The answer, of course, is obviously no. This is why it’s so noteworthy that someone like Mr. DeMoss — who literally wrote a book about moral approaches to life and business — came out early and strong on behalf of Gov. Romney. ~Nancy French, Evangelicals for Mitt
All right, so let’s reliably assume that Mr. DeMoss is on the up and up. I have no reason right now to assume otherwise. Did he happen to also to write the books How To Not Get Trapped By Wishful Thinking or How To Avoid Being Conned By Politicians Who Tell Me What I Want To Hear? Until he has demonstrated similar insights in these areas, we might hold off on investing his support for Romney with too much significance.
No one’s questioning Mr. DeMoss’ integrity–we’re questioning Romney’s! Part of the criticism of Romney is that he is tricking people into supporting him by saying all the right things, so it hardly exonerates the con man to say that the honest mark is really honest. To the extent that we’re questioning Mr. DeMoss at all, we’re questioning the soundness of his judgement as to whether Gov. Romney’s “evolution” is more than cynical expediency. If Romney has a history of changing his positions to suit the political environment (which he has) and an apparently impressive ability to reinvent himself somewhat convincingly, a perfectly honest man could trust him and be completely wrong about the man.
Gen. Zinni endorsed Bush in 2000 because of his relatively “realist” foreign policy positions, but I bet he’s wishing he could have that one back! Remember: nolite confidere in principibus!
6 comments
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February 24th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
rrichey
The problem with Romney is simply that he had the “unfortunate” privilege of governing, as a Republican, in the most liberal state in the union–Massachusetts. He had no choice but to be somewhat publicly moderate in his views in order to even be elected there. Had he not been a moderate then, he would have never been elected, nor would he have had the opportunity to do a tremendous amount of good in Massachusetts to further the conservative cause. In the final analysis, he would have never risen to national prominence–and we would not be having this conversation today.
His underlying personal belief system is, and always has been, very conservative. He is a man of deep and principled religious faith, and as such, recognizes the sanctity of life and the traditional role of marriage.
So, I guess my point is that he has not changed to suit the political environment; he has simply come home to where he always was personally–and now he can publicly state it instead of having to moderate his views to suit the *VERY* liberal electorate in Massachusetts.
So, the bottom line is that Romney is not tricking anyone with his current stand on certain issues. If anything, he was tricking Massachusetts.
February 24th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
daninardmore
Somehow, nothing in rrichey’s comment is particularly reassuring.
February 24th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Grumpy Old Man
rr seems to be saying that Romney trimmed his sails to pander to the Mass. electorate, but now we’re seeing his true self.
Choose one of the following:
He was a fake moderate then but a real conservative now.
He was a real moderate then but a fake conservative now.
He never had convictions of any kind, on these matters.
He had an epiphany when pondering stem sell research.Daniel, who’s onto Mitt like a bulldog on a letter-carrier, should take an unscientific poll.
February 24th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Grumpy Old Man
I decided to create the poll myself. It’s Who Is The Real Mitt Romney?.
February 24th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
daninardmore
Plus, I just have to keep coming back to the Massachusetts angle: the benighted souls who were born and raised there may have some excuse, but why would any sane person move there?
February 24th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Christopher Hayes
rrichey-
compromising one’s integrity to achieve a “higher good” is considered a bad thing in some circles. There are are whole words, phrases, and even books just for describing those kinds of actions. If all of our public servants employed such tactics, we’d… ummm. Well, right now we just have a lot of compromised integrity, so come to think of it, if more public servants employed that tactic, we’d at least get some “higher goods”. Good call. You’ve convinced me.
GOM -
good survey. I think you’ll show up on Google pretty quick with that one.