Posted on 11/27/2007 11:39:52 AM PST by jdm
BOSTON - Mitt Romney did everything he could while governor of Massachusetts to avoid having a sticky "Willie Horton" criminal case cloud his future presidential campaign.
To no avail. Romney is now being dogged by the case of a convicted killer who was charged in the recent deaths of a young couple — after being released over prosecutors' protests by a judge Romney appointed.
Rudy Giuliani is trying to tie it all to his rival in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. "The governor is going to have to explain his appointment, and the judge is going to have to explain her decision," Giuliani says.
The theme, likely to resurface at a GOP debate Wednesday in Florida, harkens back to 1988, when allies of Republican George H.W. Bush broadcast a demonic photo of inmate Willie Horton in ads against another Massachusetts governor running for the White House, Democrat Michael Dukakis.
The spots accused Dukakis of being soft of crime for a furlough program under which Horton — likewise a convicted killer — was released. Horton was convicted of raping a Maryland woman and pistol-whipping her fiance while free.
Bush went on to win the election.
Today the images in search of a commercial are the smiling snapshot of victims Brian and Beverly Mauck of Graham, Wash., and the mugshot of Daniel Tavares Jr., replete with tattoos on both sides of his neck.
Romney is trying to contain the damage. His staff has repeatedly said they fear ads against him by third-party groups, and they are anxious to avoid having the case define him to a national audience.
He immediately called for Judge Kathe Tuttman to resign, saying her decision to free Tavares "showed an inexplicable lack of good judgment."
He also unleashed his most personal criticism yet of Giuliani.
Romney noted Giuliani proposed Bernard Kerik as Homeland Security secretary while the former New York police commissioner was under criminal investigation. Kerik, a Giuliani friend and once his chauffeur, has since been indicted by federal officials.
"I must admit that of all the people who might attack someone on the basis of an appointment, I thought he would be the last to do so," Romney said of Giuliani.
Whether Giuliani can turn Daniel Tavares Jr. into Willie Horton is an open question. The war in Iraq, the rising cost of daily living and concern about terrorism have superseded crime as paramount issues for voters 20 years later.
There also is Romney's squeaky clean personal life and his outreach to conservatives as he depicts himself as anything but the more liberal Dukakis.
"What Willie Horton did was play into people's predispositions and suspicions about Michael Dukakis, that he wasn't tough on crime. The facts of the case mattered far less than the appearance of the case," said David King, a political science professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
"In the case with Romney as governor, he steadfastly opposed pardons, he was a law-and-order governor, so what happened is not consistent with what people believe to be the image of Mitt Romney," King said.
Romney had tried hard to avoid this predicament in the first place.
While governor, he cast himself as a law-and-order executive, favoring the death penalty in a state that strongly opposes it, and embarrassing vacationing lawmakers into enacting tougher sentences for repeat drunken drivers.
He also refused to pardon any prisoners during his four years in office, a move widely viewed as inoculating himself against future Willie Horton moments on the campaign trail. One of those denied a pardon was a decorated Iraqi war veteran who wanted to become a police officer.
That man's past transgression? A conviction as a 13-year-old for shooting a friend with a BB gun.
Giuliani, meanwhile, has tried to pivot from the Tavares case to a broader critique of Romney's record on crime.
The former mayor, during an interview with The Associated Press, pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket listing FBI crime statistics for Massachusetts while Romney was governor. Murders were up 7.5 percent, robbery was up 12 percent, he said.
"He had an increase in murder and violent crime while he was governor," Giuliani said. "So it's not so much the isolated situation which he and the judge will have to explain — he's kind of thrown her under the bus, so it's hard to know how this is all going to come out. But the reality is, he did not have a record of reducing violent crime."
Romney accused Giuliani of mangling statistics and produced his own set showing violent crime had fallen by 7 percent during his term.
"Mayor Giuliani can't resist embellishing the facts to make a bogus point. It's a very troubling trait," said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.
Romney aides say Giuliani's criticism simply reveals his own concerns about his campaign in New Hampshire. Romney leads in the polls there, and the former mayor is trying to eat into that lead in first primary state.
I wonder if he grabed his crotch?
They left out the part where Willie Horton actually endorseed Dukakis in an interview.
Yes. Should be, Romney rapped for idiot liberal judicial appointment.
This sad business has previously been talked about here on FR.
OTOH, Rudy should talk. Almost all of his judicial appointments were screaming liberals, too.
...but, when it was his turn to wear the uniform of his country, Mutt begged and obtained a 2-D draft deferment from the LDS church so he could hang out in Vietnam-era Paris while knocking on a few doors for the Mormons. Scheech...what a creep! Another Bill Clinton draft-dodger though wrapped in a shirt-and-tie "Elder" suit.
There is, buried in the article, an entirely glib and superficial wave of the hand as they say such a charge is weak because of Romney’s “squeaky clean personal life” and blah blah blah on to the rest of the hits.
The thing is . . . if you want to know what sort of a man someone is, don’t you start and damn near finish with that someone’s personal life? If someone’s personal life is squeaky clean, doesn’t that define what kind of a man he is? Didn’t it define what kind of a man Clinton is?
Yes, it did, and if it did for Clinton, why does it not for Romney? Evaluation of EVERYONE begins and comes very close to ending, in the examination of how they live their lives. It is somewhat bizarre to take on the position that “we all have flaws”, and somehow contort that into meaning those with fewer flaws are somehow men who are not good.
This is a very good man. The sooner FR begins all evaluation with that reality in mind, the better.
They also left out the part that it was algore trhat orgionally brought up the case of Willie Horton and that it was the Duke himself that pushed the early furlough program.
Gee, they don’t even remember that Willie Horton was a gift of algore.
Romney is also a good panderer , and a good Liberal .
That headline just screams for someone with Photoshopping skills.....
Good men don't avoid their responsibility to their country in times of war by begging and securing a 2-D ministerial deferment. I see no good in either Mitt Romney or Bill Clinton in that regard.
But he is a lousy Conservative...
Executed killers can't be released to kill again. Yet another reason to executed convicted killers.
She is a registered democrat, a feminist that donated to Clinton’s leftist cabinet member Robert Reich, when he ran for governor in 2002.
She was a Romney affirmative action appointment, married to a liberal defense attorney.
She was Romney’s choice, a republican does not have to be a mind reader when it comes to not appointing registered democrats.
“This is a very good man. The sooner FR begins all evaluation with that reality in mind, the better.”
He is a powerful figure within a powerful cult, the “perfection” of his life reflects the order of that cult and his position within it.
His actions outside of the cult to make money and gather power now involve us as he tries to lie his way into the presidency, he is dishonest scum and we have him on tape.
FR needs to evaluate a presidential candidate on his conservatism, and how we think that he will lead our beloved country.
He’s wonderful. I’m still not voting for him. I expect more than a clean personal life from our president.
You are thinking just like a liberal, you are one to talk. Anyway we’ll see by tomorrow how Mitt will handle it. How do you know that someone who has been a prosecutor for 17 years is a liberal? inquiring minds........ bor is trying to make this a big deal too..... cicero and bor sitting in a tree......
He’s a Mormon, and he don’t take no crap...when he be doin da...Mormon rap!
Pa pa pa pa period!
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