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Romney starts tacking back to the center

Submitted by Soren Dayton on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 07:59
in

Many know that I was never a big fan of Mitt Romney. After running for years as a liberal Republican in Massachusetts, with private assurances well beyond his public statement.

That said, I have long thought that he was poorly served by advisors that recommended he run to the right as a candidate of the conservative movement rather than as a pragmatist. He didn't have to call himself a 10 out of 10 like Reagan.

Anyways, Mitt is tacking back to the center on a number of issues in an interview with The Hill's Reid Wilson. On regulation, the stimulus, TARP, and immigration, he says things that I mostly agree with but are out of touch with the "conservative base".

It would not surprise me to see more of this, with both Romney and other candidates. If Romney runs to the center in some form, while trying to keep his connection with the conservative movement represented by CPAC and other groups (although the reach of their power is unclear). Furthermore Mike Huckabee is another kind of tack to the center. And John Huntsman has another.

Anyways, after the jump, some of the things he says.

Regulation:

In an interview with The Hill, Romney said, “We as Republicans misspeak when we say we don’t like regulation. We like modern, up-to-date dynamic regulation that is regularly reviewed, streamlined, modernized and effective.”

Mitt is right. But the voicing of this is ... odd. Similarly on stimulus:

Similarly, Romney is among the many Republicans who support a stimulus plan, but not in the form Congress passed in February.

“The best stimulus with the highest multiplier effect is one which gives money back to people rather than having government spend more, and so I think they got it wrong. It’s too much weighted toward spending, too little weighted toward tax reductions,” Romney said.

And immigration:

Romney believes that one way to attract more minorities to the GOP is to pass immigration reform before the next election, saying the issue becomes demagogued by both parties on the campaign trail.

“We have a natural affinity with Hispanic-American voters, Asian-American voters,” he said.

Speaking in his Ritz-Carlton room with a pair of blue jeans on the dresser, Romney declined to criticize immigration hard-liners like former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who backed Romney after he dropped his own presidential bid. Romney argued that all 2008 GOP candidates — including Tancredo — strongly favor legal immigration.

This is the one that blows my mind. Jeb Bush, who seemed to support Romney, accused him of "pounding his chest" on the issue. And one has to ask how the GOP would get any credit for immigration reform now.

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1. If Mitt had taken on and

Submitted by gs on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 10:40.

1. If Mitt had taken on and defeated Deval Patrick in 2006, he would have been the obvious choice to face Obama in 2008 and IMO he'd be President today.  McCain blew the election by being too reckless; Romney blew it by being too cautious.  Too bad for Romney and McCain; too bad for the GOP; too bad for the country.

2. A nation that refuses to enforce its borders is refusing to defend itself and deserves the consequences.  Of course, if our ruling class cared about future generations, they wouldn't be creating crushing debt.

3. Being a child of destitute non-English-speaking refugees, I am pro-immigration and for secure borders.  IMO a call for secure borders should be combined with a pledge to reform the nightmarish gauntlet that legal immigrants have to run.  If this seems obvious, why isn't it being done?  None of the reasons I can think of is reassuring.

4. Let me emphasize again that I am pro-immigration.  But why in the world are we talking about "reform" when the unemployment rate is shooting upward in the most dangerous economy in 80 years?

5. "Romney believes that one way to attract more minorities to the GOP is to pass immigration reform before the next election, saying, saying the issue becomes demagogued by both parties on the campaign trail."  Tsk tsk on demagoguery, sez statesman Romney; let's pander instead!  Well, there's nothing wrong with All-American political pandering (within reason), but you don't want to present yourself as a weak horse.  And see #4.

Pragmatist

Submitted by kmorrison on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 11:44.

I was a big McCain supporter and volunteer in the last election (also an Independent from NH).  This article hits the nail on the head when saying that Romney should run as a pragmatist and not an idealogue.  Many Independents will vote for a conservative, its the ever changing postions that create the biggest problem for many moderates and Independents.  

