Charles, if Romney(D) was running, would you cross party lines to vote for him with his record?
If Romney was a democrat, the act of associating with Democrats would cast doubt on his adherance to republican party principles.
And if he was a “D”, he wouldn’t be running for President on that platform. The platform isn’t just lip service to a few more conservative ideas, it’s a littany of what conservatives claim to stand for and want. Not perfect, but solid.
As I told someone who tried to defend Leiberman on the war — yes, Leiberman is good on the war. But in the end, I don’t “credit” him for it, because first he is no better on the war than EVERY democrat AND republican SHOULD be, and I don’t credit people much for just doing the right thing.
And second, he voted for Harry Reid, who is the person responsible for hurting our troops. Lieberman, by voting a “D”, shows he is more committed to that party than to the troops he is defending. He defends them, but not as much as his vote WOULD allow.
As an independent, he has no “party loyalty” to honor, and yet he honors it anyway.
So given that the “D” party rejects everything Romney stands for and is running on, if he had a “D” by his name, if he was willing to associate with that party, it would cast doubt on the sincerity of his positions.
But he is associating with our party, and has done so in the past, and in fact even in his moderate days he was a good republican on most of the issues, being a liberal on a few social conservative positions of great importance to us but of limited meaning in the context of the races he was running.
Here’s something to think about. In 1994, Romney ran “pro-choice”. He did so in 2002. But when he had to actually DO something related to that position, he thought about it and changed his position.
Fred Thompson ran as effectively pro-choice in 1994. He was seen as pro-life by those who cared, but he spoke of allowing women to make their own decisions, keeping government out of the decision, that abortion was OK until viability — things that would make him pretty pro-choice today.
But when he had to make a decision about it, to actually think, he voted pro-life.
What if Romney had won election in 1994, and had joined Thompson in the Senate? Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Romney, like Thompson, when confronted with the decision to make, would have voted for life, as he did when it mattered in Mass? Then we would have had one more pro-life vote in the Senate in place of Ted Kennedy, and Romney would be a natural selection for President today.