Mitt Romney: A Massachusetts Liberal for President

American Thinker ^ | January.9, 2007 | Selwyn Duke

[Reagan Man]

With the 2008 presidential campaign looming just on the horizon, speculation about political fortunes abounds. On the Democrat side, Lady Hillary is waiting in the wings, and the media's profilers have found their fair-haired boy in Barack Obama. On the Republican side, the picture is murkier. Often the Vice-president would be the logical choice to carry the incumbent party's torch, but Dick Cheney won't be running and, even if he did, he wouldn't win. Of course, Arizona Senator John McCain is still around, but he arouses suspicion among conservatives. Seeming worn, tired, erratic and untrustworthy, many think the old soldier should just fade away.

Enter Mitt Romney. Inching ever closer to a presidential run, the former CEO and outgoing Governor of Massachusetts is emerging as the Barack Obama of the GOP. And the analogy is apt. He has the resonant voice, the good looks, the statesman-like bearing and, going Obama two better, great hair and unobtrusive ears.

But Romney shares another commonality with Obama: He's a liberal in his party masquerading as something more palatable. Yes, sugar and spice and dealing the deck twice, that's what little politicians are made of.

As to this point, another politico he can be compared to is Al Gore. Like Gore, Romney has flip-flopped on abortion, only in the other direction. While he now claims to be pro-life, he supported legalization of the "morning-after" abortion pill, RU-486. Moreover, as recently as his 2002 run for governor his platform stated,

"The choice to have an abortion is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government's."

Of course, Romney says that his views have "evolved." But I strongly suspect his adaptation relates more to the evolution of political ambitions than that of conscience. Call me cynical, but unless you've been cloistered in an ancient monastery for the duration, I'm very suspicious of deep personal growth occurring between ages 55 and 59.

According to Romney, unlike himself, the "paradigm" of marriage is not "evolving," and his high profile stand against anti-marriage has garnered him much publicity of late. But here, too, Romney has been about as consistent as March weather, with a track record that belies his newfound traditionalism.

In a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney hailed Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a "step in the right direction" and "the first of a number of steps" toward homosexuals serving "openly" in the military.

Then, Brian Camenker points out the following in The Mitt Romney Deception:

- "Romney's campaign distributed pro-gay rights campaign literature during Boston's ‘Gay Pride' events," issuing pink fliers stating, "Mitt and Kerry [running mate Kerry Healey] wish you a great Pride weekend! All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their sexual preference."

- Romney advocated governmental recognition of homosexual adoption rights, domestic partnerships and homosexual civil unions.

- Romney opposed the Boy Scouts' policy prohibiting homosexuals from serving as scoutmasters and prevented the organization from participating publicly in the 2002 Olympics.

- The Boston Globe wrote in 2005, "Governor Mitt Romney, who touts his conservative credentials to out-of-state Republicans, has passed over GOP lawyers for three-quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced, instead tapping registered Democrats or independents - including two gay lawyers who have supported expanded same-sex rights."

- Romney promoted homosexual propaganda in Massachusetts schools through the "Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth," funding this bureaucracy of social engineering instead of eliminating it.

Thus, it's no wonder that while campaigning against Ted Kennedy in 1994, Romney said that anti-marriage "is not appropriate at this time." My guess is that the time will be right when the electorate is left.

Equally damning, though, is that in a very ominous way he can be compared to yet another infamous poseur, Hillary Clinton. On April 12, 2006, Romney signed a bill into law that creates a universal health system intrusive enough to be the envy of socialists everywhere. The plan mandates that every Ma. resident must obtain health insurance by July 1, 2007, or face a fine that could exceed 1,200 dollars a year. Of course, this scheme includes the creation of a new bureaucracy, one that will, using Big Brother's infinite wisdom, determine how much you can afford to pay. Wow, thanks for the help, Mitt. Or, is it "Vinny the Chin"? I mean, this sounds like an offer you just can't refuse.

To justify his socialist brainchild, Romney uses the argument that it is no different from requiring people to carry car insurance. Ah, speciousness, thy name is Romney. Mr. Governor, you can choose not to own a car.

Everyone must have a body.