He has many of the skills needed right now particularly with the economy the way it is to be a solid president.  As trite as it sounds I hope he 'be's himself,' as his main obstacle right now is his political sincerity.  His TV skills have improved dramatically, and he was an excellent on air surrogate for McCain.  A year or so ago I never thought I'd say this, but I'm routing for him.  As of right now he an Palin seem to be the only two with enough support and national recognition to take a real run at Obama.  (So I'm routing for bith of them right now.)

 

Why Mitt is wrong

Submitted by NoMoreBlatherDotCom on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 16:37.

Here's my summary of  "comprehensive immigration reform". I haven't seen anyone else raising those points, and they completely undercut Romney's position on this issue. Whenever politicians discuss the general topic, the most the MSM can do is ask a few general questions and then write down the stock responses; pressing a politician on the issues raised at the link would blow them out of the water.

If anyone doesn't like Romney, go to one of his public appearances and press him on those points on video, then upload his response to Youtube. If people had done that with McCain, he wouldn't have been the nominee.

Richard Nadler explains...

Submitted by Harold Hutchison on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 16:56.

Just how badly the GOP blew it on immigration - and from what I have seen from the exit polls and in Virginia seems to bear out what he is saying.

I think Romney may be the best option to convince people to fire Obama in 2012. He is not super-ideological. the real question is, will he get the GOP nod? Unfortunately, the "conservative base" seems to have no sense of what has to be done, and is all too willing to sit on their hands if anyone "impure" is nominated.

Now, events can change people's minds - and I think that far too often, the quest for perfection holds that against people. This demand for conformity from the right has driven a lot of people away - either they sit out and don't stick their necks out for the folks who have given them crap (they have better ways to spend their money and time), or they really get ticked and vote for the other guy if a purist gets a nomination.

Nadler? Who's that?

Submitted by NoMoreBlatherDotCom on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 17:11.

Nadler is probably going to be a flash in the pan. These type of people come and go. Years before Nadler there was Linda Chavez and then Tamar Jacoby. All of them peddle the same basic thing, and they're all wrong. See her name's link for an example of me asking her a question about a downside of her policies that she hadn't considered.

To put that in terms that might be easier to understand, it's like someone proposing building a bridge. You point out that every ten years the winds there reach 30 MPH and ask how their design will handle those winds. They have no answer. If you aren't negligent, you find someone else who can actually think things through. Based on just skimming his blather, Nadler can't think things through.

To help him think things through, ask him these questions for Republicans concerning immigration. Get his response on video and upload it to Youtube where everyone can see how flawed his proposals are.

The Problem with Romney, of Course, is his Phoniness

Submitted by section9 on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 07:26.

Nixon was at least a genuine man of centrist convictions. One can't hitch their wagon to a man who is at the beck and call of focus groups. I don't doubt the man's economic stones, but I would vote for Charlie Crist before I would vote for Romney. 

To put it another way...

Submitted by section9 on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 07:27.

 Romney makes the deeply phony Barack Obama look like Thomas a Becket in comparison.

there are two kinds of phoniness

Submitted by Ray in TX on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 09:50.

One, there's a superficial, partisan phoniness often needed to get past the party extremists that demand fealty during a primary. This is what Romney exhibited last year, and that doesn't really bother me. These candidates eventually get criticized for "tacking to the center" or engaging in unnecessary bipartisanship. McCain and Romney fall into this category. 

Secondly, there's a deeper, policy phoniness in which a candidate conceals how he intends to govern because he knows his actual agenda would be unacceptable to the majority of the voters. This is rare at the presidential level because the spotlight placed on candidates, but Bush's "compassionate conservatism" in 2000 could be an example. The hijacking of the Kansas school board a few years ago by creationists is probably one of the best, though. We haven't had a really liberal president in a long time, so I can't come up with a good example although I suspect that Hillary would have fallen into this category.

HOW IS HE PHONY?

