Romney's Favorables on the Rise

My Man Mitt.com ^ | 2/08/07 | Justin

[RightSideRedux]

Favorables and unfavorables move in his favor

[RightSideRedux]

Romney's Favorable Numbers on the Rise

Rasmussen Reports notes that Mitt's favorable ratings are up 6 points (from 29% to 35%). Unfavorables dropping from 34% to 31%.

34% of voters still don't know Mitt Romney which give the Governor a distinct advantage to lay out his case without a political biases.

Granted there are other biases afoot as this NY Times article notes.

Elsewhere, the influential Club for Growth lauded Romney's speech Wednesday in Detroit:

The other presidential candidates should follow Governor Romney’s lead and propose similar, if not more extensive, measures to protect American taxpayers and promote continued economic expansion.

In case you missed it here's a quick excerpt from Romney's speech:

It is time to make saving easy in America. I believe people should be allowed to earn interest, dividends and capital gains up to a certain amount a year, tax free and without restrictions on how or when their savings and investments are spent. As an example, let's say we chose $5,000 for joint filers as the annual tax free figure for dividends, interest and capital gains. This would help middle class families to be able to save and to invest - and spend their savings the American way: any way they want.

[BackInBlack]

I honestly don't understand the guy's appeal. "Leadership" is what I keep hearing. Right -- he's such a stand-up leader that he changes his positions on core issues the moment he starts running for president, and then has the audacity to claim his shifts represent genuine changes of heart and the timing is just coincidental. Please, let's just nip this one in the bud.

[zarf]

I do think Romney's the next President. His business acumen, organizational and fundraising skills will separate him from the pack.

[RightSideRedux]

Join the Club: Mitt Romney and Pro-Life Conversion
By: Kate O'Beirne
National Review
Monday, Jan 29, 2007

"For decades, pro-life activists have been in the business of winning hearts and minds to their cause. Powerful arguments about the humanity of the unborn have moved public opinion, and a pro-life political force has made ambitious politicians feel the heat, whether or not they see the light. Pro-lifers' faith in the power of persuasion has been rewarded, and their political clout increased, by important converts, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Mitt Romney has also changed his position on abortion, but some social conservatives argue that membership in their ranks should be closed to this most recent convert with presidential ambitions.

"In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a liberal abortion law, declaring, 'I'm fully sympathetic with attempts to liberalize the outdated abortion law now on the books in California.' Reagan later changed his mind and expressed regret for signing a measure that saw more abortions performed in California than in any other state before Roe v. Wade. He became a committed pro-life politician and backed the first pro-life plank in the Republican platform. George W. Bush ran as a pro-choice politician in his 1978 congressional campaign, but held pro-life views when he ran for the governorship of Texas in 1994. His father too once favored abortion rights, but took a pro-life position in the 1980 presidential campaign.

"When Sam Brownback was running in a GOP congressional primary in 1994, he initially rebuffed a pro-life group's endorsement, according to a recent account in The New Republic. In that article, a former president of Kansans for Life recalls that Brownback was 'unfamiliar with the anti-abortion lexicon' 20 years after Roe v. Wade, and that Brownback described himself as 'more in line with the view of Nancy Kassebaum,' the state's pro-choice junior GOP senator.

...

"During his gubernatorial campaign, [Mitt Romney] won the endorsement of the abortion-rights group Republican Majority for Choice. But three years later, the group's co-chairman declared, 'We feel very betrayed.' The reason was that Governor Romney had vetoed a bill that would have allowed access to emergency contraception – the 'morning-after pill' – without a prescription. Romney had also vetoed an embryonic-stem-cell-research bill; and last year his administration issued regulations banning the creation of embryos for research purposes, calling such research 'Orwellian in its scope.'

"In an opinion article that appeared in the Boston Globe, Romney defended his veto of the emergency-contraception bill. He explained, 'The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception.' He faulted the bill for not requiring parental consent before allowing minors access to the pill. And he wrote, 'I understand that my views on laws governing abortion set me in the minority in our Commonwealth. I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother.'

