MITT'S EXTREMEly recent conservative MAKEOVER
How many opinions can one man change in such a short period of time and not cause a reasonable person to question the sincerity of the "new" beliefs?!
If you can’t tell the difference between “promise”, “core belief”, and “opinion”, maybe I can help you.
A promise is a statement of action made to another, with the implication that the person can trust you to take that action.
A “core belief” is a deeply held thought which you generally treat as a fact, but which may not have a basis in reality, thus requiring you to “believe” it rather than “know” it. Core beliefs are generally building blocks for opinions and causes of action, and bias how we see the world.
An “opinion” is a thought based on facts as you know them, but not necessarily all facts, or based on sound logic. Opinions are often changed as more facts come to light.
To show each in use:
“I promise to not change the laws while I am Governor.”
“My belief in God governs how I view science and the world around us”
“I think things have turned the corner in Iraq”.
An example of each in error:
“I know I promised to be at your christmas play, but there was an accident on the beltway and I just couldn’t make it.”
“One day, I suddenly realised that there was a God, and that I needed to have a relationship with him”
“I thought raising taxes would increase revenue, but I was wrong. I won’t make that mistake again”.
There are two or three things where Mitt has really changed his positions. His stance on life could be considered a change in a core belief. Beyond that, he’s hardly been a liberal in the past, and as National Review editors pointed out, he was running on many conservative positions even back in 1994. He was never as liberal as people pretend.
Mitt changed his opinion on only one issue recently: abortion.
He changed his opinion on gays in the military over the course of 13 years. That's hardly recent.
That's pretty much it.
Some people accuse him of flip-flopping on illegal aliens, but that's simply not true. His first year as governor he vetoed a bill giving drivers' licenses to illegals. He also very soon thereafter vetoed a bill giving them in state tuition in the UMASS system.
The only thing Romney bashers can cite on this issue are some statements from late 2005, early 2006 where he's mulling over some vague proposals that were being bandied about Capital Hill around that time about what to do about illegals already here. However, he was very clear at the time that he had not formed a position. Being a governor of a non-border state with a relatively small illegal population, it should not be surprising that the issue was not at the top of his agenda at the time.
Once those vague proposals gelled into an actual bill, he came out against it, very strongly. There were few voices against the Z visa as strong as Romney's.