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June 4, 2012

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Who is Mitt Romney? Despite rising support, his flip-flopping still nags

Republican candidate’s conflicting positions on key issues have kept voters from fully embracing him

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Steve Marcus

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a rally at Brady Industries Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

By (contact)

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012 | 2 a.m.

Romney Rally at Brady Industries

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a rally at Brady Industries Wednesday, February 1, 2012. Launch slideshow »
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J. Patrick Coolican

Sun archives

Earlier this week the website BuzzFeed posted a video entitled, “A Mitt Romney Vs. Mitt Romney Debate.”

Until he joined BuzzFeed, Andrew Kaczynski was a YouTube hound with a knack for finding obscure and devastating videos of politicians contradicting themselves. This Romney bit doesn’t disappoint.

Here he is in 1994 describing his commitment to abortion rights, in part because of a relative who died after an illegal abortion. Later, he says he’s “firmly pro-life.”

Here he is decrying money in politics. Later, he says he’ll repeal the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that prohibited big, unlimited donations from corporations and unions.

Here he is saying, “I support universal health care.” Then, of course, later he passed a health care law in Massachusetts, including a mandate that everyone have health insurance, that was in some respects the model for President Barack Obama’s own health care law. Now Romney is now sharply critical of the Obama health care plan.

Romney once believed in a path to citizenship for people here illegally if they met certain conditions. Now he’s against that and even opposes the DREAM Act, which would give citizenship to people brought here illegally as children who are in college or want to sign up for the military.

Romney, of course, was not long ago a Republican governor of heavily Democratic Massachusetts and was relatively popular with Democratic voters due to his moderation.

If not for the buffoonery of the rest of the Republican field, the Kaczynski video could have been a devastating career-ender. Instead, he’s the presumptive nominee, and Republican voters are warming to him.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind about issues. In fact, I prefer some flexibility, an elected leader who will look at the evidence and change course if the evidence warrants. Is that what happened here?

In every single case, Romney’s position changed to become aligned with the Republican Party’s increasingly conservative primary voters. Many Americans, given children and time in the private sector and in the suburbs, become more conservative as they get older. But Romney experienced a rather startling transformation of his political ideology, in his 50s.

Was there some Whittaker Chambers moment when he decided his moderation was some great sickness of the soul? As a rule I don’t read politicians’ memoirs, which are terrible, so forgive me if Romney explained all this in his book “No Apology,” though I suspect from the obnoxious title he spent most of his time misrepresenting Obama’s foreign policy.

What I’m saying, I suppose, is that like early Republican primary voters who have made Romney the presumptive nominee but not quite fully embraced him, my question is, who exactly is Mitt Romney?

In front of a big crowd Wednesday at Brady Industries, a janitorial and sanitation wholesaler, Romney showed how he’s been able to overcome the stench that must hang on a Massachusetts moderate. He inspires devotion despite his prior ideological heresies because he’s the Republican ideal — wildly successful, father of a large and loving brood, a leader in his church, a picture of happy health. He attacked Obama for “appeasing” our enemies and “attacking” business, but there was also an unmistakable tribal element to his presentation: I’m one of you — and by implication, Obama is not. And it’s time we got back in charge.

In important respects, this question of his ideology doesn’t even matter. The Republican Party’s conservative ideology — now to the right of its icon Ronald Reagan — is institutionalized in Washington. There are few, if any, moderate Republicans in the House and just a handful in the Senate. (By contrast, Obama had to deal with a large bloc of moderates in the Blue Dog Coalition during his first two years.) The conservative media enforces ideological discipline. And as president Romney would choose from a talent pool made up almost entirely of people who grew up in “the movement.”

Romney may be a shameless cynic, but he’s also analytically astute, which is comforting because this may prevent him from launching an unnecessary war based on his “gut.”

But who knows? Maybe Romney will tell us he’s changed his mind and is now firmly going with his gut.

Discussion: 16 comments so far…

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  1. By SunJon (Jon Becker)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    3:34 a.m.
    Flag

    "The conservative media enforces ideological discipline." This is a prime characteristic of Fascism. Once they get power, they mutate fast to even more rigid disciplines. They are here to 'Save America', but for who?

  2. By gmag39
    Feb. 2, 2012
    6:36 a.m.
    Flag

    Mitt is ALL ABOUT the 1%...

    Trickle-Down Economics; TRIED & FAILED.
    All is does is concentrate wealth even more @ the top.
    How can the Right even try to sell us that bill of goods?
    Heck, even CONSERVATIVES aren't buying his bull...

    http://content.usatoday.com/communities/...