...

"Romney has been stating his abortion position with the conviction of a convert, in terms that can appeal to a broad audience. Many social conservatives are persuaded that his conversion is genuine."

[DBrow]

"His business acumen, organizational and fundraising skills "

would make him a great chief-of-staff, to a conservative president. Romney is a manager, not a leader.

[Technocrat]

Good luck selling that to the people of Utah, whose butts he saved in the 2002 Winter Olympics fiasco. Oh, wait - we ended up over $100 million in the black, after he staged the greatest turnaround in olympic history. Everyone here, regardless of religion, knows supreme competence when they see it, and nobody has ever made a mark as high on that wall as he has.

[Technocrat]

And, by the way, he wasn't implementing someone else's policies to get those results - those were his own ideas, his own plans, top to middle.

[DBrow]

I agree, he displayed supurb managerial skills in the Olympic turnaround. A tremendous feat.

[DBrow]

"Good luck selling that to the people of Utah"

Maybe he should have run for governor!

[Afronaut]

We need an Olympic organizer for President? The Bar is really on the floor.

[sitetest]

Well-put.

[sitetest]

Dear RightSideRedux,

"In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a liberal abortion law, declaring, 'I'm fully sympathetic with attempts to liberalize the outdated abortion law now on the books in California.' Reagan later changed his mind and expressed regret for signing a measure that saw more abortions performed in California than in any other state before Roe v. Wade."

This is a very dodgy effort to justify Mr. Romney's 180 on abortion. And it's disappointing that Mrs. O'Beirne would engage in it.

What Mrs. O'Beirne fails to mention is that the legislation that Mr. Reagan signed in 1967 replaced a more restrictive law with one that permitted abortion in cases of rape, incest, and grave health risk to the mother. Unfortunately, the pro-aborts drove a truck through the last exception, for grave health risk.

The exploitation of that exception caused Mr. Reagan to repudiate the law. However, at most, one might say that Mr. Reagan moved from a moderate pro-life position (as we now view it) to a more extreme pro-life position.

He didn't move from believing that abortion is a constitutional "right," and that Roe was rightly decided, to believing that abortion should be generally banned, which is what Mr. Romney did.

It is upsetting that the pro-Romney folks feel that they must lie about Mr. Reagan's record to promote their candidate.


sitetest

[Technocrat]

That's disingenuous - the Olympic episode, lasting two years, is merely one example of superb leadership talent. As to why we didn't elect him governor - he didn't run. He went back to some eastern state, as I recall. That's OK - we got someone almost as good in John Huntsman, who is even better than the highly competent Mike Leavitt. We will not speak of that which governed between the two, who is getting a trailer park relocation fund named after her.

[HEY4QDEMS]

I do think Romney's the next President.

Not by my vote.

[DBrow]

"merely one example of superb leadership talent."


OK, you brought it up....

[Nervous Tick]

I have a "somewhat favorable" view of Mr. Romney.

My biggest concern is that Frankenstein monster of a health-care plan he foisted on the citizens of MA when he was governor.

It has proven to be quite a turkey. I don't want or need that kind of "doctoring", thank you.

[reagandemo]

Mormon = Not a chance

[Maceman]

He also is a brilliant venture capitalist, with a string of successes including Staples, which he funded in its early stage.

[BackInBlack]

The reason that Romney started acting vaguely pro-life as a governor in Massachussetts is that he wanted to run for president. The latitude people will give people like him is just astonishing. Do you really think that, once elected to a major office where political considerations are weighing heavier than anything else, politicians really start undergoing miraculous religious conversions like this? Come on.

It's not just abortion, anyway. It's also gay rights. Romney promised voters he was to the left of Ted Kennedy on that issue. His soul transplant on abortion and gays happened simultaneously, soon after his election, with no relation to his desire at the exact same time to position himself for president? Let's not get duped -- and we have better conservatives to choose from anyway. I'd take Hunter over him any day -- even Huckabee, for all his flaws.

[tiger-one]

Thanks for reminding us of Mitt's skills. I forgot about that debacle.