Posted on 12/23/2007 2:18:05 PM PST by greyfoxx39
"They [George Romney and Martin Luther King] were hand in hand...They led the march. We all swung our hands, and they held their hands up above everybody else's."
Quote distributed by the Mitt Romney campaign.
-SNIP-
After news reports challenged Mitt Romney's repeated accounts of his father marching with Martin Luther King, his campaign put a reporter from Politico in touch with eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen the former Michigan governor "hand in hand" with the civil rights leader. But their memories are almost certainly flawed as contemporaneous news reports show that King was addressing a meeting in New Jersey at the time the eyewitnesses supposedly saw him in Grosse Pointe, MI.
The Facts
-SNIP-
Romney did show up at a smaller march the following Saturday in the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Michigan to protest housing discrimination. But contemporaneous news reports show that King had left the Michigan area by then, and was traveling in the Northeast
-SNIP-
"I was fifteen feet away from them [Romney and MLK]," said Robertson, 64, who attended Grosse Pointe high school. "You don't forget that kind of thing."
I called up one of the eyewitnesses cited by Politico and the Romney campaign, Ashby Robertson.
-SNIP-
When I told Robertson that news reports placed Martin Luther King in New Jersey at the time, he replied: "Well, it was somebody who certainly looked like him."
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
“Hokum. The Romney campaign hasn’t turned up any news reports from ‘63 that say Romney and King marched together.”
Incorrect. There are no less than 5 that state that they marched together. You’d consider Harper’s Magazine reputable?
http://www.harpers.org/search?q=romney+martin+luther+king+march+
“When the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King marched in Detroit three years ago, Romney marched with him.”
There are also 4 history books that cite them walking together.
From “Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence”
“Mayor Cavanagh, Governor George Romney, and Walter Reuther were among the prominent whites marching with Revered King. The size of the march surprised everyone. About 50,000 were expected, and at least triple that number showed up.”
From “A Nation Divided: The 1968 Presidential Election”
“[Governor Romney] also marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. on one occasion and fought for an open housing law in Michigan.
David Broder’s book , The Republican Establishment, also cites them as marching together
Also from Detroit Perspectives: Crossroads and Turning
“Between 150,000 and 200,000 people participated, 90% of them black. Mayor Cavanagh, Governor George Romney, and Walter Reuther were among prominent whites marching with Reverend King.”
I will further note that these sources were readily available to the MSM.
Instead of actually doing the research, they just slandered Romney and left it up to him to clean up their mess.
Lovely to see others from supposedly the same movement dogpiling in.
Did you even read this stuff? The Harper's Magazine is from February '67, gets the date wrong (it was closer to four years earlier than three), and probably apes Broder (or maybe Broder aped him) in confusing the Grosse Pointe march with the King one 6 days earlier. As I said before, the news reports from 1963 firmly establish that George Romney did not march with King on June 23, and King was in New Jersey on June 29 when Romney was at Grosse Pointe. From the similarity in phrasing your "history" books are just aping each other, and copying and repeating an error does not turn the error into truth.
You Romney people are giving me flashbacks to the Clinton years. I know MoveOn.org is already taken, but maybe you fellows could make a bid on MoveOn.com?
“IF Romney has been lying about his political resume (and he has)”
No he hasn’t. He described his father as a Civil Rights leader, which he was:
http://occidentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/12/george-romney-and-martin-luther-king.html
“If in fact thorough research (which will take some time) shows that either 1) Romney and King did march together or 2)These historians and reporters were citing each other on a mistaken fact as to the June 23, 1963 march, the fact remains that George Romney did indeed lead a march for Civil Rights (whether or not King was with him at the time) and that George Romney was a Civil Rights leader in general and that he marched in solidarity with King in immediate response to Selma—the most defining Civil Rights episode of the era.”
What we dont need is to fall for gotcha politics to such a degree that a man is called a liar for stating things remembered by witnesses and written up as fact in multiple history books. The Romney campaign made the correct clarification already.
"Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald. Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said: "My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."
