Posted on 12/22/2007 9:01:45 PM PST by JRochelle
If you were building a Republican presidential candidate from a kit, imagine what pieces you might use: an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit. You'd add a beautiful wife and family, a wildly successful business career and just enough executive government experience. You'd pour in some old GOP bromides - spending cuts and lower taxes - plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on faith.
Add it all up and you get Mitt Romney, a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped.
Romney's main business experience is as a management consultant, a field in which smart, fast-moving specialists often advise corporations on how to reinvent themselves. His memoir is called Turnaround - the story of his successful rescue of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City - but the most stunning turnaround he has engineered is his own political career.
If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats. If you followed only his campaign for president, you'd swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you're left to wonder if there's anything at all at his core.
As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1994, he boasted that he would be a stronger advocate of gay rights than his opponent, Ted Kennedy. These days, he makes a point of his opposition to gay marriage and adoption.
(Excerpt) Read more at concordmonitor.com ...
Against Fred Thompson I’ll vote for Fred. Against Hillary KKKlintler or Obama, I’ll dress up like a Mormon and vote for Mitt.
Excellent editorial except that nutty bit at the end. But the rest of it is on the money, regardless.
I find it so enlightening that more are more so called real conservatives are clinging to the liberal rags in order to take down Mitt.
Politics certainly do make strange bedfellows.
He must be scaring you guys something fierce.
While other candidates of both parties speak of restoring America's moral leadership in the world, Romney has said he'd like to "double" the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where inmates have been held for years without formal charge or access to the courts. He dodges the issue of torture - unable to say, simply, that waterboarding is torture and America won't do it.They oppose Romney because he would keep Guantanamo, which they apparently oppose because they think the prisoners there should have acces to courts. And they seem to want Romney to ban waterboarding.
Those are two issues on which I agree with Romney, and I believe most conservatives do as well, so I don't know why a conservative would listen to this editorial board, which opposes candidates who won't "ban waterboarding".
“Pay attention to both, and you’re left to wonder if there’s anything at all at his core. “
That is what happened to me, at first I was glad he was in the race, but after learning more about him and his core supporters, I now see him as some Gollum like creature, crawling out of the sewer in search of God knows what, but knowing that he is obsessed with it, whatever “it” is.
You just leave President Romney alone. He is prettier and more handsome than all the other Republican candidates combined, he is rich so he is self funding and is a wonderful man.
You are just jealous...
So there...
Neener neener neener...
LOL
Classic Willard, I was for it before I was against it. But then that means he is a whole lot someone else from Mass.
LOL. Me too. Politics is about comparative choices. First things first. We have primaries. But if it came to Mitt getting the nod it would be an easy choice for me. I lean towards Fred now but we'll see if he has what it takes. So far I have been unimpressed with Fred as a candidate. I hope he will take off. But perhaps he can't make up his mind whether he wants to act in Hollywood or act in DC.
If Romney would have advocated the same conservatism all of the other Republican candidates were pushing, he probably would have won. Certainly, Romney in the Senate is much more preferable than Ted. Trying to out-liberal Teddy (Romney repudiated Reaganism, BTW) is akin to trying to drink him under the table. Romney got his butt handed to him in that election.
“Thank God people are seeing the light before the primaries!”
Yes, thank God the most liberal paper in New Hampshire is turning on Romney. I’m totally convinced. *rolls eyes*
Joe Biden: a pragmatist rich with experience
So apparently at least one Freeper thinks we should reject Romney and what, pick Biden?
Or do we only listen to this esteemed editorial board when it says what we WANT to hear, and reject it otherwise?
It's clear that an editorial board that apparently likes liberals would hate Mitt Romney. After all, he's a conservative to wants to keep our country safe, while they want to give terrorists access to our courts and prohibit tough interrogation even in exceptional cases.
Mitt should scare Conservatives everywhere , for many reasons ...
As you have pointed out on other threads, isn’t Romney your second choice after Fred?
If so, why the constant bashing?
He certainly has the liberals scared, and you too.
The Concord Monitor has a very liberal editorial board. Republican New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg speaks for a lot of conservative Republicans in New Hampshire, and he has endorsed Romney. ‘I think Mitt Romney is the best person to cut taxes, control spending and strengthen the American economy.”
That's the money shot, baby.
Doubling the size of Gitmo sounds so strong and against the bad dudes, but do we need it to be bigger?
Is there an overflow there?
Sometimes words sound good but that doesn’t mean it makes sense.
Just another case of Romney pandering.
I read this on another thread. Does anyone know if he actually said this about the MLK march and his dad?
Concord Monitor = Boston Globe North Edition.
Despite the exhortations of rabble-rousers like Rep. Tom Tancredo or the "take back your country" hysteria of CNN's Lou Dobbs, few Americans feel panicky about the issue. They are, however, as we said, disgusted at the congressional bickering and inaction.So of course they oppose Romney, who is strong on illegal immigration and got the endorsement of the "rabble-rouser" Tom Tancredo.Huckabee, in a heated exchange with Mitt Romney at the debate, spoke to the better angels of America's nature when he said, "We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did." McCain did the same when he said, "We must recognize these are God's children as well. . . . I want to ensure that I will enforce the borders first. But we won't demagogue it."
Romney, Giuliani and the other candidates didn't get the memo. They vied over who would build the biggest wall and throw people over it the fastest. While that may win them points in some quarters, it may not be an argument that prevails against the Democratic nominee next fall.
I just don't understand why a Thompson supporter is so enamored of an editorial board who would attack Tom Tancredo and others who oppose illegal immigration. I thought Fred was strong on that issue as well?
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