Redstate

Good call, Kowalski.

Not only are the trolls coming out of their holes today. They're also against Romney.

Kind of reminds me of a story I read on a pro-Romney website.

I think it was "mymanmitt.com" or something. A Democratic strategist was overheard on a cell phone call worrying about the possibility of a Romney campaign.

Certainly, every candidate, including Romney, has positive and negative points. But I think that Romney would make it tough for the dems to use either of their 2 favorite weapons: personal attacks (foleygate, haggard-gate, etc.) and framing Republicans as being "big dummies" (as they are currently doing with both GWB and McCain).

Nobama? Pretty Boy Edwards? The Goracle of Delphi?

I see. Because I think Romney is a phoney based on his obvious flip-flops on issues of conscience, I must be a Democrat, right? Real sound reasoning.

Instead of another question.

That tactic makes you look evasive.

Which confirms my suspicions about you.

If you must know, Senator McCarthy, I'm leaning toward either McCain or Giuliani, but I think it's lame that you can't take someone's positions and rationales at face value and debate them on their merits, and have to instead demand to know where his loyalties lie. Unbelievable. I don't know what RedState's policy is, but I'm requesting that you stay off my blog and I think it's obvious that it's a reasonable request based on the your comments, which have offered nothing but baseless accusations and ridicule and contributed nothing serious.

If you've got a problem, you can go somewhere else.

I'm just pointing out what I perceive to be a duplicitous stance on flip-flopping on your part.

Certainly, there's enough flip-flopping to go around this year.

I've got to go to work now. Continue the debate in my absence.

So let me get this straight, you don't like Romney because of his flip-flopping insincerity, but you like McCain. The same McCain who opposed Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and when they attempted to make them permenent and now he all of the sudden becomes Mr. Laffer? Or how about the same McCain that attempts to be Mr. Mavrick when he is on Hardball or talking to Vanity Fair, but when he is on Sean Hannity's show he is the next Reagan? For some reason, your anti-Romney stance is not very intellectually sound. I would respect you more for your Giuliani support than for your McCain support. At least Giuliani is consistent in not being 100 percent conservative.

Standing athwart history yelling stop!!!! http://nationalwhig.blogspot.com

we just saw Giuliani do a flip-flop on his position regarding taxpayer-funding of abortion.

He needs to explain why he is now claiming to support the Hyde Amendment (banning taxpayer funding of abortion) when the videotape clearly shows him opposing it in the past.

He was NARAL's man of the year. Now he claims that it would be "OK" if Roe v. Wade were reversed. Not "great". Just "ok".

That's a flip-flop. The man pledged to always defend a woman's right to choose in 1993, 1997, and when he won the NARAL award in 2000. Now he's "ok" with Roe v. Wade getting it's inevitable reversal.

People just assumed Rudy was some moderare on abortion, but his moderate stance is brand spanking new. Rudy flip-flopped from being a radical pro-choice advocate to being a centist. He went from super-liberal position to a moderate postion. He no longer talks of partial birth abortion, taxpayer funded abortions, or of being NARAL's poster boy. At least Mitt moved from moderate to the right. What's worse is that Fred Thompson was once pro-choice and he gets almost no flack at all.

Let me pose the issue as all the Mitt haters and bigots would, "how can we really know Rudy beleives?" He's just so phony." "How can we know Fred Thompson's change is sincere?" "How do we know Fred just wont change back?" "How can we ever beleive anyhing McCain says?"

Changing postions is suppose to be critical for Romney, but very other candidate has changed positions and their changes are taken at heart. Do people really think Mormans are so shady that they can never be trusted? I really cant explain the double standard.

The bigotry of bigot droppers should probably stop. Be careful about dropping such words unless you actually want to point out who you think is being bigoted and why. The left throws out these labels. The right should not join the game.

George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.

It's all in your head, I have seen plenty of people attack Giuliani for his flip flops, Thompson is not yet running, and as for McCain, OMG! where the hell have you been for the last two years, he has been attacked by every conservative I know.

Get off your hobby horse, No one is attacking Romney for any reason except his many, many flip flops which are a just cause for concern.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Simply not true. People change position and are taken for their word. That flip flop drum has been so beaten to death that even the clueless moderator in last nights debate accused Romney of his many flip flops. The guy ran in Massachusetts and has steadily moved to the right. Accept it. People criticized Rudy only after giving him the benefit of the doubt. Most people around here wanted to like Rudy, but people became disillusioned because his substance does not equal his image. With respect to McCain, people dont care for him because he is not always a loyal Republican. In both cases, neither have their honesty questioned like Mitt.