    Unless you are of the Uber Wealthy class...
    You too, are Mitt Romney's DOG, proverbially strapped to the top of his station wagon.

    http://www.politicker.com/2012/01/31/did...

    He's not worried about the poor...
    As long as there's free rice & beans, who CARES???

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewarts-...

  3. By dipstick
    Feb. 2, 2012
    6:37 a.m.
    Flag

    mitt and his off shore investments dont qualify him to be our president , only to be another vulture capitalist.

  4. By pgctg141 (Kevin Boyer)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    6:42 a.m.
    Flag

    Reversible "Mittens" is clearly the poster boy for the 1% crowd. He was born out of touch with how real American's live and remains that way today. His Bain Capital was simply a vampire company that destroyed companies and jobs, yet its where he made tons of the money he now hides in off shore bank accounts.

    This guy will say ANYTHING to become the nominee,...but you can bet your last chip its gonna be a lie.

  5. By BobbyG (Bobby Gladd)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    7:17 a.m.

    Comment removed by moderator. - -

  6. By SunJon (Jon Becker)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    11:03 a.m.
    Flag

    "Hedge fund chiefs lead donors group backing Romney"

    "Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Romney, reported late Tuesday night that it raised $30.1 million in 2011, with 10 donations of at least $1 million."

    "One of the most prominent of its donors was Paul Singer, founder of the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. and chairman of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Singer is one who gave $1 million to the PAC. Singer is a fund-raiser and adviser to Romney, has given hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to the National Republican Senatorial Committee...."

    The 1% will be funding 90%+ of the Romney campaign - watch the score.

  7. By mike_kerns (mike kerns)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    1:26 p.m.
    Flag

    Mitt Romney has more problems then just being a flip flopper. When his record at Bain capital receives more scrutiny and the public become aware of the fact that 23% of the businesses Bain capital aquired filed bankruptcy. And for example take Dade international a maker of medical equipment that was aquired by Romneys Bain capital for $30 million, after Bain capital borrowed $242 million against that company had to file for bankruptcy.

    What Romney did to make his fortune did not create jobs he eliminated jobs.

  8. By SunJon (Jon Becker)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    2:34 p.m.

    Comment removed by moderator. Off Topic

  9. By mike_kerns (mike kerns)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    3:42 p.m.

    Comment removed by moderator. - -

  10. By mike_kerns (mike kerns)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    4:31 p.m.
    Flag

    Why would disclosing the fact That 27 people donating $14 million to Romney's campaign be considered off topic?

  11. By SunJon (Jon Becker)
    Feb. 2, 2012
    8:26 p.m.
    Flag

    Mike Kearns: I'm waiting to know myself.
    "Why would disclosing the fact That 27 people donating $14 million to Romney's campaign be considered off topic?" I think it was 58 people contributing 85% of his primary campaign money.

    "Fleece" Mittens is looking for a 100 wealthy contributors to finance his Presidential campaign. He has no connection to the rest of the population. It takes too much time and effort to worry about the general population. Just give the money to the rich man and we'll all be given hope.

    WHO is ROMNEY? Those 100 wealthy contributors know. His stated, singular objective at the Florida Primaries is to "make Obama a ONE TERM President". He has NO PLANS for jobs, health care, safety, or protecting the environment...his SINGULAR OBJECTIVE is removing Obama.

    Remember this too: the 1939 census in NAZI Germany showed that 45% of the respondents considered themselves Catholic and 55% considered themselves Protestant. 95% Christian. Once the Religions have whipped up their Minions to a state or oral and/or emotional froth, there is no telling what they will do next.

  12. By boftx
    Feb. 2, 2012
    10:17 p.m.
    Flag

    The removed comment concerned all five Republican candidates and did not specifically relate to the story. The comment that has been left in place deals only with Romney and can be construed to in response to the question posed by the story's title.

  13. By boftx
    Feb. 2, 2012
    10:20 p.m.
    Flag

    At least, that would be my guess.

    The moderators seem to be getting more aggressive as we get deeper into the primary season. With all the crap being thrown around already I am not looking forward to what will happen once a nominee is decided.

  14. By AJ (Anthony Jones)
    Feb. 3, 2012
    6:09 a.m.
    Flag

    Mitt Romney said in an interview yesterday that he supports "infrastructure spending" to deal with Nevada's unemployment problem. That's interesting, because the Obama infrastructure proposal that's currently stalled in Congress is supposedly a "Big Govt' Socialist Plot" to destroy America according to the GOP. Give me a break.

  15. By mike_kerns (mike kerns)
    Feb. 3, 2012
    1:31 p.m.
    Flag

    Stating who is donating the cash to Romneys presidential campaign is on topic.

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