http://news.yahoo.com/romney-promises-no-abortion-legislation-004508435–election.html
Unfortunate news, and I doubt it will do Governor Romney much political good either.
Relevant Simpsons clip:
His position is a mess.
It is pretty clear from that article that you can’t know what he will do - I wonder if even he knows?
Don’t worry, Qin. He’ll change his mind next week.
“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda” is a pretty empty statement.
It’s almost like he’s trying to simultaneously alienate his base and moderates.
What I don’t get is why his campaign is constantly walking back or modifying what he is saying.
They must come from an IT background: release, then patch and hotfix.
No, it’s a completely empty statement. At best he’s refusing to make a comment about any recently proposed legislation, and legislation would not be his only option in dealing with abortion anyway (appointing judges, executive orders, etc.). And of course then there’s the question of whether or not he’s telling the truth in the first place (hint: probably not).
Didn’t even take that long:
And then change it back two days later.
I think the gender gap must be really starting to float away on him. the “war on women” stuff has really hurt Republicans. Women are going like 2-1 for Obama. I guess they figure a vacuous non-statement on abortion is just the ticket to get them back.
I notice he didn’t say anything about the Supreme Court, and that’s where the President’s real power lies with regard to abortion.
That reminds me of the Conservative Party of Canada. They said they wouldn’t re-open the abortion debate, it wasn’t part of their platform, etc. …but a couple of weeks ago a Conservative backbencher put forward a private member’s bill to “set up a special parliamentary committee to examine the current definition of a human being” i.e. reopen the abortion debate. It got voted down, but what do you know, over half of the Conservative MPs voted in favor of it (compared to less than 3% of opposition MPs). Even the minister for the status of women voted in favor of it. Eesh.
It’s not that different from the “we’re interested in fiscal issues, not social ones… well, let’s just cut funding for Planned Parenthood” Tea Party.
Again I have to ask -
How does he get away with this without it being headline news?
What I am used to is these sorts of reversals are made a BIG deal of…its a major policy change and its probably just gonna slide by mostly un-noticed.
On the other hand, a candadite making such an egregarious mistatement is just stewpid
Romney doesn’t need any anti-abortion legislation to accomplish what he the GOP want to do. He just needs to do is appoint a few more pro-life justices to the Supreme Court so they can overturn Roe v. Wade.
Cuz the media sees that it’s more profitable to be favorable to Romney for a spell. People weren’t tuning in to the election when it was perceived an Obama runaway.
Just my two nickels.
A liberal commenter elsewhere believes that Romney’s debate performance has bought him permission to tack to the center as much as he wants without his base rebelling. I wonder if this is part of it, or if such is even true…
It is my perception that a significant percentage of Romney/Ryan supporters are such not out of any love for Romney/Ryan, but because they want to vote out Obama. The uneducated “NObama” voter will cast his ballot for Romney/Ryan unless they suddenly reveal themselves to be gay, black, muslim fundamentalists, in which case the Libertarian Party suddenly might be a contender for the first (and last) time ever.
Those who are more politically savvy recognize that Romney is just saying whatever his people think might improve his polling, or at least reduce his unfavorablility, thus the “I don’t know about any abortion laws on the horizon” comment. These people know that he will just disregard his statements if he gets into office anyway.
Eh, if you don’t like Romney’s position on an issue, just wait a day or two and he’ll have a new one.