Posted on 12/17/2007 5:32:53 AM PST by JRochelle
It has turned out that Mitt Romney’s Meet the Press appearance appeared decent at the time, but mistakes seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Race 4 2008 has one write-up.
First, there was Romney’s lie about the NRA endorsement. He claimed that he had received it in 2002. He hadn’t. Just made it up.
Second, he claimed that "…every piece of legislation which came to my desk in the coming years as a Governor, I came down on the side of preserving the sanctity of life." Fred Thompson’s campaign sent out a press release basically blowing that up.
Third, Jen Rubin at the Spectator drills down and finds Romney’s statements on taxes totally lacking. Key quotes:
On the subject of fees and taxes a pre-The Note Rick Klein reported in 2003: "A survey of states grappling with spending crises has found that Massachusetts imposed more fee hikes than any other state in the nation this year - at least $500 million. … ‘These are just indiscriminate, broad-based fee increases because of a reluctance to raise taxes,’ said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. ‘It’s been disingenuous to say there’s no new taxes, in the sense that there’s very little connection to the fee increases and the cost of services that the fees are supposed to represent.’" Groups like Citizens for Limited Taxation at the time were similarly suspicion about the distinction.
And fourth, Romney "I was an independent in the time of Reagan/Bush" and "I voted for Paul Tsongas" said:
OK, Tim, let’s go back and let’s, let’s–I’m going to reject the premise, to begin with because, when I ran against Ted Kennedy, I realized the shot was a long shot, to beat Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. But I was tired of his liberal policies. And as you’ll recall, I fought for the death penalty, I said secure the borders, I said at the same time we’re going to completely redo our welfare system and get rid of the old welfare system. I ran as a Republican and a conservative. And when I ran for governor in Massachusetts, you were there. First question you asked me in the debate, "Tell me about the death penalty." I was for the death penalty. I was for English immersion in our schools. I said, I said…
Yeah. Whatever dude. Again, Jen Rubin whips out the quotes:
“I Am A Fiscal Conservative And A Social Moderate.” (2002)
“I Was An Independent During The Time Of Reagan-Bush. I’m Not Trying To Return To Reagan-Bush.” (1994)
"I don’t know that the world is pining for a progressive-on-social-issues governor of Massachusetts." (2002) Then there’s my personal favorite "my R doesn’t so much stand for Republican as Reform."
I just can’t wait for the video mashup of the 2007 statements against his actual record.
He didn't claim that. Relying on Washington Post headlines is always a bad idea.
Romney reeks of “POLITICIAN” not LEADER
FReeper: "Simply post the URL of the endorsement of the NRA for his run for governor. Should be easy, right? Just the URL."
"There can’t be a URL, because the NRA did not endorse Romney for governor." - CharlesWayneCT
FIP Ping
Wake up America. Hunter is our best candidate.
Why not just quote from the Romney press release that says there was no endorsement?
Romney never said he had their endorsement, and his campaign clarified his remark, just as the Thompson campaign clarified his remarks about the Human Life amendment.
Thank you for pinging me to your quote of me.
Next thing the mitt haters will be pointing out that Mitt was never a Senator, and asking us for a URL that proves otherwise.
That alone should be enough to overcome all of those other negatives.
Your inability to understand that Mitt did claim to have the endorsement of the NRA, and that that was a lie, makes me think you are brainwashed.
There can be no other logical explanation.
“I was an independent in the time of Reagan/Bush.”
“I voted for Paul Tsongas.”
Ok, how do these two quotes from Mitt help win conservatives?
Just asking.
who reads soren dayton? the person has serious problems. this whole campaign like democrats from garbage like dayton is stupid.
what right minded person uses the word “lie” when someone clearly misspoke. it was obvious given the context of the answer that Mitt meant support. and the drive by hits from Thompson are pointless. he needs to get off his butt and do some campaigning.
we have a pool of excellent candidates and they can make a contribution to the Republican image.
and dayton has absolutely no credibility. he spent the election cycle shilling for mccain and giuliani. he has absolutely little to say about their election year shifts on bush tax cuts (and mccain has a good argument for his votes), immigration, late term abortion, etc. And his latest brilliant idea is to shill for Huckabee to pump up mccain and giuliani. Huckabee can’t even remember that spoke out against the surge in Iraq.
