Lawyers for Mitt: What do They See that I Don’t?

Mitt Romney’s Committee on the Constitution and the Courts recently added a bunch of former Lawyers for Fred Thompson. The Committee now includes over half a dozen personal friends of mine and a bunch of other people whom I’ve long admired from a distance. I just don’t get what they see in this guy. I really don’t. Can’t they see that he’s a serial flip flopper whose positions change when and as necessary to advance his personal ambition? As Ramesh Ponnuru pithily put it, it is annoying when Romney attacks his opponents “for being to the left of positions he has very recently adopted.” (Heh.) Don’t they see the parallels between Massachusetts MittCare and the failed HillaryCare plan of the 1990s? Didn’t they see him pandering in Michigan by effectively endorsing Clintonesque industrial policy, which prompted Michael Tanner to opine that:

For some reason, Romney has been able to claim the Reagan mantle despite his support for:

  • A health care plan virtually indistinguishable for the one proposed by Hillary Clinton;

  • Support for No Child Left Behind, calls for increased federal education spending, and a proposal to have the federal government give a laptop computer to every schoolchild in America;

  • Calls for increased farm price supports;

  • Support for the Medicare prescription drug benefit; and

  • An undistinguished record on taxes and spending as Massachusetts governor, earning a C on Cato’s governor’s report card, and including support for $500 million in increased fees and corporate taxes.

But in Michigan, Romney pulled out all the big government stops with a call for $20 billion in corporate welfare to revive the state’s struggling auto industry. Romney, who called his proposal “a work-out, not a bail-out,” also promised that as president he would develop “a national policy to help automakers.”

George W. Bush once said, “When somebody hurts, government has got to move.” Mitt Romney echoes that, “A lot of Washington politicians are aware of it, aware of the pain, but they haven’t done anything about it. I will.”

Didn’t they see that even the generally favorable Club for Growth analysis cautioned that:

Governor Romney’s history is marked by statements at odds with his gubernatorial record and his campaign rhetoric. His strident opposition to the flat tax; his refusal to endorse the Bush tax cuts in 2003; his support for various minor tax hikes; and his once-radically bad views on campaign finance reform all cast some doubts on the extent and durability of his commitment to limited-government, pro-growth policies. His landmark steps in the health care arena also exhibit a mixture of desirable pro-free market efforts combined with a regrettable willingness to accept, if not embrace, a massive new regulatory regime.

Don’t they worry about the times he says or does stuff that just makes you cringe? The jive talk episode? The time he “defended his five sons’ decision not to enlist in the military, saying they’re showing their support for the country by ‘helping me get elected’”? Or the dog on the roof of the car episode?

I honestly don’t get it.

Posted on Friday, January 25 2008 | Permalink

McCain beats Clinton:  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_clinton-224.html If you check the Real Clear Politics average, virtually all the polls show that (RCP averge 2.3+ in favor of McCain).

McCain also beats Obama:  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html
(RCP average 1+ in favor of McCain)

Clinton beats Romney (Badly):  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_clinton-230.html (RCP Average 11+ in favor of Clinton)

Obama beats Romney (Badly):  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-231.html#polls (RCP Average 18+ in favor of Obama)

The hard truth is this- Mitt probably won’t swing any of the blue states, and he will have problems holding many of the Red States, where our current base of power is. http://www.blogsforfredthompson.com/mitt-romney-more-likely-not-general-election-loser

Posted by  on  01/25  at  08:42 AM

Don’t worry, everything Romney said in Michigan was bs, he has no intention of helping anyone but Wall Street.

He is slick and disingenuous, a perfect combination to appeal to lawyers smile)

Posted by  on  01/25  at  02:46 PM

None of this matters, since there is almost no way that Romney could get elected, unless the Dems nominate Hillary and she implodes. I hope that “save the rustbelt” is right, that some of his rhetoric is empty bluster, but that’s exactly the problem:  I have no sense of what a Romney administration would really look like, or want to do.

Romney strikes me as a republican in the Herbert Hoover mode. Hoover came from an engineering background, and seemed to think of governing as an engineering challenge. When he was elected, he was hailed as an innovator who would bring modern methods to government.  When the market crashed, he went to the toolbox, and came up with tariffs, and a lot of other bad fixes. I think Romney fits that mode.  He sees everything as a consultng project.  He figures out what the client wants to hear, and crafts the mental powerpoint to tell them that. That’s the way he seems to have approached this whole campaign.  And that’s why his comments about bringing auto manufacturing jobs back to Michigan to be disturbing.

I don’t think Mr. Romney is a horrible person (dog incident aside).  I think I’d like to have him as a neighbor. I actually have respect for a lot of the work that management consultants and private equity capitalists do, I’m just not sure it’s the right mindset for the White House.

Posted by  on  01/25  at  07:54 PM

I suppose everyone knows that Romney is the Bush candidate who adjusts his views to whatever his managers decide--and that’s why bloggers have begun to refer to him as Robot Rumney, unless it’s a reference to his manner. It also appears that Karl Rove left the White House to go work behind the scenes for Romney. Thus, many of the Romney persuasion believe that ROVE CAN WORK ANOTHER MIRACLE AND GET ROMNEY ELECTED, but they have omitted to take into account the CRITICAL FACTOR--that this time the Clintons will not be working behind the scenes to undermine the Democratic candidate. Somehow everyone has forgotten what has often been observed: that the Clintons have controlled the Democratic Party ever since Clinton left office; indeed, they were obliged to hold onto it until Hillary got her shot at the job. (Imagine how far she would have got if Gore or Kerry had been elected in the interval.) In the same way the Bushes have been in control of the Republican Party for the past 20 years--not the most glorious in the history of the GOP--and intend to put in the Robot using the faithful old machine. It’s a bad enough scenario if it could succeed, but it’s even worse because it can’t possibly succeed.

The only real hope is McCain--whatever his flaws, he is a known quantity and he can win and put the Party on a new and better course. And that’s what is at stake in Florida.

Posted by  on  01/27  at  12:49 PM

Hi Steve,

FWIW, I was with Lawyers for Fred, but will now vote for, and support, Sen. McCain (his big-time free-speech errors notwithstanding).

Posted by  on  01/27  at  04:26 PM
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