How I came to the difficult decision to support Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination

JEFFHEAD.COM ^ | Feb 4, 2008 | Jeff Head

[B4Ranch]

>How many years have we cried for Republican control, just to get it and get huge government, excessive spending and corruption that makes me want to puke.<

That’s the truth, no matter what any Party freak wants to say.

[Irish Eyes]

Very good post, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Romney might not have been everyone’s first choice but in my opinion he stands tall against the other choices. My vote will go to Romney.

[Diamond]

But, like Reagan, who also changed positions on the very issue of abortion, Romney changed. He admits it openly.

Romney's purported conversion on abortion is nothing like Reagan. In 1967 when Reagan was presented with the legislature's bill, no one was thinking about abortion and no one had any idea what planned barrenhood were really up to and what their plans for the future were. Being a decent man, Reagan was completely blindsided by the abortionists' malevolence. To liken Romney to Reagan in 1967 after the passage of 35+ years of mass butchery which Romney publicly supported as an adult man, in opposition to none other than Ronald Reagan, is too much to take. Where was Romney those 35 years; in a cave?

Reagan began to vigorously study the issue and the Therapeutic Abortion Act. He asked his longtime adviser and Cabinet secretary Bill Clark — a devout Catholic who had contemplated the priesthood — for counsel. “Bill, I’ve got to know more — theologically, philosophically, medically,” Reagan confided. Clark loaded up the governor with a box of reading materials, which he took home and read in semi-seclusion. Edmund Morris later said that, by the time the Therapeutic Abortion Act reached his desk, “Reagan was quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas.” Years later, Reagan remarked that he did “more studying and soul searching” on the issue than any other as governor.

Nonetheless, he signed the bill. Reagan and his staff calculated that if he vetoed the bill, his veto would be overridden by the state legislature. Therefore, he decided to do what he could to make the bill less harmful, arguing for the insertion of certain language that eliminated its worst features and allowed for abortion only in rare cases — such as rape or incest, or where pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother.

The Therapeutic Abortion Act became law. And as would happen with nearly every abortion law in the years ahead, the mental-health provision was abused by patient and doctor alike. Reagan biographer Lou Cannon notes that even the bill’s Democratic sponsor confessed to being surprised that physicians so liberally interpreted the law.

Reagan was shocked at the unintended consequences of his action. Morris said Reagan was left with an “undefinable sense of guilt” after watching abortions skyrocket. Cannon claims this was “the only time as governor or president that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation.” Clark called the incident “perhaps Reagan’s greatest disappointment in public life.”

For Reagan, one good thing did come out of this disappointment. As Georgetown’s Matt Sitman notes, “It is impossible to understand his later staunchly pro-life positions without grasping the lessons he learned from this early political battle.” Reagan, says Sitman, survived the ordeal with a “profoundly intellectual understanding of the abortion issue…. It was in 1967 that his ideas concerning the beginning of human life were fully formed.” He now had a cogent understanding, politically and morally, of abortion and its implications.

Reagan would later denounce abortion so strongly and so frequently from the Oval Office that Bill Clark has compiled a 45-page document of Reagan’s quotes on abortion, collected from the official Presidential Papers. Reagan even authored a small book — Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, featuring contributions from Bill Clark, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Mother Teresa — that was published by the Human Life Foundation in 1984. White House moderates wanted Reagan to delay publication until after the 1984 election, fearing it would turn off pro-choice Republicans, but Reagan refused. He would not be burned again on abortion. No more compromises.

Ronald Reagan emerged from 1967 repentant, but ready for future battles. The damage was done; of course, the results were nothing compared to the travesty that a group of men in black robes in Washington were planning six years later.

Reagan's Darkest Hour

I do not know who I'm going to vote for tomorrow. McCain is insane. Romney changes positions depending on the election, and Huckabee is Jimmy Carter in Republican drag. But please, do me a favor and don't liken Romney to Reagan on abortion-killing. Tomorrow is dreary enough without having to endure that calumny

Cordially,

[GoMonster]

Dude. You could have just wrapped it in one word versus 1000 words..McCain!

[Joya]

Thanks.