If this is all in my head, why dont you do a thread count. All the anti-Mitt threads that exist aren't even new. It's just rehashed garbage. And if Rudy get trashed for being Pro-choice, so be it. This is a conservative site. That's fair game.

This actually comes from very friendly territory for him I could just imagine what the Democrats are preparing for up for the man.

http://blogs.sltrib.com/utahpolitics/2007/04/what-about-book-of-mormon.h... Salt Lake Tribune:

Mitt Romney: Biggest flip/flopper of all time?

"Abortion, gun control, civil unions, stem cell research, campaign finance reform, why he voted for Paul Tsongas … the list of Mitt Romney flip/flops seems to grow larger every week. It’s getting so bad I’m wondering if he’s outdone the last presidential candidate from Massachusetts."

"However, the latest reversal absolutely takes the cake. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

"On Fox News today, Romney said his favorite book “has to be the Bible,” and his second favorite was L. Ron Hubbard’s “Battlefield Earth.”

"But a Texas newspaper said only two days ago that Romney had heralded his favorite book as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and he said so himself on Nightline in late January. His Myspace.com and Facebook.com profiles have the Mark Twain classic on the top of his list of favorite books and doesn’t even mention the Bible or Hubbard’s “Battlefield Earth.”

"Cmon Mitt. I’ll avoid questioning his love of a book by the founder of the Church of Scientology (which was made into one of the worst films of all time) but even so, how do you not know what your favorite book is? Has it changed in the last month?"

What’s Romney’s next flip flop going to look like?

Blue, no Gr….

http://www.savethegop.com/2007/05/01/mitt-romney-biggest-flipflopper-of-...

I'm glad you raised those points. I agree that McCain is probably insincere in his support for extending the Bush tax cuts. But I draw a distinction between tax policy and "issues of conscience" such as abortion. I don't mean to belittle the impact that taxes can have on our material quality of life, but an insincere flip-flop on tax policy does not have the same magnitude of clear consequences than that of an insincere change on abortion. Now, let's leave aside for the moment whether or not Romney's new position on abortion is preferable, because that's irrelevant to the question of (a) his sincerity, and (b) the scale of negative consequences of taking an insincere position IN THE MIND OF THE CANDIDATE (i.e., if the new position is insincere, then the candidate himself believes it to be wrong, and therefore immoral, particularly on an issue of conscience, unless, arguably, a VERY LEGITIMATE rationalization can be made that knowingly taking the wrong stance on the issue in question is necessary to get elected and achieve a greater good). In fact, to avoid clouding this issue with preference of his new position, let's say -- just hypothetically -- a Democratic candidate who was previously ADAMANTLY pro-life candidate throughout his political career decides to run for president and then does a 180 and becomes ADAMANTLY, purely pro-choice (and let's leave aside the "personally against it, but it should be a woman's choice" stuff -- I'm talking about what POLICY he advocates). Woudn't you have serious reservations about his integrity (leaving aside his politics)? Wouldn't you think that someone who still believes that abortion is murder, but is willing to allow it so he can get elected, is not sufficiently moral to be worthy of the office?

If your answer is yes, I ask you to consider the following. The reason the abortion issue is an "issue of conscience" is because moving policy substantially in one direction or another can have severe negative consequences for people's lives. As I mentioned, someone who in insincerely pro-choice is facilitating mass murder IN HIS OWN MIND. Conversley, while I am not putting a move in the other direction on the same moral level as facilitating mass murder (needless to say), a candidate who believes in a woman's right to choose but is taking an insincere pro-life position is supporting -- IN HIS MIND -- an unjustifiable, significant, large-scale infringement upon personal liberty, often accompanied by substantial emotional, practical, and physical harm (forcing a woman against her will to endure the pregnancy and give birth). Again, just to be clear, I'm not arguing one way or the other in the pro-choice, pro-life debate here. I'm only saying that a candidate who takes an insincere position either way is, IN HIS OWN MIND -- knowingly imposing major, unjustifiable sacrifices on a large number of Americans. And that's immoral. And that's my point.

And again, to bring it back to your point of comparison with McCain's flip-flop on taxes, the immorality of taking an INSINCERE position on abortion with the INTENTION of causing unjustifiable negative consequences of that magnitude is one an entirely different moral scale than an insincere position on whether or not taxes should be a few percentage points higher or lower.

