It’s kind of a trick question because we all know he’s been lying a lot recently, denying he ever did do and say so many of the things that he did and said. But maybe he’s lying less now than many of us think.
It’s pretty well accepted that Romney was pandering to the base of the Republican Party by moving well to the right on many of the issues he espoused during his campaign for and term as governor of Massachusetts. This belief has been to his benefit for a lot of people who believe that he really doesn’t buy into the right-wing rhetoric, and that he would govern far more moderately than he campaigned.
But what if we got this backwards? What if he was pandering to the left and center when he was running for and serving as the governor of Massachusetts? What if those weren’t his genuine beliefs – what if, back then, he was being forced well to the left of where he really wanted to be? If that’s true, it should be a great comfort to the Republican base, though maybe not so much to anyone else.
I believed like I think most people did in the “forced to the right during the primary campaign” meme. But then came the speech to fundraisers where he wrote off 47% of the American voting public, an astonishingly stupid thing to say for a man as careful with his words as he is. I can only ascribe it to being among “his people”, relaxing and letting his guard down, and saying what he believes to be the truth.
Now I think we all got Mitt wrong. He’s really been far more honest in this campaign than he’s been given credit for – because he’s not been lying to prop up his base. He genuinely is a man of the Republican base, not quite so far out as the Tea Party, but much farther out to the right than most of us imagined.
As someone who’s political views have changed quite a bit in the last 10 years I take him at his word that he genuinely holds different beliefs now than he did then (modulo the typical political pandering all politicians do wrt their audience).
He also has a bit of the zealotry that is typical of converts - sort of an eagerness to convince via rhetoric the sincerity of his new beliefs.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had any illusions that Mitt Romney has personal beliefs of any sort, right or left, except for believing that he’s entitled to be president. Oh - and believing that he doesn’t have to show us his taxes. He’s apparently really committed to that, for some reason. Everything else he’s ever said he’s contradicted at some point, usually within days. He’ll say anything, to anyone, at anytime, to suit what he thinks his audience wants to hear.
I’m with Merneith. Romney has no core. He believes he wants to be president, but I think that’s only because it’s something his dad attempted in addition to some weird sense that he’s somehow entitled to it. Romney does a 180 on so many things so often that it’s amazing he doesn’t have a permanent case of whiplash.
I think someone pointed out Romney line item vetoed several of the more liberal provisions in the Massachusetts healthcare bill. I don’t have a cite, but that’d be evidence that he had to compromise (which, let us not forget, is a good thing for Republicans to do).
I have believed this all along. I think he is way closer to the Tea Party, on abortion, gay marriage, immigration, etc, and that he’s really toning it down, to make it digestible and get elected. And I think the Hard right understand what he’s doing perfectly. That’s why none of the ‘non factual’, ‘caught flip flopping’, ‘unstated details’, don’t give them the slightest concern, because they are confident his real plans, resemble their wishes.
Which, to be entirely fair, is the same thing Democrats and Liberals believed of Barack Obama over the whole gay marriage thing. I think we all have the very human tendency to believe that people we admire secretly think the same way we do, even when their mouths are saying something else.
I don’t find it necessary to compare. Romney shows no regard for the truth. His entire political career, and probably his life as well, has been based on claiming to hold whatever belief is convenient for him at the time. He has no commitment to his words, and I doubt he could understand why he should. He has the arrogance of the religiousy type in addition to the traditional arrogance of the robber baron. His words are intended for their effect on the people he considers to be sheep, not to convey anything about his actual beliefs or intents.
I tend to think Romney’s only true beliefs are supporting plutocratic and aristocratic economics. I don’t like the term ‘trickle down economics’ because that is used to convince working class people that their standard of living will go up if you give all the money and power to the rich, by and large supply side economics is sold as the ‘best way for working people to see their standard of living to go up’ since there are far more working class voters than wealthy voters.
I don’t think Romney supports ‘supply side economics’ because he believes or cares if it will benefit people who make 20k a year I think he supports it because him and people like him are the supply side guys and it is in their interest. Of course, that is the real reason virtually all republicans support supply side economics, but again since wealthy people only number a few thousand you have to sell that policy as good for the working class to get 50.1% of the vote in elections.
Aside from that, I think Romney seems to enjoy the prestige and power of elected office and will say whatever he has to to get there. I think he wants to govern competently but is more drawn to the prestige and power.
Aside from those things (a supply side economic policy of/by/for the wealthy and a desire for power for its own sake) I think he is flexible on everything else. So I disagree with the premise that Romney has strong opinions on social issues, abortion, religion in politics or health care, or whatever else. He probably doesn’t care much IMO.
The fact that he supported Romneycare in MA and now says Obamacare is an abomination is reasonable via that view, I don’t think he cares one way or another about health care, but he does what he has to do to make himself look good and get elected.
I think it’s irrelevant, because he will sign anything that a Republican Congress sends him. And Washington Republicans are divided between crazies and those afraid of being primaried by crazies. All Republican moderates have retired.
On foreign policy, he hasn’t had to flip flop. But his advisors are Iraqi dead-enders like Bolton and Dan Senor, an Iraqi press hack whose, “efforts to spin failures into successes sometimes reached the point of absurdity.” Rajiv Chandrasekaran Replies To Dan The Scowcrofts of the world are nowhere to be seen. So don’t expect foreign policy realism in a Romney administration.