But remember this when Romney touts his credentials as a fiscal conservative. While he may boast of his steadfast refusal to raise taxes, it rings hollow when he turns around and mandates citizen expenditures and levies fines. But liberals are adept at revenue-raising sleight-of-hand; when another tax increase would raise voter ire, they simply deem it a toll, fine, fee or, I love this one, a "surcharge." I prefer honest theft myself.

President Bush is often excoriated for betraying his conservative base, a perception that contributes to poll numbers lower than Ted Kennedy's jowls. What is forgotten, however, is that while campaigning for the presidency in 2000, Bush accused the Republican Congress of trying ". . . to balance the budget on the backs of the poor," a line that could have been culled from Democrat talking points. Folks, the president never cast himself as anything but exactly what he is. We just weren't listening.

Are we listening now?

Ah, those Massachusetts liberals: Studds, Frank, Kennedy and Willard Mitt Romney. It just seems to roll off the tongue.

Bernie Sanders for veep, anyone?

[Kuksool]

Its one thing to favor Roe. It its quite another thing to support abortion anytime, anywhere, and for any reason. I refuse to vote for any candidate who holds those views.

I would be open to voting for a pro-choice Republican if he/she, at least supports reasonable restrictions like parental consent, 24 waiting period for abortion, and affirms the Hyde Amendment (a federal law which bars Medicaid funds for abortion services).

[Andy'smom]

Mitt Romney doesn't favor civil unions. He has only said that he prefers them to gay marriage.

[Andy'smom]

He's not east coast blue blood. His father was the governor of Michigan.

[Finny]

I see. Because by being alive, I am a liability to others. Ice cream and junk food and booze and daring sports contribute greatly to that liability -- and since the government is involved in mandating how I handle my "liability to others" in just being alive, it therefore eventually has a right to determine that I should not indulge in ice cream, junk food, etc. because of the possible liability it increases to others. There's no inbetween here, whether you like it or not -- either you create a scenario in which the government is all-powerful in arbitrating so-called "liability" with regard to individual health habits, or one in which it has zero power. Mandatory health insurance, a consequence of not choice but the simple fact of being ALIVE, is absurd and socialistic in the extreme.

No matter how it is couched, YOU CANNOT COMPARE IT TO CAR INSURANCE because one chooses to drive -- if you want to avoid car insurance, don't drive. Mandatory health insurance, on the other hand -- what, if you want to avoid it, you die? It is NO BUSINESS OF THE GOVERNNMENT whether or not I have health insurance. If there is a problem with being a "liability to others," then the system needs to change in the direction of more freedom rather than more regulation. Mandatory health insurance is a BAD IDEA and it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

[Howlin]

For Christsake, when are you people going to realize that the perfect candidate isn't out there.

Not in your or my lifetime.

[Howlin]

But not when it mattered

So the babies aborted when he believed in abortion don't matter to you?

When exactly did it START mattering?

[AFPhys]

Thanks for posting both of those articles. It would have been good to cross link them yourself as early as you were able. It would have helped the discussion.

[JSDude1]

no actually I was a child during that time..

[nopardons]

Which is why all you now know is the fairy tale; not the truth.

Reagan has been mythographized even more than George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have been. For anyone not alive or not old enough during a president's term/s, they should really read contemporaneously written newspapers, pamphlets, letters, and books, in order to get a more well rounded view of the subject and the times.

[plain talk]

There's no inbetween here

Yes, there is always an "in between" so that comment is automatically discarded. You choose to drive - get auto insurance. You choose to live - you should have health insurance one way or another so the rest of us aren't burdened with paying for your emergency room care. While I would not vote for this particular proposal and believe everyone should make these choices themselves I don't find this proposal as awful as you do. It is certainly better than Ted Kennedy's universal health care proposal.

[Lexinom]

All I need to know about the veracity of this article can be seen clearly by your friends and your enemies on this thread.

Keep posting these articles. Rudy McRomney '08 == President Hillary on 01202009.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

It always mattered. My point was when he was elected president and had the ability to influence policy. he was pro life.