And regarding Rudy, I actually think that Rudy is much MORE open to the same criticism than McCain, since Rudy has flip-flopped on abortion (as examples: He previously viewed Roe as "good constitutional law" and heaped praise on NARAL when he spoke at their "Champions of Choice" event, and now promises strict constructionists; He previously led an effort toward very strict FEDERAL gun control, but now says the states should decide, etc.). But he still claims to support a woman's "choice", and the degree of his shift, particularly in terms of rhetoric and emphasis, is not the same as that of Romney.

Your thoughts on any/all of the above?

Boy, I would have looked it up both ways before "correcting" someone's spelling on their blog
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phoney

2 on th innernet.

An U can usualy find a dictionery that'll suport ur speling.

Thanks for the troll diary. Do you have a username on dKos? If so, what is it?

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

he spelled "phoney".

And then he/she got defensive about it rather than just say, "ok" and move on.

BTW, I'm sure that it's spelled "phony".

California Conservative, it's quite obvious that what you are sure of that isn't true could fill a warehouse. Now please take your baseless accusations and labels and generally immaturity elsewhere so the rest of us can have an adult discussion.

And before you ask: I'm one of the moderators here, and I'm getting tired of wading through this. I don't care who started it, I just care that it stops.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

Thank you.

"Troll diary"? dKos? Give me a break. I guess anyone who isn't 100%, knee-jerk, absolute extreme conservative/Republican is, in your eyes, a commie.

Actually, I might go on dKos someday to discuss/debate issues with them. I don't fear discussing/debating issues with people who don't start out with the same views I hold. In fact, I generally would rather discuss/debate issues with people who DON'T believe exactly as I do. There's more chance to learn something new that way. And sticking exclusively with people who do agree with you not only stunts your intellectual growth, but, on a mass scale, is bad for America. So please, grow up.

Why don't you say anything about Giuliani's flip-flop on abortion funding? Or McCain's flip-flop on tax cuts?

Is a person allowed to go from being "effectively pro-choice" by voicing support for existing laws to being pro-life?

It is possible for a person to realize that his personal opposition to abortion is not enough. He/she then realizes that Roe v. Wade is the vehicle by which bad abortion law is perpetuated. He/she then realizes that by supporting Roe v. Wade, he is supporting a policy that encourages abortion.

I see no flip-flop in Mitt Romney's positions. I see an evolution in the right direction.

I absolutely agree that Romney "won" the debate in terms of the impression I think he made with viewers. He's very smooth. He looks sharp, he's articulate and speaks in a relaxed, yet commanding voice, and his answers were concise and on point.

I just find it very hard to believe his new convictions are sincere.

I guess we have opposite reasons for disliking Romney. I don't buy his sincerity, but I don't doubt his intellect. I don't think a guy achieves the success he has had in the private sector without a pretty strong capacity for critical thinking.

Romney is YouTube. I wish they had it back when Clinton ran it could have saved us from 8 years of his Bullshi@#*$@.

BrooksRob,

You present an interesting yet old argument, but I question the sincerity of the facts in your post just like you question Romney's, enjoy:

Romney has made flip-flopping an art form

Let's call it what it is. Show me where Romney has flip-flopped. In order to flip-flop you need a flop. Romney has flipped on abortion. He was effectively pro-choice and he changed his position once. He did not go back on it (the required "flop").

has done so on issues of conscience such as abortion and guns.

All fun and joking aside of his avid hunting, what position has changed on guns? He was for the Assault Weapons ban in Mass. That's about all we have on record. That just means he didn't want automatic assault rifles available. There's a difference between hunting and staging Waco. Even with his new shiny NRA card, I see no flop.

What would it say about our nation, our people, and what would we tell our children if we elect a man who abandons his convictions (or has none) and tells people whatever they want to hear

What?!? Abandons abortion?!? We all say follow that man if you support abortion, because we need you to change your tune and make a difference!

check my watch to know what his convictions are (and it's beyond a lack of consistency

His campaign convictions have been stated and restated and they haven't changed during this campaign. He kept his campaign promises 5 years ago during the 2002 MA Governor campaign even after he switched positions on abortion. His consistency to campaign promises is well documented and your statement otherwise is either insincere or lacking true investigation into his record. His campaign promise in the 1994 Senate race was Pro-choice. But his personal view towards abortion at that time was stated in the debate. He was consistent from 1994 through 2005 when he changed it based on research in cloning and a discussion with Harvard Scientists.

after many years of emphatic statements of conviction that were diametrically opposite

You have the same statement in 1994 and one in 2002. He changed his position in 2005 and wrote in the Boston Globe about it. He said he changed (not in this debate) by virtue of a discussion with Harvard Scientists on issues of cloning and stem cells. The real question you're missing is how many Politians take the time like Romney did to study an issue out and make a life changing decision on it. Many politicians change due to money and lobbying, not personal research. I find his story not only plausible, but impressive that he searches for the truth. We need more Pro-choice folks doing that.

he's been blatantly insincere his entire political career up until now

The man changes his mind on this issue for the better, yet you don't want a President that articulates why a Pro-Choice person should change.