[hattend]

Time to choose a different candidate

Too late for '08....gotta dance with who's left standing.

It's ABC (Anybody But Clinton)

[wita]

Finally post 207 he gets around to his entire list. JK, glad I’m in there somewhere even if it is the “entire list”. I agree Hunter Thompson were on my list, but they are gone, and I agree there is now only one choice for Republicans, or conservatives. At least those who are willing to cast their vote.

[Jeff Head]

The fact is, Reagan signed the most permissive and liberal abortion bill of the day and it resulted in many, many more abortions in the state of California in 1967, five years before Roe v. Wade. Those are the facts.

I consider Reagan to be the best President in my life time and one of the 2 or 3 best Presidents in the history of thos country.

As your article states, after hsi darkest hour he repented...which means he felt he had somethign very serious to repent of regarding abortion. My point on this issue is simple...without saying Romney is going to be another Regan in the least...Romney has also, by his own admission, repented of his views and actions on abortion.

[calvo]

You and some others here spend a lot of time trying to read something into what Mitt said and feel threatened by it. What has he done that really caused you or yours damage. McCain on the other hand has done some very serious damage with his liberal stands and if nominated it will assure that we have amnesty. I will never forgive McCain for calling the Swift Boat guys frauds. Some of those guys were every bit as much heros, and more than McCain.

[wolfcreek]

Truth is, McCain has betrayed us for years. There is NO doubt!

Weigh that with what would happen to our country with Barry or Hil in the WH and what options are left?

We’ve come down to what will we accept. I accept Mitt Romney and will be voting for him in the March 4th Texas primary.

[McGruff]

I’ve grown to support Romney after first thinking Fred Thompson was the man who could lead this party and country back to the Ronald Reagan days.

I’ve watched Romney during the debates and believe he would do what’s right if president. He would run the country like a business. Hopefully a successful one. He mentions the War on Islamo-facishism a lot. I like that.

John McCain’s actions for the past 8 years are finally catching up with him. I’ve grown to despise him. If he is the face of the republican party I don’t want to be associated wit it.

Huckabee. Well I feel he’s not presidential material. His Arkansas record and he’s a little too religious for me. Seems real weak on foreign policy.

Fred. Wish you were still here but you’re not.

Cheney. I’d love to see you president but you made your choice. Thanks for your service to your country.

[Convert from ECUSA]

I have come to the same conclusions as you, and for many of the same reasons. I also preferred Hunter and then Thompson (I also liked Tancredo). Given the choices that are left, I’m leaning toward Romney and hoping that his changes on some very important issues are genuine. I know what Juan McAztlan stand for and will do. If McAztlan does get the nomination (Heaven forbid), I will vote third party or write in Hunter or Thompson and vote “R” for the rest of the ticket.

This has to be the worst election cycle I’ve seen in my 52 years of living.

[Jeff Head]

Sorry...I was away and did not have my full list earlier, and only later when I got home was I able to use it.

Thanks for responding. Today is really a critical day, IMHO, in our nation's history. I hope conservative Americans across the nation surprise the prognosticators...like we did on the amnesty bill whose author is now leading in all of their eyes and polls.

[Jeff Head]

Agreed!

[wita]

Sorry.

No apologies necessary from Jeff Head.

Indeed this is a critical day.

How we went from John McCain in SC 2000
to John McCain today, only the passage
of time or short memories explains it.

[nonsporting]

Too late for '08....gotta dance with who's left standing.

This is where many of you are mistaken. I don't have to dance. I don't have to run off the cliff just because the rest of you are.

If George H.W. Bush had been elected in 1992, the Repubs would most likely have not reclaimed the Congress in 1994. Long term thinking/planning gets shcrt changed in favor of short term expediency. I won't play that game. If it means non-compliance, both peaceful or violent, so be it.

Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney...sure there are differences, but the political ends are not all that different: Civilian disarmament, ascendency of the homosexual agenda, amnesty. I'd like to be able to vote for Romney, but his past position on vital issues leads me to distrust his current seemingly expedient choices.

Enjoy the drop.

[betty boop]

Jeff, have you seen this -- How the Clintons Will Destroy John McCain

Oh my....