Posted on 11/17/2007 11:04:39 AM PST by Brices Crossroads
As social conservatives decide who to support in the 2008 primary, let me suggest that an application of the immortal pass/fail test of the 1980 Reagan-Carter debate is particularly apropos for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Applying that test to Romney on the two signal issues for social conservatives, and two of the centerpieces of Romney's campaign, Right to Life and Traditional Marriage, what does the record reflect?
On Abortion: When Romney took office in 2003, under the law in Massachusetts, enacted by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Moe v. Secretary of Admin.& Finance, 382 Mass. 629, 417 N.E.2d 387 (Mass. 1981), the taxpayers of Massachusetts were forced to subsidize ONLY abortions performed on Medicaid eligible women. In 2003, there were 4,859 publicly funded abortions in Massachusetts, according to the Massachusetts Citizens for Life. http://www.masscitizensforlife.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=172
In 2003, there were 25,741 total abortions performed in Massachusetts. http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5511a1.htm
Post-RomneyCare, the state forces every Massachusetts taxpayer to fund every abortion performed on any Massachusetts resident for a very modest $50 copay. Thus, under Romney Care, the number of abortions that will be funded on the backs of the taxpaying citizens of Massachusetts will be at least 500% more than the number when he took office (approx. 25,000 versus 5,000).
Romney's answer to this is as predictable as it is disingenuous: The Courts made me do it. The Court in Moe did no such thing. The court did not require the legislature to subsidize health care. In finding that the state had to cover abortions for Medicaid eligible women in the same way it covered child bearing, the Court was explicit that: "... the legislature need not subsidize any of the costs associated with child bearing or with health care generally. Once it chooses to enter the Constitutionally protected area of choice, it must do so with genuine indifference." This is Massachusetts double speak which is translated: "If you do not want to have universal funding of abortion on demand, then do not pass a universal and mandatory health care program." Romney could have avoided this five fold increase in publicly funded abortions which was put across on his watch and with his enthusiastic support, by vetoing the whole plan. Instead, he chose to sacrifice the lives of unborn children (and to require the taxpayers of Massachusetts to pay for it) on the altar of compulsory, yes socialized, health care. All the bromides about an unpassable Constitutional Human Life Amendment cannot conceal the fact that, when he could have done something to prevent an increase in abortion, Romney not only did nothing. He actually cooperated with it. At the signing ceremony attended by Ted Kennedy, in April 2006 (after his supposed conversion to a prolife position), the mood was ebullient, according to the news reports:
"Mostly, however, the tone was congratulatory. 'This isn't 100 percent of what anyone in this room wanted,' Mr. Romney said. 'But the differences between us are small.' Mr. Kennedy said, 'You may well have fired the shot heard round the world on health care in America. I hope so.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/us/13health.html
I guess there were not any unborn children in the room, because I daresay their differences with all the celebrants there would have been rather more than "small". Here's hoping that this "shot" Kennedy predicted is heard at least as far as Iowa, where Romney has successfully masqueraded as a prolife zealot.
On Marriage: When Romney took office, traditional marriage was the rule. Enter the Massachusetts Supreme Court. In the infamous Goodridge decision, the court "found" a "right" to same sex marriage. Lacking the power to enforce such a decision, the Goodridge Court stayed its decision in order to give the legislature time to consider and implement it. The Legislature did nothing. The activist Court could hardly have imagined its luck when the freshly minted Republican Governor stepped into the breech and became its partner in implementing its outrageous ultra vires decision. Romney ordered the town clerks, under pain of law, to issue the same sex licenses and he ordered the forms changed from husband and wife to party one and party two. His exuberant complicity with the Goodridge Court made Massachusetts the first, and so far, the only state to legalize same sex marriage. (Ironically, his own actions would have been unconstitutional under the Marriage amendment proposed by former Senator Fred Thompson, and opposed by Romney, who favors an allegedly more stringent, unpassable version). Not even the liberal Arnold Schwarzenegger, who actually is honest enough to say he favors same sex marriage, was willing to sign such a bill passed by the legislature in California. The issue was so divisive that he wanted to put it to a referendum. And what should Romney have done? Nothing. Nothing at all. It was a legislative matter and until the legislature acted he should have done nothing. Again, he used an activist court decision to provide him cover for implementing social liberalism.
Romney's record in Massachusetts on issues dear to social conservatives was an unmitigated disaster. His legacy will be same sex marriage and $50 abortions. Abortion is a tragedy, and taxpayer funded abortion an affront to prolifers and libertarians alike. Perhaps, however, Romney Care will succeed in subsidizing one abortion that most serious prolifers, and all unborn babies in Massachusetts, can agree on: the abortion of the Romney for President campaign.
ping!
No.
The answer is no.
ping!
So far, the no’s have it.
Romney is not a liberal. He’s a conservative and you’d better quit quoting facts that say otherwise or else Mitt’s running dogs will post you to death.
As I look at Romney’s record in Massachusetts, it is more liberal even than Giuliani. No wonder Romney is not gaining any traction in spite of spending tens of millions.
I agree!
Aka, Romney’s campaign should be aborted.
These facts-his role in same sex marriage and universal taxpayer funded $50 abortions- should be spread all over Iowa to those social conservatives who have heretofore supported him.
Yes I am better off than 4 years ago.
.....and I actually live in Massachusetts......Cambridge at that.
absolutely not.
I’m not better off but i’m a hell of alot better of than if his opponent Shannon O’brien took office instead.
What man do you know of has ever turned a Liberal hell-hole like MA into a conservative Utopia in only 4 years.
Let me know.
It is impossible to push Fred Thompson on people that care more about the issue more than people that care about electioneering some irrational name and shell game. Fred puts “federalism” ahead of conservative issues. So no. Fred would not have made Massachusetts better. And we already know that he would rather play lobbyist for a hedge fund while he was head of the Federal City Council than he would fix TennCare.
The problem with Romney is his actions made the” liberal hellhole” a helluva lot worse.
Federalism is a conservative principle, which yields conservative results on a whole host of issues, including social issues. That was the view of both Reagan and Goldwater. It is the view of Thompson. It is not the view of Rudy, Romney or Huckabee. Which is why they are not conservatives.
Shannon O’Brien never would have dared to implement the Goodridge decision the way Romney did. She would have been pilloried by the GOP in Massachusetts for doing so. And she would have been running for reelection. Mitt never intended to run for reelection. (Had he done so, the polls all show he would have lost big.) He was already running for President. Tell me what O’Brien would have accomplished in 4 years that would have made Massachusetts any worse for social conservatives than what Romney did.
Yeah, well this is it - I was leaning toward Romney, but this is just too much - the very least it says is that he favors “bi-partisanship” - i.e., caving to the far left at the drop of a hat.
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