Late last week, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), a top-tier 2008 presidential contender, ran into a little trouble. Apparently, when running for the Senate in 1994, and governor in 2002, Romney was pro-choice and pro-gay rights. When running for president now, he’s pro-life and anti-gay rights. Not surprisingly, some of the same far-right groups and activists who saw Romney as a viable alternative to McCain and Giuliani suddenly started wondering if they’ve been conned.
I’ve been anxious to see how on earth Romney was going to spin his way out of this one. Sure, there have been a few high-profile pols who’ve changed their minds on some of touchstone cultural issues, but not this quickly, and certainly not this conveniently. So I was pleased to see that National Review’s Kathryn Lopez, an admitted Romney admirer, interviewed the governor and touched on some of these very questions. Apparently, Romney has a simple strategy: pretend that those previously-held beliefs never really existed.
Lopez: As you know, in recent days the Boston Globe and the New York Times, as well as the Boston newspaper, Bay Windows, have run pieces about your 1994 race against Ted Kennedy and your run for governor that appear to be in conflict with your current position against gay marriage. Are they?
Romney: …I have made clear since 2003, when the supreme court of Massachusetts redefined marriage by fiat, that my unwavering advocacy for traditional marriage stands side by side with a tolerance and respect for all Americans.
Uh, no. Even if we’re willing to buy the notion that the state Supreme Court ruling altered Romney’s thinking (which, is still a stretch), this wouldn’t explain why Romney has completely reversed course on domestic partnerships, gays in the military, and ENDA.
Romney’s reversal on abortion is even more entertaining.
Lopez: In a 1994 debate with Senator Kennedy, you said “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my Mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.” Further confusing matters, the Boston Globe reported in 1994 that “as a Mormon lay leader [you] counseled Mormon women not to have abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life was at risk.” Governor: What is your position on abortion today? On Roe? How do you account for what is obviously a change — certainly publicly — on the issue?
Romney: My position has changed and I have acknowledged that. How that came about is that several years ago, in the course of the stem-cell-research debate I met with a pair of experts from Harvard. At one point the experts pointed out that embryonic-stem-cell research should not be a moral issue because the embryos were destroyed at 14 days. After the meeting I looked over at Beth Myers, my chief of staff, and we both had exactly the same reaction — it just hit us hard just how much the sanctity of life had been cheapened by virtue of the Roe v. Wade mentality. And from that point forward, I said to the people of Massachusetts, “I will continue to honor what I pledged to you, but I prefer to call myself pro-life.”
That’s it? Romney went from being a pro-choice, pro-Roe Republican to being the polar opposite because a Harvard scientist talked about destroying a 14-day-old embryo?
Check out this subtle little comment:
Lopez: Does that mean you were “faking it” — as one former adviser has suggested — as a pro-choicer in your previous political campaigns? Why should anyone believe you’re really pro-life now?
Romney: I believe people will see that as governor, when I had to examine and grapple with this difficult issue, I came down on the side of life. I know in the four years I have served as governor I have learned and grown from the exposure to the thousands of good-hearted people who are working to change the culture in our country. I’m committed to promoting the culture of life. Like Ronald Reagan, and Henry Hyde, and others who became pro-life, I had this issue wrong in the past.
You can almost hear Romney thinking, “See? Reagan switched and you love him, so I get to switch, too!”
Sullivan is disgusted.
Everything he said in the 1990s is now to be dismissed…. Well: at least that’s clear. Romney was for gay equality before he was against it. He was for abortion rights before he was against them. He was for ending the gay ban in the military before he was against it. He was for employment non-discrimination before he was against it. And he was for domestic partnerships before he was against them. We learn two things: he’s running. And he really is John Kerry’s successor as a candidate from Massachusetts. He’ll say anything and everything to get elected.
Well, he’ll try; the real question is whether anyone’s going to buy it.