Posted on 12/13/2012 2:15:52 PM PST by neverdem
Is that unusual?
Because you are Mr. Courtesy himself? That's not the impression I get. As we see here:
That is a form of lying to these people.
Pretending that I have been asked to produce evidence for the claim and have never done so.
"Evidence" isn't an article that says what you say. It's proof. It's something more than just a repetition of your own views.
Romney was the fourth republican governor in a row in a state that prefers GOP governors, in fact he gave up his supporting of democrats, democrat fundraising, and voting, to reregister republican ...
In the relevant period, say 1974-1990, Massachusetts had only Democrat governors, liberal Michael Dukakis and the more conservative Ed King. Massachusetts certainly didn't "prefer GOP governors" in those years, and the King-Dukakis primaries pretty much decided who was governor. During the same years, both Senators and almost all the Representatives were Democrats. Why am I not surprised that you didn't know any of that?
Romney was more interested in family, business, and church in those years. Like a lot of business people he gave money to those he thought would improve the business climate and to those who would improve his business. And that had a lot to do with just who was electable in a given state in a given year. He also gave money to the campaigns of personal friends. I don't see any strong ideological commitment in Romney in those years, though of course those who do have such commitments may perceive the absence of such loyalties as a sign of some ideological commitment in itself.
According to a Romney campaign spokesperson, Romney “switched back.” One doesn’t know how Romney managed to “switch back.” According to the town clerk, Romney became an Republican only on October 19, 1993. The implication is that Romney had either never voted between his registration as a independent in 1979 and 1992 (so his vote in 1992 automatically enrolled him as a Democrat) or that he was a regular Democrat voters in those earlier elections and changed to Republican to run for Senate.
Switched from Independent ("unenrolled") to Republican. Independents can vote in either primary. Until recently, their registration was changed to the party whose primary they voted in. Then you'd have to fill in a card to change your registration back to Unenrolled. Romney voted for Tsongas in the 1992 Presidential primary so his registration was temporarily changed to Democrat, and then changed back. That happened to me if I voted in the Democrat primary for the more conservative candidate when there were no serious Republican races. I was technically a Democrat for a while. It wasn't a sign of any larger ideological engagement.
The interpretation of the town clerk's words doesn't make any sense. He or she wasn't giving a whole history of Romney's primary voting, simply stating the fact that Romney changed his registration to Republican on a given date in 1993, with no statement of how many times his registration might have been changed before that by voting in one primary or another. How can this possibly "imply" that he had never voted Republican or in a Republican primary since 1979? So far as I can see there's no real evidence for such a conclusion.
If your argument was that Mitt Romney wasn't a conservative in the 80s I wouldn't object. I wouldn't object if your argument was that he isn't some sort of movement or Reagan conservative now, I wouldn't object either. Nobody like that could have been elected governor of Massachusetts. But your idea that Romney was somehow driven out of the Republican Party by revulsion against Reaganism, really isn't supported by what we actually know about the man.
I would just as soon let all this drop. It's not as though it's relevant to anything that is happening now or will happen in the future. My concern was that you make assumptions and take them for facts. I don't know Romney's personal circumstances, though I don't think my assumptions are any worse than yours, but I was living in Massachusetts in the period you are referring to, and I can't help but notice that you aren't aware of some things that undermine your assumptions and conclusions (or maybe you are aware but don't care).
Don’t post arguments against me behind my back, and Romney has never been a conservative, he is, and always has been a hard liberal.
Romney was the FOURTH republican governor in a row, in a state that prefers republican governors.
Romney has been a political animal all of his life, starting as a republican intern in his early teens, attending the 1964 convention, being an activist in college, participating in campaigns including Governor and Presidential and Senate, for his parents, and political interviews all of his life (including the 1960s, and 1970s), leaving the republican party because of Reagan in 1979, donating to widely scattered campaigns during the 1980s and 1990s, becoming a supporter of democrats and a democrat fund raiser and voter, and running for office for the last 20 years while spending about 55 million of his own funds and breaking spending records in multiple campaigns.
Even Ann has run for political office. Mitt Romney was weaned on politics and has been involved with them all of his life.
Everything that we know about the man, supports the fact of him leaving the republican party because of Reagan and conservatism in 1979, and not returning until that era was over, and Clinton was in the white house.
Romney calls himself a William Weld republican and was anti-Reagan, anti-Jesse Helms, anti-Contract with America, anti-life, anti-gun, anti-straight Boy Scouts, anti-straight military, and just radically leftist.
Romney chose to run in Massachusetts instead of Utah because it was a good political match for him, he didn’t do very well and could not run for reelection, and he slinked out of town (literally, he has moved to California), with a 34% approval rating.
He then spent his way into becoming an embarrassment as a presidential candidate, with seemingly no personal politics, unless of course, one looked at his actual life, and ignored his campaign of lies.
A lot of States don’t have separate Conservative parties. I think it is unusual that a blue State like New York does.
Yes, he was. At the local level it makes a difference in some towns. In my Town, where I am the executive director of the Conservative Committee, the Conservative endorsement for local elections gives Republican candidates the advantage (and keeps them in line if they are elected).
Sounds like the CP then has more of a kingmaker/spoiler role. Have any of their candidates actually won significant offices in the State? IIRC when Buckley ran for Mayor of NYC the joke he told was that if he won the election the first thing he would do was demand a recount.
