Friday, December 22, 2006

Romney Playing Defense

Outgoing governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been hard at work trying to counter recent reports that he's shifted hard to the right on conservative bread-and-butter issues like gay rights, abortion and stem cell research. While his right turn is not a surprise to anyone who's lived in Massachusetts for the past four years, people outside the commonwealth are just now learning that the Rommney who is running for president is very different from the Romney who ran for Senate in 1994 and who ran for governor in 2002. He was up in New Hampshire yesterday, defending his conservative evolution. Not everyone was impressed, however:

"When I first heard his answer about his journey of becoming prolife, I began to feel better about the questions being asked of him lately," said Shannon McGinley of Bedford, N.H. "After talking with him in person, though, it is hard to figure out what he does believe."
That's got to be discouraging. Luckily for Romney, he won't get a chance to talk to every potential voter. Still, if he's coming off as disingenuous in person, it will be that much easier for his opponents to paint him as another bona-fide Massachusetts Flip-Flopper.

In his defense, Romney had this to say:
"The proof is in the pudding," he said. "People will have a chance to look at my record as governor of Massachusetts and see what I've done there. Talk is cheap, but action is not."
His record in Massachusetts? I'm sorry, but I don't think that people out of state are going to much care that he got Billy Bulger to resign and that he renamed the DCR.