Face it. Romney is a liar on a par with Clinton.
Clinton: I saw church burnings in Arkansas.
Romney: I marched with Martin Luther King.
Do you really want this clown for president?
And LOSE BIG TIME with it. The Hillary/Obama will turn off white voters massively if they try the 'diversity' ticket. They tried tying Bush to the KKK in 2000, and it helped keep blacks 'on the plantation' but it didnt change the election.
The fact is that Mitt Romney's Dad was a Republican Civil Rights leader. It's a good counterpoint to any DNC attacks on this typical "they are racist" line against the GOP, which are defamatory, but predictable.
Church leader Bruce R. McConkie, on the denial of equality for Africans:
“Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The gospel message of salvation is not carried affirmatively to them... “Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned...” (Mormon Doctrine, 1958, p. 477)
Future President of the Mormon church, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:
“Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race.”
(The Way to Perfection, page 101)
More from Smith:
“There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient; more or less, to the laws that were given us there.”
(Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1, page 61)
False Prophets and False Apostles?????
Will Romney ever call these bigots "racist"?
You have no way of knowing whether it changed the election or not. No way to know how many votes it may have swayed. If you want to say "Bush still won" that would be accurate.
Tomster, you keep claiming this -- please cite these so-called 1960s MSM sources that claim Romney and MLK marched together at the same event. From what I've seen, the only source from the 1960s that claims George Romney and MLK marched together is a citation from a 1967 *book* that is unfootnoted and unsourced. I've seen no newspaper articles to that effect, and I've seen several that explicitly state that the two were not at the same event.
Why mention the race of the witnesses?
Pathetic spin.
Because Willard claimed he saw it happen, a double lie.
And why would it matter whether his son, who was a teenager at the time, correctly or incorrectly remembers such a meaningless, insignificant detail?
Ask Willard, he's the one who put the lies in his big speech.
Wrong!
Strategic Vision Iowa Republican poll (12/21/07)
Mike Huckabee 31%
Mitt Romney 25%
Fred Thompson 16%
John McCain 8%
Rudy Giuliani 6%
Ron Paul 5%
Tom Tancredo 2% - this was before he dropped out
Duncan Hunter 1%
Undecided 6%
It is a fact that George Romney as an early and outspoken proponent of civil rights, and that he led civil rights marches in support of Dr. King, though not in his physical presence.
So why can’t Mitt just say that, admit that his memory might have been flawed, and carry on? The more he keeps this story alive, the more of his time is spent focusing on something fundamentally unimportant.
Politics lesson #1: When you find yourself in a hole, STOP DIGGING.
You all keep talking about the civil rights record of George Romney. Is George Romney running for President in 2007 or is it his son Myth? If it's Myth, then, I don't give a rat's a$$ about his father's record on civil rights. It's absolutely of no relevance now! We're looking at Myth's record - and it's flipped-flopped continuously over the years depending on what office he's running for.
George Romney had an exemplary civil rights record, and that’s the tradition in which Mitt was raised. Some folks have pointed to Mormon church teachings in an attempt to paint Mitt as a bigot, an attack I consider baseless.
That’s where the relevance of this story begins and ends. Why it persists — and why Mitt himself stupidly keeps it alive — is beyond me.
“Fred Thompson 16%”
This (SV 12/16 - 12/18) is the only poll having Fred in double-digits. Most recent polls have him..ready..3%!
See latest FR thread.
(The previous one was at 5%)
In other states: NH 3.2%. MI 6.5%. lol
Anyway, this SV poll was taken before Fred visited Iowa. Fred is gaining only when he is hiding from voters (worked well in the summer).
“Their own candidate is polling at 3% (!) in key states, no money and no plan.”
“Pathetic spin.”
—
No. It is a fact. Most recent ARG poll has Fred at 3% in Iowa (previous was 5%). Other polls are similar (except one outlier SV before Fred went to Iowa).
In NH, he is at 3.2%. I propose you get used to it. He will drop out soon after Iowa and endorse his buddy McCain.
See #94.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.