WFB, Jr's brother, James, won a Senate seat -- he was listed on both the Conservative and the Republican line on the ballot.
I pointed out already that your "source" didn't understand Massachusetts election law. He didn't make an informed and logical conclusion from what the registrar or town clerk said, but jumped to an invalid conclusion. You yourself didn't -- and apparently still don't -- have a clue about the political situation in Massachusetts in the 1980s. Massachusetts didn't "prefer Republican governors" until William Weld came along in 1990, and today it looks like the state no longer does. But you ignore all that and simply repeat the same nonsense.
Two more points. First, you can't assume that people from political families will have a life-long interest in politics. Maybe they like the excitement of conventions and travel, but don't want all the hassles. Maybe they enjoy the life but want to prove that they can make it on their own in another field. But even if Romney had a longtime interest in politics, it doesn't translate into a lifelong ideological commitment. You've assumed that, but haven't been able to prove it.
What we know doesn't prove or "demonstrate" that Romney "left" the Republican party for ideological reasons in 1979. So far as I can tell, you are the only person making that claim. The date doesn't really make much sense. Romney didn't have a crystal ball that would tell him that Reagan would win the primaries and the general election. Was he really that much in favor of Carter or Kennedy that he couldn't stomach Bush or Baker or Dole or Connolly or Anderson?
Second, just as you're projecting the political climate in Massachusetts in the 1990s back on the 1980s, you're projecting current conditions in the GOP back on the 1980s. Eastern Establishment Republicans -- if that's what Romney was -- weren't as angry at or opposed to Reagan in the 1980s as they were at later Republicans (or at Goldwater earlier).
There was a lot of support in the Northeast for Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 general elections. That didn't all come from conservatives or Reagan Democrats. It also came from moderate Republicans (maybe even some liberal Republicans). Disenchantment with Carter (and Mondale) was that strong. Disenchantment with conservative Republicans came later. So you can't just assume that Romney would have been so outraged by Reagan's policies that he turned Democrat.
A BYU and HBS/HLS grad working in management consulting in the 1980s might have felt comfortable in Bill Clinton's Democratic Party. It's less likely he would have enjoyed Jimmy Carter's or Walter Mondale's. He might have found more company among co-workers and associates in Ronald Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's Republican Party (if not in Reagan's conservative movement) than with Carter or Mondale, even in Massachusetts. Ten or twenty years later, the situation would have been very different.
Your theory or story might be true. But it might not. I don't know. I'm not in Romney's head. But you present your theory as though it's a proved fact or a well-grounded conclusion based on the available facts. It isn't. It looks a lot like you're projecting qualities on to Romney that you want him to have. You want him to be a sworn enemy, so you just assume he is. That his outlook on life and his life-choices may not have followed your scheme doesn't seem to occur to you.
You're not entirely wrong: Romney has taken a variety of positions, they've changed over the years. You see that he hasn't been a movement or Reagan conservative. Where you err is in assuming that he's been firmly on the other, liberal side of the debate, rather than see that he hasn't been steadfastly on either side of the political argument his whole life long. Other people do understand that and have tried to come to terms with it, whether they supported Romney or not.
I don't have any interest in pursuing this further. You're just repeating what you've already said in a simplistic cut-and-paste way, and I notice from the responses that you've gotten that a lot of people see through your routines pretty easily.
As long as we can keep the Republicans from being as liberal as they might otherwise be inclined to be in return four our endorsement, I am happy to serve as deterrent.
Beyond that, I would never considered becoming a Republican again after this last election.
The draft evading, anti-conservative, pro-abortion Mitt Romney has been a committed, sincere liberal all of his life, from his days as a teenage intern to a liberal governor, to the 1964 Goldwater convention, to becoming anti-war during Vietnam, to leaving the GOP because of the Reagan surge in 1979, to supporting, fund-raising, and voting for democrats, to calling for the homosexualizing of the military in 1994, to giving the nation gay marriage and Romney/Obama care, to appointing 100% liberal judges, all the way to rejecting the GOP pro-life platform and shutting out the tea-party and the 2008 veep from his convention and putting forward Chris Christie. t
The guy’s only political consistency is being anti-conservative.
Yes Massachusetts prefers republican governors, or at least they did until Romney, he damaged the state GOP and lost the seat to the democrats who have held it since him.
Romney in Massachuesetts may have permanently damaged the republican brand as much as he did nation wide with his disastrously pro-abortion/pro-homosexual, liberal run for the presidency.
Romney no longer lives in Massachusetts because it no longer serves his politics, it was a great match for him while it lasted. Mitt Romney and Massachusetts, it is why he could switch to being a republican once the Reagan era was over.
Romney has always been involved in politics and a left winger, for instance becoming pro-abortion in 1963 according to his own words. Mitt only reversed himself on politics for his presidential campaign, he never did it during his life, and as we saw after his winning the nomination, he even went back to being pro-abortion.
How did Mitt Romney so thoroughly conceal any conservative beliefs or impulses in his public and personal life until he started running for the 2008 primary, that is almost 60 years of living and it was during the pro life movement, the Reagan Revolution, the 1994 Republican Revolution, the gun rights fights, wars, the Clinton years, how and why was he always on the wrong side?
“Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.”
“My hope is that, after this election, it will be the moderates of both parties who will control the Senate, not the Jesse Helms’.”
“These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
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