FreedomTalks

Ken Silverstein at Harper’s makes the case that Mitt Romney is a “fabricated conservative.”

For at least two decades, our political landscape has been dominated by consultants; but there is no presidential campaign this year whose success or failure so will depend on media managers, marketing strategists, and political gurus as that of Mitt Romney.

Well, my initial reaction to this paragraph was “don’t they all use pollsters and gurus?” But I guess what setts Governor Romney apart is this,

The presentation also acknowledged the problematic view that Romney is a “phony” and a “political opportunist”; but that view is due at least in part to the fact that by any reasonable standard it’s true. The basic contours of his opportunism are by now fairly well known. During Romney’s unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate against Edward Kennedy in 1994, he espoused liberal beliefs on a number of social issues. A politically damaging clip from a campaign debate that year has surfaced, inevitably, on YouTube; it shows Romney posing as an advocate for gays, women, and minorities, and—in perhaps his gravest sacrilege—distancing himself from the political legacy of Ronald Reagan.

It is difficult for this conservative to buy the idea that Romney’s 180’s on abortion, gays and the Reagan legacy were due to some kind of epiphany between the time he was elected governor of Massachusetts and the moment he declared his intention to run for president. People do change positions, as I have myself, but when someone changes their tune so drastically right before running for office, it does seem fishy, at least. The image of Romney as a “phony”, which his campaign recognizes, will be his biggest obstacle to getting the nomination. That, and his low name identification in states outside the Boston area.

Dissing Ronald Reagan to run for office in Massachusetts might help you get elected, but one can’t expect to hear a lot of cheers when you then praise Reagan at his ranch years later when you are running for the GOP nomination.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 3:18 pm and is filed under 2008, Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.