Posted on 03/23/2012 1:45:53 PM PDT by STARWISE
“Independence and pragmatism” have been at the heart of Mitt Romney’s politics from his first entrance into the electoral arena, CNSNews.com reports today, with a look back at an article that revealed Romney as he was when he decided to run for the United States Senate in 1994.
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“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,” Brownstein reported.
“As a registered independent, Romney had voted in the Democratic presidential primary in 1992 to support Paul E. Tsongas (though he backed George Bush in the general election, he says),” wrote Brownstein. ”He briefly considered running for the Senate seat as an independent as well, his wife says, before rejecting the idea as impractical.
“Independence and pragmatism remained at the center of his appeal, though,” wrote Brownstein. ”(Even today, he tries to keep his distance from a national Republican Party still held in some suspicion here: He has refused to sign onto the national GOP ‘contract’ party leaders are pushing in Washington.)
“Romney offered himself not as a conservative, but a Weld-like moderate: frugal on spending and insistent that welfare recipients work for their checks, but supporting abortion rights and gay rights and willing to ban assault weapons,” wrote Brownstein.
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The descriptions of his approach — if not the descriptions of his specific positions — actually still fit Romney’s approach today. Might it be that Romney is actually the most consistent candidate of all?
He’s a consistent politician, a candidate who, all along, has recognized that he has to win the political game to be able to implement his top priorities — which have always been economic in nature — when it comes to policies.
Maybe his mistake has actually been in trying to brand himself now as “severely conservative.”
Early in the primary, Romney touted his impressively stable personal life as evidence that, at his core, he’s a very constant and principled man. Many conservatives rejected that argument and continued to focus on the many ways he’s reinvented himself for election after election. But, again, even that reinvention is very much a stable part of Romney. He seems to be a very conservative person. He combines a conservative cast of mind with a shrewd approach to every problem he faces — including the problem of how to win elections. It’s impressive, the more I think about it.
One quick note on Ann Romney’s statement: “We didn’t know a single Republican.” If you ask me, such a statement — remembered at this juncture in an eventful primary season — works in Romney’s favor. It underscores just how blue a state Massachusetts really is.
The Romneys were alone in the Bay State, it implies, with little choice but to be independent if they weren’t willing to be out-and-out liberal. It also reminds wary grassroots voters: If he’s a part of the establishment now, well, it wasn’t always that way.
Let me summarize this way: We can do better than Barack Obama and we could do worse than Mitt Romney.
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1994 was a pivotal, sweeping year for Republicans, as we know. The vast sentiment of the voters was with them. They could've easily joined in to support their "core" values. How can there have been SO few Republicans for the Romneys to know?? Nah .. methinks they didn't WANT to mingle with them .. always calculating about their current and future path.
Excerpt:
Nothing in this election can be comforting to the Democrats. Not only did they lose their majorities in both Houses of Congress, they also lost their voting power relative to Republicans in every region of the country -- including the regions which they won -- New England and the Middle Atlantic states.
Perhaps of equal import, three groups key to their 1992 electoral success -- the poor, the blacks and young citizens -- all reported lower participa¨ tion. In the case of both the poor (those with incomes under $15,000) and first time voters (those aged 18-19), the decline was particularly sharp.
The Democrats face a very difficult immediate future. They are operating under a number of constraints which make victory in 1996 very problematic. They are unlikely to win any state in the South, save perhaps Arkansas. Their hands will be tied by budget constraints on any new substantive initiatives.
And they must fashion an electoral strategy to win in New England, the Middle Atlantic states, the Rust Belt and the Far West, with key core constituencies necessary for that victory in an apparent state of demobilization.
The Democratic disarray is a deserved product of two major missteps -- the failure in 1994 to offer any theme or message around which to rally and the failure over a 25-year period to fashion an approach uniting the middle and underclass wings of the party. They seem no closer to such a message now.
.. Ping!
In Massachusetts, you can know 1,000 people and still not know if the person is a Democrat or a Republican because the people here are either vocally liberal or quietly conservative.
I’m from MA, so I know of what you speak, but
in their circles of business, standing, money ..
you can’t tell me that if they wanted to insert
themselves into that world, they couldn’t have.
Even discreetly ..
Did she spit after using the word Republican?
Sorry, couldn't resist :^)
So how can the likes of a RUSH state that America is center right? We can't even get a nominee that has any significant conservatism in his background. Some say that the media has picked the person. I say the sheeple were the ones casting the votes. How can conservative vote in the primary for this fake? I say we are a nation definitely center left & don't get me started as to allowing the women vote that changed it all towards such.
Do you know any now??
I am originally from Massachusetts and know that the place is a hopelessly RAT territory. If you are a Republican it is well advised to keep your mouth shut for fear of being shamed into oblivion. Think of how people like Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Madcow try to shame, humiliate, and destroy all Republicans. As a business family it doesn’t surprise me that the Romneys would suppress some conservative leanings which they may have had. At the accumulation stage of life they could not afford to be destroyed by RAT stooges. When Romney did come out politically, it was to run against the drunk RAT Kennedy. This should be worth something in his favor. The biggest doubt I have about the idea of not knowing any Republicans is that most Mormons are Republicans, even in Massachusetts, I presume. It is better to become a Republican, a Conservative, and a pro-lifer later in life than not at all.
Ann is being devious here. Her father-in-law and mother-in-law, long-term liberal Republicans, were still living in 1994.
OK .. thanks for that info.
I live in Mass from 96-98. I can honestly say I was the only Republican I knew too! There are some fiscally conservative independents/ Democrats... but I was the lone political right winger. Ann wasn’t being literal. I’m sure she knew a few Republicans but we are few and far between.
I live in Mass from 96-98. I can honestly say I was the only Republican I knew too! There are some fiscally conservative independents/ Democrats... but I was the lone political right winger. Ann wasn’t being literal. I’m sure she knew a few Republicans but we are few and far between.
Being from New England should invalidate any “republican” trying to run for national office, such as for the Presidency. The fact we have gotten this far down the road means the republican party will go the way of the whigs.
No money. Not a dime.
Yep. Romney is exactly the kind of unprincipled liberal garbage who would foist the next David Souter on America.
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