I'm all ears

Hopefully, you're all eyes too. Romney's not perfect, but your analysis of the clips on YouTube seems like buying into the hype or we should call it lobbying without looking into his record on each of these supposed "flip-flops".

Thank you for those points (although I suggest questioning the ACCURACY of my facts rather my sincerity. People do make unintentional errors, albeit sometimes driven by bias without being aware of it.)

To me those videos made a strong case in themselves, seeing how adamantly he insisted on his belief in legal abortion and emphasizing how deep his conviction was on the issue.

As for the semantics, what I meant by "flip-flop" is that he's done a 180. The American Heritage dictionary defines flip-flop as "A reversal, as of a stand or position: a foreign policy flip-flop," so it doesn't seem that I misused the term as you suggest, but I assume neither of us wants to spend time on semantics, so you know now what I meant.

Regarding his consistency throughout his current campaign on this issue, I hardly consider consistency since deciding to run for president (or since seriously considering it perhaps a year or two earlier) to refute the intuitive assumption that he has suddently changed for opportunistic reasons. My "check my watch" comment was meant to be a bit humorous via exaggeration, but Romney's "consistency" with his new position on abortion over the course of the past several months or year or two after many years of standing emphatically on the opposite side of the issue is hardly exonerative.

Re: Romney on gun control, you've convinced me to do some fact checking when I get a chance. If I find (or am convinced in further dialogue with you or with others) that I've mischaracterized the extent of Romney's position changes on the gun control issue, I'll admit it. I welcome new facts being brought to my attention, and if it turns out that I'm wrong, so be it.

As for "lobbying", by which I assume you mean that I am criticizing Romney because I prefer another candidate for the nomination, that is inverting cause and effect. (i.e., I prefer another candidate because I have that problem with Romney).

Thanks for pointing out that I should further research facts re: my characterization of Romney on gun control. I will try to do so by Monday (or sooner).

I'll save you some trouble, Romney got a B rating from the NRA, not perfect but very good. Excellent if you considered he governed in Massachusetts. He is very much aligned with GW Bush. Don't try to compare him to Senators from Tennesse or Kansas. It's just not fair. It's a different ballgame up here in Boston. We have to fight and scrap for every little inch we can. And we take what we can get even if we have to compromise. That's the reality of life when the state Senate has 34 Dems and 5 Reps. http://www.mass.gov/legis/memmenus.htm and every single congressinal delgate is a Democrat. We suck.

BrooksRob,

Well said. I'm glad you're a seeker after the facts and not insincerely roasting someone because they're not "your candidate". Romney does have his issues, I'm not denying that. I also believe that he firmly held his beliefs in abortion for many years: personally against it, but politically pro-choice up to two years ago. I understand the concern about sincerity, but your original post came out with the tone of bias to me because of the 1994 debate video and not digging further past the video into his record.

All I can offer you as evidence of why you can trust him is his past record. Romney does what he says. He did not break campaign promises in 2002 - 2006 even with the switch in abortion; he kept the moratorium that he promised in 2002. That's why he wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Boston Globe when he changed his mind. If you know he was adamant about his position then, I think you can trust he will stick to his position now. Why? Besides political suicide going back to Pro-Choice, he is a great communicator of ideas. He can articulate in an knowledgeable way why people can change and support life. He won't be luke warm on this issue.

Why do I like Romney? Because his platform is strong in all three of the Republican Pillars: Socially - strong on values and family and life and can articulate it. Fiscally - turned around Olympics and Mass. from huge bungles to profitability, and without raising taxes in Mass with a Super Majority Dems in control. Defense - He is the only candidate to say he wants 100K more troops and locking the defense spending to at least 4% GDP. He does what he promises and his record shows that.

I'm going to miss my self-imposed deadline on the fact-checking. I'll try to get to it this week.

Sorry it's taken so long for me to look into Romney's past vs. present positions and rhetoric re: gun control. I still haven't done much checking, but just did a quick search and found this article:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/14/romne...

Thanks. I will review this information.