Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: ansel12
What you have is a hypothesis or a supposition or a story. It might be true. It might not. But it's not proven fact. It's not even that good a conclusion.

I pointed out already that your "source" didn't understand Massachusetts election law. He didn't make an informed and logical conclusion from what the registrar or town clerk said, but jumped to an invalid conclusion. You yourself didn't -- and apparently still don't -- have a clue about the political situation in Massachusetts in the 1980s. Massachusetts didn't "prefer Republican governors" until William Weld came along in 1990, and today it looks like the state no longer does. But you ignore all that and simply repeat the same nonsense.

Two more points. First, you can't assume that people from political families will have a life-long interest in politics. Maybe they like the excitement of conventions and travel, but don't want all the hassles. Maybe they enjoy the life but want to prove that they can make it on their own in another field. But even if Romney had a longtime interest in politics, it doesn't translate into a lifelong ideological commitment. You've assumed that, but haven't been able to prove it.

What we know doesn't prove or "demonstrate" that Romney "left" the Republican party for ideological reasons in 1979. So far as I can tell, you are the only person making that claim. The date doesn't really make much sense. Romney didn't have a crystal ball that would tell him that Reagan would win the primaries and the general election. Was he really that much in favor of Carter or Kennedy that he couldn't stomach Bush or Baker or Dole or Connolly or Anderson?

Second, just as you're projecting the political climate in Massachusetts in the 1990s back on the 1980s, you're projecting current conditions in the GOP back on the 1980s. Eastern Establishment Republicans -- if that's what Romney was -- weren't as angry at or opposed to Reagan in the 1980s as they were at later Republicans (or at Goldwater earlier).

There was a lot of support in the Northeast for Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 general elections. That didn't all come from conservatives or Reagan Democrats. It also came from moderate Republicans (maybe even some liberal Republicans). Disenchantment with Carter (and Mondale) was that strong. Disenchantment with conservative Republicans came later. So you can't just assume that Romney would have been so outraged by Reagan's policies that he turned Democrat.

A BYU and HBS/HLS grad working in management consulting in the 1980s might have felt comfortable in Bill Clinton's Democratic Party. It's less likely he would have enjoyed Jimmy Carter's or Walter Mondale's. He might have found more company among co-workers and associates in Ronald Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's Republican Party (if not in Reagan's conservative movement) than with Carter or Mondale, even in Massachusetts. Ten or twenty years later, the situation would have been very different.

Your theory or story might be true. But it might not. I don't know. I'm not in Romney's head. But you present your theory as though it's a proved fact or a well-grounded conclusion based on the available facts. It isn't. It looks a lot like you're projecting qualities on to Romney that you want him to have. You want him to be a sworn enemy, so you just assume he is. That his outlook on life and his life-choices may not have followed your scheme doesn't seem to occur to you.

You're not entirely wrong: Romney has taken a variety of positions, they've changed over the years. You see that he hasn't been a movement or Reagan conservative. Where you err is in assuming that he's been firmly on the other, liberal side of the debate, rather than see that he hasn't been steadfastly on either side of the political argument his whole life long. Other people do understand that and have tried to come to terms with it, whether they supported Romney or not.

I don't have any interest in pursuing this further. You're just repeating what you've already said in a simplistic cut-and-paste way, and I notice from the responses that you've gotten that a lot of people see through your routines pretty easily.

89 posted on 12/15/2012 8:26:09 AM PST by x
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 84 | View Replies ]


To: x

Beyond that, I would never considered becoming a Republican again after this last election.


91 posted on 12/15/2012 9:26:03 AM PST by AdaGray
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies ]

To: x

The draft evading, anti-conservative, pro-abortion Mitt Romney has been a committed, sincere liberal all of his life, from his days as a teenage intern to a liberal governor, to the 1964 Goldwater convention, to becoming anti-war during Vietnam, to leaving the GOP because of the Reagan surge in 1979, to supporting, fund-raising, and voting for democrats, to calling for the homosexualizing of the military in 1994, to giving the nation gay marriage and Romney/Obama care, to appointing 100% liberal judges, all the way to rejecting the GOP pro-life platform and shutting out the tea-party and the 2008 veep from his convention and putting forward Chris Christie. t
The guy’s only political consistency is being anti-conservative.

Yes Massachusetts prefers republican governors, or at least they did until Romney, he damaged the state GOP and lost the seat to the democrats who have held it since him.

Romney in Massachuesetts may have permanently damaged the republican brand as much as he did nation wide with his disastrously pro-abortion/pro-homosexual, liberal run for the presidency.

Romney no longer lives in Massachusetts because it no longer serves his politics, it was a great match for him while it lasted. Mitt Romney and Massachusetts, it is why he could switch to being a republican once the Reagan era was over.

Romney has always been involved in politics and a left winger, for instance becoming pro-abortion in 1963 according to his own words. Mitt only reversed himself on politics for his presidential campaign, he never did it during his life, and as we saw after his winning the nomination, he even went back to being pro-abortion.

How did Mitt Romney so thoroughly conceal any conservative beliefs or impulses in his public and personal life until he started running for the 2008 primary, that is almost 60 years of living and it was during the pro life movement, the Reagan Revolution, the 1994 Republican Revolution, the gun rights fights, wars, the Clinton years, how and why was he always on the wrong side?

“Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.”

“My hope is that, after this election, it will be the moderates of both parties who will control the Senate, not the Jesse Helms’.”

“These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”


92 posted on 12/15/2012 1:12:59 PM PST by ansel12 (A.Coulter2005(truncated)Romney will never recover from his Court's create of a right to gay marriage)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson