Posted on 02/21/2007 7:39:36 PM PST by Torie
Mitt Romney is in trouble. In a deeply conservative party, the former governor of Massachusetts is a ghost of Republicanism past: a moderate. His presidential announcement speech read like a tribute to his father, [who was] liberal enough to get elected and reelected governor in a Democratic state, Michigan. ... "We have lost our faith in government--not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government," as if oblivious to the heresy: Rehabilitating government as a good in itself is not the usual way of introducing yourself to voters in today's post-Reagan Republican Party. Maybe Romney's tried to shake it, but he just can't: He carries progressive Republicanism around in his blood.
Which raises certain suspicions about that announcement speech. As the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) immediately observed, its location, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, is a "testament to the life of ... a notorious anti-Semite and xenophobe." ...
Those memories no longer exist--except to the hair-trigger sensitivities of the likes of the NJDC, which put out their press release and garnered an AP article on the flap. But here's something to consider: The Romney campaign has harvested benefits from that flap, whether it was intentional or not. Consider the sarcastic reflection of this denizen of the right-wing website Free Republic:
Allright, an AP hit piece! The MSM has more acute RINOdar than we. Real RINO's don't get rinky-dink MSM hit pieces such as this. This proves that the MSM believes Romney is a conservative, and therefore must be roughed up.
Translation: I used to suspect that Romney was only a "Republican in Name Only." But now I realize: He bugs the liberal media. By the tribal logic of right-wing identity politics, that is enough--Mitt Romney now can be called a conservative.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at tnr.com ...
Heh, I like Romney, but that's really funny.
What "you think" defies all experience and common sense when it comes to dealing with liberals. Washington, DC pulls politicians left, not right.
Seeing that the first primaries are a year away, that makes 80% of FReepers premature. Anchoring yourself to any candidate at this point in time is like getting married to your Jr. High puppy love crush.
Give it some time and do some homework, folks. Don't just swallow the pablum and flames dished out by the campaign shills here. You know, as popular as FR has become, there are plenty of professional PR spinmeisters here, and we all would be wise not to take the stuff posted at face value. I've already seen half-truths, outright lies, and poison pill memes about every possible GOP candidate there is.
Context. Context.
No, his social views don't matter in the slightest regarding his managerial capabilities. That's all I addressed in my post.
Sure, social views matter in terms of the wholistic view of the candidate. But that's not what my post addressed.
A liberal's promises are as weighty as the hot air they're delivered on.
Now, EV, there you go again. Romney and Guiliani are not the same on this issue. Guiliani is so pro-choice he is pro-partial birth abortion and is running for president as a pro-choicer.
Romney has taken a conservative stand on the issue, and Jim Bopp chief attorney for National Right to Life since 1978, has joined Romney's presidential campaign.
You can look at President Bush. Some people expected him to be no different from Gore - I suspect you might have belonged to that group. Look how that turned out to be. Sure, he was more liberal than I would have liked, on fiscal issues, but I can't say that the fears were justified.
Sorry, I apparently misread your post. Or misunderstood it.
Now that is some good advice!
You presume far too much. I knew exactly what George W. Bush was and is. But these guys make GW look like Ronald Reagan when it comes to conservatism.
" Sorry, I apparently misread your post. Or misunderstood it."
No worries. I definitely wasn't as clear as I could have been. Just one of the consequences of having a board set up this way (regarding how posts don't follow stems but are sequential).
I just get a little irritated at how quickly some people write these candidates off because their views changed on an issue at some point in their life. Particularly someone who has been as fiscally conservative and talented as Romney (yet he gets written off as a RINO constantly).
Maybe it's that I once considered myself a liberal and now see myself as a social and fiscal conservative. A grain of salt is one thing. But honestly, of the people who have put their views out there right now, aside from Hunter, I believe Romney has shown the most "true conservative" potential/electability.
I doubt that you're correct. I think anyone from the current presidential crop will be more conservative than Bush on fiscal issues, except perhaps Huckabee and Brownback.
Who knows where Romney stands???
As a proud citizen of Massachusetts, the state that is home to flip-flopper "for it before against it" Kerry, Romney has apparently drunk deep from flip-flop fountain.
Functionally, there is no difference. Both men's public policy positions have assured the continuance of abortion on demand.
Romney vociferously defends his pro-abortion stance
Oh, and Bopp? He's the pro-life movement's Benedict Arnold.
You really don't believe that anyone is taking you seriously when you spout such nonsense, do you, newbie?
You see, liberals lie, especially to get elected. Invariably, "fiscal conservatives" are nothing of the sort. They're lying liberals.
Here's the bottom line, okay? Men or women who will sell out little babies in the womb, or any of the God-given unalienable rights delineated in the Bill of Rights, will sell out ANYTHING and EVERYTHING once the pressure is applied to them. Always.
Mitt has rather drastically changed his public stand on abortion (heck he even has problems with embryonic stem cells now, unlike the LDS church), and Rudy is trimming a bit too. So while one can suggest, as I suggest, that these changes are ersatz in the sense that both men's positions are probably entirely political, and neither really care much about the issue, one way or the other, their public positions are changes, and to claim Mitt and Rudy are pro abortion on demand, is inaccurate as to their current public position. It just is.
I'm open to suggestion.
Certainly the "left-right" thing ain't working.
Romney makes Kerry look like a piker. Jf'nK only perfected the art of flipping one direction at a time, while Mitt has learned the rare ability to flop in both directions at once.
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