Posted on 12/21/2006 5:55:17 PM PST by jbonham76
Good news for me! A day after I wrote that campaign ’06 can’t begin soon enough, I notice that National Review has run a cover of Mitt Romney and John McCain duking it out for the Republican nomination. Call it a double dose of good news. Not only has the campaign begun, but my preferred candidate, Mitt Romney, has been elevated to the semi-finals by the NR folks.
I know there are a lot of people who are wondering why this semi-obscure one-term governor of our nation’s bluest state has so knocked the conservative media on its collective tush. Indeed, it is a phenomenon. A long-standing Senator of impeccable conservative credentials like Sam Brownback throws his hat in the ring, and the conservative media yawns. And yet Mitt Romney has K-Lo and others panting in anticipation of a Romney administration.
How could it be? Even if you’re inclined to take a cynical approach, there’s no easy explanation for how this happens. Instead, I urge you to take the Occam’s Razor approach. Mitt Romney has dazzled conservative opinion-makers because he is indeed special.
I was well ahead of the curve in having this realization. I knew Romney was special a decade before my brethren in the conservative punditocracy came to the same conclusion. But it is worth noting that I came about the conclusion the same way they have – from first-hand exposure to the guy.
As every reader of this site knows, I don’t find our political class to be particularly impressive. I find them intellectually incurious, pathologically ambitious and morally unmoored. The Democrats are worse than the Republicans, but it’s not a runaway.
But Romney is different. First of all, he’s brilliant. When you spend even a little time with him, you see how his mind attacks a problem from every conceivable angle. This requires an intellectual curiosity and an intellectual industriousness that is foreign to nearly all of our politicians.
Second, he’s a profoundly decent man. All that stuff about what a perfect family he has and how committed he is to it isn’t a crock. And he’s really nice – his affability is no Clintonian act.
When I was his occasional driver in his 1994 Senate campaign, we would often access Boston’s Expressway via the Mass. Ave exit. As the locals know, the traffic light leading to the ramp is a notorious hangout for Boston’s beggars who will approach the cars as they wait to get on the Expressway. Romney would not only give everyone who approached the car a few bucks (by handing it to me – the recipients had no idea that the money was coming from a Senate candidate), he would make me swerve across traffic to make sure every panhandler on the road got a few bucks. It drove me nuts, but it should tell you something about the guy.
I’VE RECEIVED A FEW LETTERS asking me to square Romney’s 1994 statements with his present-day stands. First, let me outline a few Romney characteristics. He is, personally, a deeply conservative man. He is a traditionalist to his core. Second, as I said above, he is a profoundly decent man.
On the issue of gays, I think there’s little inconsistency if any between his 1994 positions and his current ones. Romney has never been a hater – it’s simply not his style. One of his most prominent local critics, my one-time friend who later turned into a notorious crank, Brian Camenker, has complained on the dignified airs of The Daily Show that Romney was not only pro-gay in 1994, as governor his administration hired numerous homosexuals. The horror!
The controversy over this is that some can’t figure how Romney could treat gays as equals and still be against gay marriage. I don’t find that to be a particularly difficult brain-teaser unless you subscribe to the Andrew Sullivan theory that anyone who’s not eager to overturn millennia of marital traditions is by definition a latter day Bull Connor. Romney is against gay marriage but also for treating gays with dignity and respect; the two are not mutually exclusive.
The only reason this “scandal” is receiving the extended treatment that it is from mainstream media outlets like the Boston Globe and the New York Times is because they think that Republicans want their candidates to be hostile to homosexuals. This is flat-out wrong, and completely misses the genuineness in the frequent formulation, “Hate the sin but love the sinner.”
There is a little more meat on the bone regarding Romney’s “evolving” views on abortion. Personally, I would have been shocked if Romney in 1994 didn’t consider abortion the taking of an innocent life. When I drove him, we once had a debate regarding pre-marital sex. I was for it, he was against it. Although it never came up, I lived the values I espoused (as a single 27 year-old, virtually every chance I could get), and I bet he did, too. It would surprise me if someone who was so deeply personally conservative took a casual approach to the moral stakes involved in abortion.
And yet he was pro-choice. It’s fair to ask, why? To get a good answer, you have to look at the times.
