, like Giuliani, Romney had won re-election, rather than duck a second-term bid that experts widely predicted he would lose. Romney explained to the Globe that he stood aside because, "There was very little that had to spill into a second term that we had any prospects of ever getting done."
So, what remains to recommend Romney? No doubt, he showed how to succeed in business by founding Bain Capital, which flourishes. Also, Romney is smooth, charismatic and handsome. Someday, he could portray George Clooney's older brother in "Ocean's 14." But, given his flimsy gubernatorial legacy, that doesn't mean much. In essence, Mitt Romney is just another pretty face.
New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.murdock@gmail.com.
Looks like Rudy asked Deroy to write a hit piece on Mitt. Should be about as effective as Deroy’s preposterous columns painting Rudy as pro-life.
If the current governor of MA runs into fiscal problems, will he blame MITT?.....
Deroy needs to start a new TV show - Pimp My RINO.
You made me lol with that one.
The Deval is in the details........
Murdock will tell the truth about Romney but won’t about RINO Rudy? Murdock is a hack. He ought to have the intellectual honest of resigning as a columnist and joining Giuliani’s campaign.
I can’t believe Deroy is still backing Rootie when FDT will be getting into the race soon.
I have to admit that that's a good line.
I truly believe this race will be between Fred Thompson and Ron Paul.
“”It would be easier to draw parallels if, like Giuliani, Romney had won re-election, rather than duck a second-term bid that experts widely predicted he would lose.””
I didn’t know that Romney’s only claim to fame was a single Governors term.
He was also a very successful businessman, and he turned around a troubled Salt Lake Olympic games. I'm not sold on any candidate yet, but I was so impressed by Romney's handling of the Olympics that he is still high on my list.
I know he is rich, but with the strange mixing of Reagan with his current campaign, and the fact that I remembered his father’s presidential challenge from the left in 68 and have seen him bring up repeatedly his mom’s pro choice campaigning as a senate candidate in 1970.
I just assumed that presidential candidate Romney would have had some political involvement in conservative politics at some time during the fiery, turbulent victories of the right, in the last 30 years.
Even Guliani earned a huge amount of name recognition among conservatives with his wild roller coaster ride as mayor of New York, which explains why as a liberal he could still get a little respect among Republicans.
The more I learn about Mitt the more I wonder where he has been for 60 years, I remember the Reagan revolution, the Gingrich revolution, the rightward turn for New York city, the great successes in the pro life movement and second amendment rights etc., but now Mitt Romney wants to be the leader of all of us radical, hard chargers, and I don’t remember him showing up before this last 2 years.
Actually, I think Mitt Romney wants to be the leader of all Americans, not just the radical, hard chargers.
Actually his first goal is to become the leader of the conservative voters that dominate the primaries, then that makes him the leader of the Republican party, then he will try to use that leadership position to win the presidency.
Our interest in him at FR is whether we want him to become our leader, or whether we prefer someone else.
Hey Bill! Is there a candidate yet that you favor? I value your opinion, and so far I like how Mitt’s portrayed himself during this campaign, but I fled Mass way before you and missed most of his term there. So I don’t have much first-person experience of him. Just trying to filter the facts from the spin in what I read.
Miss you guys!
The loss of manufacturing jobs is serious, but it took place before Romney took office, so you can't blame him for most of that. Romney didn't make any secret of the fact that the state had lost jobs in the years before his governorship, but he was determined to do something about that. Whatever effects Romney's policies had wouldn't show up until after he'd been in office for a while.
My impression is that it's a wash: Romney can't claim phenomenal successes, but he also can't be saddled with long-term failures. His problem is that one-term governors have a hard time making a case for their election to higher office.
A lot gets made out of the fact that so few Senators have been elected President. Someone should take a look at governors -- particularly one term governors who got elected President. Franklin Roosevelt comes to mind. Also Jimmy Carter. And further back, Grover Cleveland. Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge were both governors for short periods before becoming Vice President.
I don't know about the others, but Carter is a good reason for wanting more experience than one term as a state governor from the politicians we elect President.
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