Romney’s tolerance problem

December 8, 2006

Bloomberg had an item today explaining how Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is successfully recruiting far-right supporters by positioning himself as an electable alternative to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

“In Romney,” Bloomberg reported, “who is courting social and religious traditionalists, they see a candidate who can energize Christian conservatives, stay on message and, in [New Hampshire activist Bruce] Keough’s words, ‘become an acceptable McCain alternative.'”

It makes sense, of course, that the base would seek Romney out. McCain and Giuliani have been unreliable allies to far-right activists, Allen and Santorum aren’t running, and Brownback and Gingrich are not credible general-election candidates. Romney is telling them what they want to hear, he has money, and he’s a governor disconnected from DC.

And if he hadn’t run as such a moderate in previous elections, Romney would probably be a very credible candidate in the Republican primaries right now.

Comments Governor Mitt Romney made during his 1994 Senate bid, in which he said the gay and lesbian community “needs more support from the Republican Party,” resurfaced yesterday, posing a potential hurdle as he appeals to conservatives for a probable presidential campaign.

Bay Windows, the Boston-based gay and lesbian newspaper, republished excerpts from an August 1994 interview the paper did with Romney during his campaign against Senator Edward M. Kennedy. In the interview, Romney said it should be up to states to decide whether to allow same-sex marriage and he criticized Republican “extremists” who imposed their positions on the party.

“People of integrity don’t force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs they may have,” Romney is quoted as saying.

Oops. Romney has spent the last several months saying the exact opposite and begging those Republican “extremists” to support him.

Romney has been an outspoken proponent of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Last spring, he wrote a letter to Senate majority leader Bill Frist urging its passage.

“In order to protect the institution of marriage, we must prevent it from being redefined by judges like those here in Massachusetts,” Romney wrote of the amendment, which has not passed. Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts after a 2003 decision by the Supreme Judicial Court.

One of several Republicans to oppose the federal amendment was Arizona Senator John McCain, who is likely to be one of Romney’s chief rivals in 2008. Romney, in an interview last month with the DC Examiner, accused McCain of being “disingenuous” on same-sex marriage, because McCain says he’s against it but believes states should decide the issue.

“Disingenuous,” heh?

When running in Massachusetts, Romney also said he believed abortion should be “safe and legal,” that the government should work to “establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens,” and had his campaign hand out fliers with his well wishes during Boston’s annual Gay Pride Parade. Romney even accepted the endorsement of the Log Cabin Republicans.

Somewhere, John McCain is snickering. Anybody else out there who pose a credible challenge to McCain in the primaries? Any chance we could work on finding someone?

The edges of conservatism are beginning to fray. When viewed from a moderate center or even a mild liberalism, conservatism might seem a monolith. But get closer to the edifice and you see the blocks are crumbling and the cracks are widening.

It’s an unnatural Unholy Alliance. And as such we need to target the libetarian mountain west and steal it from them. If nothing else, perhaps the lack of snow in the sky tourism belt will convince them that there are purposes for grand policies and competent government.

  • Hey, all Romney said was, ““People of integrity don’t force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs….” You’re not accusing him of having integrity, are you?

  • I think people who have real integrity actually remember what they say from year to year because they really mean it. Politicians just blowing smoke to get votes seem to have a real problem with that. Funny, isn’t it?

  • i>And as such we need to target the libetarian mountain west and steal it from them.

    Exactly right. And all we really have to do to be successful in this is articulate a sensible gun-control policy. We don’t have to go all-out NRA “citizens have the right to bear arms, even nuclear arms” crazy, but we need to be able to blunt, credibly, the “they want to take your rifles away” rhetoric. I suggest we look to Tester and Schweitzer and possibly even Webb for examples of this.

  • Heh. Too bad he can’t make it all better with a little “born-again” Evangelical hocus-pocus, I don’t think that’ll work since he’s a Mormon.

  • Is it Romney’s tolerance problem or is it Romney’s truth problem? Does he know where he stands or should we just assume that he will say anything to get elected? I would consider voting for the person, any person, who maintains that, “[People] of integrity don’t force their beliefs on others, etc.”, but is he that person or is he the one that wants homosexuals to remain in the closet?

  • I hope Romny does take the primary, because the true wingnuts will never vote for a Mormon. (they insist Mormonism is a cult, as if Christianity isn’t)

    If the wingnuts stay home, the congressional Dems will do great in 2008.

    Go Mitt!

  • I hope the Republican Party is on a one-way trip to irrelevance. Outside the Old Confederacy, I can’t see why anyone who isn’t making at least $300,000 a year would be insane enough to vote that way. As someone here said a while back: “I’ll never be rich enough or mean enough of vote Republican.”

  • Outside the Old Confederacy, I can’t see why anyone who isn’t making at least $300,000 a year would be insane enough to vote that way.

    Fear. They are truly afraid. Mostly of differences and how they think that plays out in every context (gays, terrorists, etc.)

  • I wouldn’t be so certain Brownback can’t make a go of this race. He’s a bona fide Kulturkampfer, and willfully dumb in the way those people seem to like–not to mention far more genuine, IMO, than Bush/Rove who transparently played them for suckers (and put a gay Jew, Mehlman, in charge of keeping them happy–which I almost have to admire!).

    Further, I’m not sure that the sort of insurgent campaign Brownback is likely to run–based on church groups, a little direct mail, a lot of retailing and word-of-mouth and non-traditional media–costs so much that he’ll need to raise the enormous sums that McCain and others, probably including Romney, will raise.

    Outside of some three- or more candidate scenario in which he draws 38 percent pluralities in EV-rich midwest states and just barely gets to 270, I don’t think he can win–even Hillary probably could beat him head to head–but I could see him or Huckabee emerge as the non-McCain (or Rudy, I guess, but politically speaking he’s dead and just doesn’t know it yet) alternative.

  • Anybody else out there who pose a credible challenge to McCain in the primaries?

    I would feel more confident about addressing this question if I had any idea what constituted a credible candidate to the Republican electorate. Remember that they nearly elected Bush in 2000. And until the last few months, one would hear Santorum’s and George Allen’s names bandied about, and not as a sick joke.

    I find it easy to imagine there’s some other nutjob out there who hasn’t shown up on the 2008 radar yet (Buchanan? that Ten Commandments judge? Tancredo?) who will come shake things up.

  • This guy could be a real stealth candidate. Scary how he poses with American flags always behind him. If you read up on the Mormons, this guy thinks he is a priest sent by God to do his work in this world. He marries a woman who converted to Mormonism and begets 5 clones of himself. From what I’ve read he is a real pantytwaist. He was born into a huge fortune and if elected he will have to buttress his wimpiness by prentending to be this great commander. Hey, that sounds familiar.

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