The Many "Two-Faces" of Mitt

Good going, Governor Romeny.


We in Massachusetts thank you for your vision and your courage to be the first in the nation to institute universal health care. 

And thank you for recognizing the help given to you by our great Senator, Ted Kennedy.

Well done.


Stealth Candidate?

"Mitt Romney, one need look no further than what he communicated to Massachusetts voters before becoming a presidential candidate.


Peter Wallsten and Juliet Eilperin highlight this anecdote, for example, from a meeting Romney had nine years ago with abortion-rights advocates.


[A]s the meeting drew to a close, [Romney] offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion.


He would be a “good voice in the party” for their cause, and his moderation on the issue would be “widely written about,” he said, according to detailed notes taken by an officer of the group, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.

“You need someone like me in Washington,” several participants recalled Romney saying that day in September 2002, an apparent reference to his future ambitions.


Romney made similar assurances to activists for gay rights and the environment, according to people familiar with the discussions, both as a candidate for governor and then in the early days of his term.


It’s important to appreciate what, exactly, Romney was saying at the time. His pitch to these center-left advocates was that he, a moderate Republican, could slowly work his way into the national GOP spotlight, and in time become a key player, able to shape the Republican Party’s agenda. And if they supported him, they would help empower Romney to change his party, moving it to the left in the coming years.

As Jon Chait put it, Romney “was promising behind closed doors to act as essentially a sleeper agent within the Republican Party, adopting liberal stances, rising to national prominence, and thereby legitimizing them and transforming the Party from within.”


There are a few key takeaways from a story like this. [One] is that Mitt Romney has such deep character flaws, I don’t think Americans have seen a politician this craven in a very long time.


But wait...

Mitt Romney is like New England weather: If you don't like what he deeply believes wait a minute, he'll change:





Mitt Romney speaking against coal companies that pollute [this was before he flip-flopped, and now says the EPA kills jobs].




"I'm running for office, for Pete's sake!"



From Andrew Sullivan's The Dish:

"I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. And so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing," - Mitt Romney, June 3, 2011.


"My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us," - Mitt Romney, October 27.


Jaw-dropping:

Four years ago Markos mocked Mitt Romney's 2003 endorsement of Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's reelection campaign. Why? Because aside from being a liberal Democrat and a Daily Kos diarist, Rocky Anderson was a leading opponent of the Iraq war who went on to support the impeachment of George W. Bush—not exactly the kind of a guy "conservatives" like Mitt Romney are supposed to endorse.

And it turns out that that it wasn't just the Iraq war that made Romney's endorsement of Rocky Anderson such a big surprise. Anderson was also a supporter of gay marriage, a truly progressive position to have taken in 2003—especially in Utah. Here's what The Boston Globe wrote at the time:

As he tries to build up the GOP in Massachusetts, Romney has endorsed a candidate whose politics are far to the left of him and the Republican Party on key social issues. While Romney is pushing for a death penalty, Anderson opposes it. The Massachusetts governor opposes gay marriages, but Anderson supports the idea. Romney supports President Bush on the Iraq war, but Anderson last winter issued a proclamation condemning President Bush's push to wage war.

And Anderson didn't just support gay marriage, he was a big proponent of GLBT rights. He even—gasp—held a fundraiser at a gay night club called Club Naked. Back to The Globe's report:

Anderson used a gay night club, Club Naked, to raise funds for his campaign. The sponsors credited Anderson with Salt Lake City's "wonderful transformation" in accepting diversity and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender lifestyles.

And to top it all off, Anderson went on to write diaries at Daily Kos. So Mitt Romney endorsed a Daily Kos diarist who supported Bush's impeachment, led demonstrations against the Iraq war, disagreed with capital punishment, and supported marriage equality. Sounds pretty good right? Well, yeah ... if you're on the political left. But if you're a right wing Republican who already has doubts about what Mitt Romney really believes (if he believes anything at all) then this kind of story will only make your doubts grow.

dailykos