Romney in 1994 was running against Ted Kennedy. In 1994, Ted Kennedy was vulnerable. The Palm Beach non-rape scandal was still fresh in voters’ minds, and Kennedy’s brand of big government politics had fallen into disrepute. 1994 was a dreadful year for Democrats, so dreadful that even Ted Kennedy was in trouble. As late as September of that campaign year, Romney held a slight lead over Kennedy in the polls.
If Romney had run as pro-life, his campaign would have been a non-starter. He never would have had a chance. So, in my opinion, as a concession to reality, he ran with a “commitment to preserving a woman’s right to choose.” That’s the euphemism pro-life politicians used when they ran as pro-choice. While he defended the need for access to abortion services to assuage the jitters of Commonwealth voters, he never took up the morality of abortion during that election season.
The putative abortion betrayal isn’t all that Romney did in ’94 that might rankle present-day conservatives. I haven’t seen it anywhere else in print yet this campaign season, but he also declined to sign what has since become the much-revered Contract With America. The reason for this was simple – embracing the national Republican Party would have been political suicide in a race against Kennedy.
How can a defender of Romney justify such things? Speaking just for myself, I theorize that Romney as both a politician and a man does not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. As mature and thoughtful people, we pursue victories that may actually be achieved. We necessarily work in the realm of the possible as opposed to the ideal.
It would have been impossible for a politician who was adamantly pro-life and embracing Newt Gingrich to have defeated Ted Kennedy in 1994. But Mitt Romney, with the campaign he ran, had a real chance and almost pulled it off. Were he not outmaneuvered and caught flatfooted by the far more experienced Kennedy campaign in the election’s last weeks, Romney would have beaten Ted Kennedy. And that would have been very good indeed.
So has Mitt Romney had an evolution on abortion since 1994? Regarding his personal feelings towards abortion, I highly doubt it. I don’t for a second think that he found abortion morally acceptable a dozen years ago. I’ll also point out that he never said at the time that he did.
I do, however, think that he has had an evolution as to what’s politically possible regarding abortion since he ran against Kennedy. As Massachusetts’ governor, he understood that for many pro-choice voters, Harvard’s plan to create and destroy embryos in the name of science would be beyond the pale. And he also understood that the Harvard plan could put the entire abortion debate into a different light. Harvard’s program had the potential to reframe the conversation in a way that made voters see abortion in a different light. And Romney seized the opportunity to do just that.
SO, WHAT SHOULD A REPULICAN VOTER take away from all of this? Well, first of all, if you want a candidate to tilt at windmills, Mitt Romney’s not your guy. He is an idealist, and he has lived his life as one, but Pyrrhic victories and noble failures aren’t his cup of tea. He plays to win, or he doesn’t play at all.
Next, if you want a candidate who’s reliably hostile to homosexuals, Mitt Romney is again not your guy. The good news is if that’s your hot-button issue, Sam Brownback is in the race. Brownback recently put a hold on a judicial nomination for her attendance at a same-sex union ceremony and demanded that she recuse herself from all cases regarding gender-neutral marriage issues. If you consider that to be true leadership, you can join 2% of your fellow Republicans and hop aboard the Brownback juggernaut.
Romney is someone who at his core and in his politics shares the aims of socially conservative Republicans. (As I intimated regarding our debate over pre-marital sex, he’s to my right on many of these matters.) He’ll pursue the socially conservative agenda whenever there’s a chance to do so. And unlike some of our more Elmer Gantry-like Republican figures, when he makes a stand he’ll do it not just for show but to get results.
I am pretty conservative, living up here is tough, but on the other hand, as you Marines are fond of saying, it is a "target rich environment" if you like to bait em...:)
My dad, who was a 30 year Navy veteran through WWII, Korea and Vietnam, was as conservative as they come. Was a card carrying member of Citizens for Limited Taxation up here,which was largely repsonsible for getting us of of the complete top of the taxation heap (Taxachusetts)...and he had to run as a Democrat. I never asked him how he felt about that, but he made the choice that is what he had to do to get into office and make a change. And he was a principled guy. So I kind of look at Romney in that light.
But I know what youi mean.
Well you can sit and pout cause there is no such thing as a perfect conservative...
How about Alan Keyes? :)
I think he is a decent person, from what I have seen with my own eyes.
You really don't need to call him a slut, I think it is uncalled for. And I don't think he is a fake, but you have your reasons for calling him a fake and an opportunist. I will tell you that of all the things said about him, even by his political enemies, those two things are not in the vocabulary.
You consider him a weirdo, and while I do not think that is all that constructive, it is your opinion. You have no basis of what "most" Americans think of him, other than you and your circle of friends, any more than I know what most Americans think of him. But I would bet most Americans don't think of him as a weirdo.
You are entitled to your opinion of his religion. I know a few Mormons, and they don't seem particularly evil or cultish to me.
Sure, go vote for him just because he has an R next to his name and has good poll numbers... yup, that will further the 'conservative' cause. While your at it, run Rudy Giuliani for VP... Mike Bloomberg can be your Sec. of State.. With that tag team, you taxes will go up, more bureaucracy will be created, and the ATF/FBI will be even more abusive than they are now.
Bush is doing a crappy enough job at advancing a true conservative agenda- and he is probably the last somewhat conservative president that this country will see for a long while with the direction we are heading. What are our choices for 2008? Hillary- a hard left wing liberal.. or Rudy/Romney/McCain- the first two are liberals and McCain is an opertunist that goes with what way the wind is blowing.
Real conservatives, buckle up- we are in for a rough ride. Buy ammo, guns, and assualt rifles- because we are looking at more gun bans in the years to come.
Hewitt is one of the very best around. Superb talk show host and commentator.
Did Romney have anything to do with this?
There, fixed.
Oops, HTML mistakes but you get the point.
It is the GOP that will nominate a candidate - not some mythical *conservative* party. It is, imo, too early to be deciding who is or is not a good candidate. Romney is smart, articulate, pleasant, likeable and a decent guy. For me, that means he is an acceptable possibility.
Maybe in your country, but in America we have a constitution, so you are flat wrong.
I think you are probably right, and I agree. If he is as smart as I think he should get the nomination. I have to stop reading these threads. Nasty nasty people posting trash. Aren't you glad you don't know them or have to work with them or something? I am.
FReeper Jeff Fuller posted an excellent article, Mister PowerPoint Goes to Washington, about Mitt Romney that I found extremely informative and I highly recommend it.
On issues I care most about in a Presidential candidate, I found Mitt Romney's credentials, accomplishments, and application of core conservative principles in executive management positions of major businesses and state government very impressive.
Of special note to FReepers most interested in issues of social conservatism is this excerpt from the article:
"In 2005, he wrote in an op-ed in The Boston Globe that he wanted to see Roe v. Wade overturned and said states should decide on their own whether to permit abortion. “I believe that abortion is the wrong choice, except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother,” he wrote. “I wish the people of America agreed, and that the laws of our nation could reflect that view.” Earlier qualms on the right may also be offset by his aggressive opposition to the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that permitted gay marriage."
I surely want to hear more from Mitt Romney in the run-up to the Presidential campaign in 2008. He is definitely worth a closer look by all Republicans.
Romney has a strong business background. I don't care about his perceived flip-flops on the social issues. He's probably the only Republican running who's going to eliminate some of these wasteful liberal programs and reform the tax system. That's very important to me and he'll reel in the fiscal conservatives & Libertarians who have abandoned the GOP over the last six years.
The 2nd biggest issue after the WOT is what to do with Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare. You can bet that Romney will take a free-market approach to this critical issue, regardless of what the doom-and-gloom MSM and liberals in both parties say.
Are there any Mormons here? Is anyone willing to speak out against this anti-Mormon bigotry?
"He's also a follower of the Mormon cult. Say what you will about my objections, but it won't change the fact that most Americans consider him a weirdo (and therefore unfit for the office) for that reason alone."
Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Mormonism... weird is right. From here on out people will begin to scrutinize Romney's beliefs, once done, they will not want someone with who believes the wacked out beliefs of "prophet" Joseph Smith, and polygamist Brigham Young in the oval office.
if you have a good news on romney list, please put me on it. I am in Florida and read about him after I saw Rudy's position on illegal amnesty. I think he is a very good candidate.
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