[curiosity]

Allows a physicians' committee to approve abortions in cases where there is substantial risk that continuance of the pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the woman,

Note the "mental health" loophole, the same one as in Roe v. Wade that allows practically anyone to have abortion who wants one. It had the same effect in California when Reagan was governor:

"Reagan was not as obsessive about anti-abortion legislation as he often seemed. Early in his California governorship he had signed a permissive abortion bill that has resulted in more than a million abortions."

Source: http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Ronald_Reagan_Abortion.htm

[curiosity]

It is NO BUSINESS OF THE GOVERNNMENT whether or not I have health insurance.

So long as Federal Law requires emergency rooms to accept you if you don't have insurance, than it very much is the business of the government. By not having insurance, you are free riding on the rest of us. Since when do libertarians support free riders?

If there is a problem with being a "liability to others," then the system needs to change in the direction of more freedom rather than more regulation.

Okay, but as governor, Romney had no ability to change that system. It's a FEDERAL law that requires emergency rooms to treat everyone. The Federal law set up a situation in which free riders were taking advantage of everyone else, and he addressed it in an eminently reasonable way.

Mandatory health insurance is a BAD IDEA and it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

On what grounds? I see nothing in the constitution prohibiting states form mandating health insurance, so it would seem that states would have the power to mandate it under 10th Amendment.

[Reagan Man]

What's your point?

Fred Barnes wrote:

"Within a year after signing the abortion bill (1967), Mr. Reagan told political writer Lou Cannon that he'd never have done so if he'd been more experienced in office. It was 'the only time as governor or president that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation,' Mr. Cannon writes in his new book, 'Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power.'"

President Reagan never supported abortion on demand, or partial birth abortion. Reagan opposed 95% of all abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest and the liife/health of the mother. That is the same position as Pres Bush holds today.

If you want to know what Reagn really thought, read his essay, "Abortion and the Conmscience of a Nation".

~snippet~

"Our nation-wide policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people, nor enacted by our legislators--not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. [It was] an act of raw judicial power"...

"Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a "right" so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born."

"We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life--the unborn--without diminishing the value of all human life."

"Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."

Reagan's record on abortion:

*Reagan supported legislation that would allow for a challenge of Roe vs. Wade, while promoting a Right to Life amendment to the US Constitution.

*Reagan adopted the "Mexico City Policy" halting federal aid to private groups promoting abortions abroad.

*The Reagan admin cut off funding to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities because the global agency violated U.S. law by participating in China's mandatory abortion program.

*The Reagan admin adopted regulations prohibiting federally funded "family planning clinics" from promoting abortion as birth control.

*Reagan himself introduced the issue of fetal pain into the public debate over abortion.

*The Reagan White House blocked use of federal money for research using the tissue of aborted babies. A forerunner to banning partial birth abortion.

*The Reagan admin helped win approval of the "Danforth Amendment," which said federally funded educational institutions could not be guilty of "sex discrimination" for refusing to pay for abortions.

*The Reagan admin was key in enactment of laws protecting the right to life of handicapped newborns.

*Reagan designated a National Sanctity of Human Life Day, to recognize the value of life at all stages.

*Reagan was the first Prez to address the annual WashDC March for Life. An annual event Reagan always spoke at.

Again, whats your point?

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>Keep posting these articles.

I will. And thanks for the supportive remarks.

[WalterSkinner]

Jesus wore dresses

..you watch too many movies...

[JohnnyZ]

Romney opposed the Boy Scouts' policy prohibiting homosexuals from serving as scoutmasters and prevented the organization from participating publicly in the 2002 Olympics.

OMG, please tell me this isn't true.

Not only is it true, but Romney's 2002 Salt Lake Olympics were the first trule gay-friendly Olympics.

"The Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, next month will be the first to open its arms to the gay community. Organisers of the 2002 Winter Olympics have actively gone out to get the gay community involved." http://www.massnews.com/2002_editions/06_June/061802_mn_romney.shtml

Isn't that just SUPER?!

[JohnnyZ]

Could it be that Romney favored the Scouts deciding to allow gays to participate, but the decision was up to them, not him, and should be?

Mitt served on the board of the Boy Scouts, so really if he'd been in the majority opinion rather than the minority, the decision would have been his.