This virtual price war-stupid sum game that activists like dayton play minimizes the contribution of all the participants.
One other issue mentioned yesterday was a fee for the interstate exit ramp adverts which were raised from almost nothing to a substantial amount. Clearly not a tax. Mitt says many fees such as this were raised, but were not broad-based. Hey, governing a bunch of whacko lefties ain't easy.
FYI, Fred's #1 with me if he lights it up. Otherwise its Mitt.
After that terrible performance yesterday, it appears the Mittster is finished.
Reasons:
Lies
Obfuscation
Still pandering
He missed his greatest opportunity yesterday to stand up for something. He pandered instead and allowed Mr. potato head to keep him totally on the defensive.
Why not post article in support of your candidate instead of writing smear articles against other candidates?
Your question is similarly asked to a Democrat like this:
“Why don’t you post positives of Obama, instead of writing smear articles against Hillary.”
Do you see how hypocritical you sound when you ask the same question of Republicans who oppose the nomination of Mitt.
I oppose his nomination. He would be detrimental (already is IMHO) to the Republican party, and he can’t win. When you look at the polls of each Rebulican candidate against each Dem candidate, Mitt does more poorly than almost any other.
I have done both.
I realize you don’t like the truth coming out about Mitt.
Too bad.
They don’t, and if he was running for President of 1994, he’d have a problem. (BTW, of all the democrats in 1992, Tsongas was the best one. Meanwhile, if it was the 1992 election this year, the entire body of FR would be telling us we should stay home and let Bill Clinton win rather than voting for that “RINO sellout” George Bush.
I suppose some here would like him to LIE about his positions back in the the time of Reagan/Bush. I appreciate his honesty in admitting that he was an independent. Of course, during the time of Reagan/Bush he was a private citizen, not a public official, and had little impact on any elections for any office.
I would also note that Paul Tsongas was a PRIMARY candidate, who LOST in the primary. And Bush was pretty much going to win the republican nomination. So for Romney the private citizen to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Tsongas isn’t as damning as some people make it out. Tsongas was, as I said, one of the better democrats.
That list included Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, Eugene McCarthy, Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin and Lyndon LaRouche.
But all this is really trivial stuff. The point isn’t what Mitt Romney thought of himself in 1994, it’s whether the policies he was running on were conservative, moderate, or liberal. And in most cases, he was on the conservative side, the major exceptions being gays, abortion, and guns. On other issues (fiscal responsibility, tax cuts, welfare reform, death penalty for example) he was on the conservative side.
He claimed their endorsement for his ACTIONS AS GOVERNOR, not for his candidacy FOR governor.
He said they “supported” him in his run for governor, which his campaign clarified because of the Washington Post blog which took his quote about “endorsement” of the gun bill and pretended it went with the “supported” claim.
The “supported” claim was at worst a slip of the tongue, something Russert didn’t interpret as a claim of endorsement.
IT’s only your hatred of Mitt that could make you believe that Mitt Romney was trying to claim an endorsement that he would know could be refuted with a 5-second web search.
Even if you claimed Mitt was stupid, which he obviously is not, he wouldn’t be that stupid.
He understood the word “endorsement”. He even USED the word when talking about his gun bill. So if he wanted to falsely claim the NRA endorsed him in 2002, he would have said so. He didn’t.
It’s clear from the context that he was discussing the question about his position on guns, with respect to the AWB and his statements in the 2002 election that he supported restrictions on guns, and supported enforcement of existing gun laws.
Candidates make mistakes. Some are trivial, like this one, some are more substantial. The opposition will always spin this as some deliberate attempt, even when that explanation defies logic and reason.
Romney’s position on guns in 2002, 2005, and in 2007 is perfectly clear, he’s not been trying to hide his past, and it’s absurd to believe that in this instance he was actually claiming an endorsement he didn’t receive, and doing so deliberately.
I guess the rule here now, at least regarding candidates whose initials are not FT, is “never attribute to simple error what you can blow up into a fatal character flaw”.
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