Submitted by LAConservative on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 12:20.

Since the same point is raised...over and over again, I'd like to request the supporting arguments to this claim.  How is Mitt phony?

Newsflash: ALL campaigns are "at the beck and call" of focus groups, because focus groups can help identify the best and worst strategies.  How is this bad?

Google "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life"

Submitted by NextRightNando on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 13:37.

Google "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life".

Or you could look at his current positions on a host of social issues and compare them to the stances he took when trying to win votes on Massachusetts. The man was at one point running to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights.

I Agree, he is no more a phony Republican

Submitted by MacGregor on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 18:56.

than Rudy Giuliani was in New York.  Although he does not, or did not always toe the line on conservative social issues he was able to get work done while dealing with a majority of political opposites.  I believe that is a real feat.

One problem that i do have is that people so often get fixated on the black and white of the subject.  The poster of this thread believes that to be Conservative you cannot also be a pragmatist.  Then he goes on to list some of Romneys views on current topics and says he's moving ot the middle.  To me Romney is a RATIONAL Conservative, as most are, not the far far right winged ideologues that the media makes them out to be.

 

However...

Submitted by Harold Hutchison on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 16:41.

When Obama's hard-left approach causes the economy to decline further (keep in mind, commercial real estate may be the next bubble to collapse, and I do not think that the tax increase that will come on 1 January 2011 will help), it may very well be that it will be preeminent - and Romney's strength there will be far more important than his various positions on social issues.

That said, where is the proof of phoniness? The man arguably was not exactly clear about the shift, but in my mind it was due far more to the "mugging" of an activist court's ruling (added to mention the intense study of the stem-cell and cloning issue).

In any case, I would also argue that there is also a failure of conservatism in that it has demanded true believers as opposed to accepting converts. When conservative figures act more like commissars, they tend to tick off the very people who ought to be practically in the bag on our side.

NOTHING INCONSISTENT IN HIS STATEMENTS

Submitted by LAConservative on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 12:11.

If any of you truly followed Mitt during his run, you'd know that nothing in the statements quoted above is inconsistent with his positions--then or now. 

Regarding Jeb Bush, though they agree on most issues, Jeb, like his brother George, is no hawk on immigration because many of their family members are Mexican.  Jeb's wife is Mexican.  For this reason, Jeb never endorsed Mitt in Florida.

On Regulation and Immigration

Submitted by DaveinHackensack on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 01:58.

The tricky thing about discussing regulation is that, broadly speaking, the word refers to two different things. There are regulations designed to protect consumer safety, prevent fraud, etc. These regulations are often useful, and broadly popular, and it would make sense for a Republican to support them. Then there are regulations designed to inhibit competition and fix prices. Those are the sorts of regulations that helped stifle the economy in the 1970s, and those are the ones that Reagan (and, to be honest, Carter before him) worked to deregulate. These were the regulations that made domestic air travel and stock commissions, for example, so expensive.

Regarding immigration, as I noted in a post elsewhere last year (Unskilled Immigration and Economic Statistics), unskilled immigration (which is what most Latino immigration has been) may be good for the restaurateurs who belong to the Chamber of Commerce, but it's bad news for the GOP, for two reasons. First, it makes economic statistics worse (which happens when you import more poor, unisured people), which increases support for liberal policies. Second, poor people with little hope of economic advancement generally don't vote Republican. It's not in their economic interest to do so, since they tend to receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. Before anyone brings up the path of economic advancement of Ellis Island immigrants, look at the statistics. There hasn't been much economic advancement of Latin American immigrants over the last few generations.

Another point I made elsewhere earlier this year (Former Mexican Foreign Minister's Call for Amnesty Gets Cool Response from NY Times Readers) is that unskilled immigration is more unpopular with the public than media elites would have you believe. This is one area where tacking to the center would be a political loser for Republicans.

A Simple Question

Submitted by Repack Rider on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 20:08.

Wrong thread.  Sorry.