Which is a key argument. You don't truly know. You're taking this on blind faith. That's what you do in religion, you don't do that with somebody running for high office. They've got to have the record that matches the rhetoric.
"I do believe as president, he would have governed as a conservative, for a variety of reasons."
How ? There is nothing in his public life up to this point that indicates he will. He had ample opportunity to do so and he never did. Why is it that Don Carcieri in Rhode Island, a state with near-similar dynamics, can Govern as a Conservative ? Because he BELIEVES in what he says and he sets out to do it. *omney has never demonstrated he has a core set of principles beyond, "Just win, Baby."
"For starters, unlike Arnold, who ran on a rather Liberal platform, Mitt Romney ran on a conservative platform."
Not quite. Indeed, Ah-nold, like you-know-who, ran on a very similar platform for Governor. Both claimed to be the heroes riding in on White horses to save the messes in their respective states. In the case of the latter, he kept hammering away, "I saved the Olympics ! I can save Massachusetts (and more to the point, pump up the MA GOP)." I figured, OK, well, let's see him do it (and I did support him in '02, if only because he MARKETED himself exactly as you see him now). Problem is, from nearly the start, warning bells started going off. MA had another Republican named Jim Rappaport, who was a potential future Governor or Senator, and Rappaport offered himself to be the Lieutenant and have a really strong ticket. *omney, rather than take him up on the offer, went out of his way to DESTROY Rappaport and install a total cypher as his Lieutenant, a woman who was never able to win office in her own local constituency (and thereby was never going to be a serious candidate for office in the future -- indeed, despite the lampooning of Jane Swift, the outgoing Governor, ole Jane was no slouch, she won practically every office she had run for on her own accord, and she nearly knocked off a rodent incumbent, in a bad GOP year (1996), for Congress).
Now, once in, he showed about 5 minutes worth of attention to the job and to party responsibilities. Fact is, like some of his predecessors, he realized it was going to take REAL work, and he just got bored. He wasn't governing like a Conservative, he wasn't governing at all. There were colossal problems in the state, from the judiciary, to the Big Dig, healthcare, et al, rodent party corruption, and he just wasn't much interested. No, just a convenient little resume booster. When the party suffered more losses in '04, the last remaining reason for his being Governor went straight out the window. He didn't bother to lift a finger for the party afterwards. There were candidates begging for his help, and he just waved them off. He did exactly like ex-Gov. Weld did, who shafted every single wing of the MA GOP.
Fact is, I got tired of making excuses for the guy. He wanted the Presidency, he couldn't be bothered with dealing with the office he had. I think the perfect example was the judicial issue. He had an appointment to screen a candidate that had enough warning bells to signal that they would release criminals onto the streets without much hesistation. He spent a few minutes with the applicant before rushing off to a more important function... his lunch at Ruth's Chris. That young couple late last year, younger then myself, were brutally murdered by the criminal released by this judge -- who fled clear across the country to Washington state. When the story exploded, right when you-know-who was in the midst of his serious campaign, he was more indignant that it would put a crimp in his campaign than the reality that an innocent young couple was dead. His f'ing long lunch was more important to him than stopping a pro-criminal liberal from getting appointed to the bench.
With his wealth, he's used it quite liberally to buy the kind of support most political candidates have to EARN, namely because he couldn't earn it. Most of his high-profile supporters are on his payroll. Many more have written puff pieces that either gloss over or ignore the man's record, motivations, and inclinations towards not being honest (he got caught lying about his own father and MLK, just audacious stuff). Character matters, and record matters. He looks good on tv ? So did Bubba. Articulate ? So was Bubba. Like Bubba, he'd tell you whatever you'd want to hear to make you believe he shares your values.
A long time ago, in 1888, the GOP put up a "family values" candidate for the Presidency. A former House Speaker and Senator named James Blaine from Maine. Everybody conceded, this guy has an excellent family life... but there was a big problem. Whereas he looked good with his family, most folks in Washington and elsewhere knew his PUBLIC record was anything but Conservative and ethical. His Democrat opponent was a New Yorker named Grover Cleveland. Now allegations had been made that Cleveland was a cad in private (indeed, he took responsibility for a young child, whom in fact may have been fathered by a colleague of his, but the media had a field day with it), but Cleveland's PUBLIC reputation was spotless. Come election day, despite the misgivings about the child, Cleveland became the first Democrat elected President since James Buchanan 32 years earlier. Blaine never did win elective office again (and at last I heard, one of his descendents was a Pennsylvania candidate not so long ago -- appropriately, a liberal Democrat).
When a lot of us get upset over seeing all this ra-ra stuff for *omney, most of us are tired of seeing a lot of good people fooled by him. We didn't just decide we didn't like him overnight, etc., but came to the conclusion over many years of observation that the guy was simply bad news, and precisely the kind of person we don't want running our party or our country (and before you say, "He's just running for VP", remember, because of McCain's age and health problems, he has better than a 50-50 chance of becoming President, and that's another key point). For some people in this election cycle, they're looking for a savior, for the rodents, they're looking to Obama, for some in the GOP, they're looking at *omney. But we're not electing a savior, we're electing a President. Both of these guys are the proverbial mirage in the desert... for each party, you WANT to believe they're the one, but if you look closely, you'll see neither of them are anything but an illusion. That's all they ever will be, and once you dive into that mirage, you end up with the reality, not a cool sip of water, but a mouthful of sand.
I don't deal in gangs. If ya can't handle a rational, civilized discussion one on one, like a man, don't bother to post to me.