Mitt Romney: Registered Democrat

Red State ^

[mnehring]

Mitt Romney’s 1992 Democratic Primary vote for Paul Tsongas — a technocratic modernizer and reformer, but very much a Democrat — raised some Republican eyebrows last week.

What hasn’t been mentioned: Romney’s vote formally enrolled him in the Democratic Party. more…

For anyone who either believes in leprechauns or that Mitt Romney is a conservative this should be of significance, especially since his minions haunted this site making much of the fact that Rick Perry was a Democrat before 1989.

The speculation is that Romney had originally intended to challenge Ted Kennedy in the Democrat primary then decided to run as a Republican. This makes his 1994 campaign strategy much more understandable.

According to a Romney campaign spokesperson, Romney “switched back.” One doesn’t know how Romney managed to “switch back.” According to the town clerk, Romney became an Republican only on October 19, 1993. The implication is that Romney had either never voted between his registration as a independent in 1979 and 1992 (so his vote in 1992 automatically enrolled him as a Democrat) or that he was a regular Democrat voters in those earlier elections and changed to Republican to run for Senate.

Now I’m off to National Review and Jennifer Rubin’s precious little blog to read some more on how conservative Willard Romney is.

[Waryone]

No problem. I can’t blame you for being upset. It must be time for me to start wearing glasses. Again, I’m sorry for misreading what you had written.

[ansel12]

I voted for Tsongas as well. Many, many, many Mass. Republicans did so in order to sink Clinton. It was the 1st operation khaos. This charge is beyond lame.

You say to sink Clinton?

Tsongas got 67%, he was totally safe, Clinton got 11%, that story doesn't hold water.

""An Independent until last December, he publicizes his brief stint as a Democrat to support ex-senator Paul Tsongas in the 1992 presidential primary," wrote David Broder in the Washington Post on Oct. 7, 1994. " ‘I'm not a partisan politician,’ he said. ‘My hope is that after this election, it will be the moderates of both parties who will control the Senate, not the Jesse Helmses.’ "" ""When Romney decided to run, Republicans exchanged quizzical looks: ‘We didn't know a single Republican when we jumped in in December,’ his wife, Ann, says. As a registered independent, Romney had voted in the Democratic presidential primary in 1992 to support Paul E. Tsongas"