In a recent interview with the editorial board of “The Des Moines Register” Mitt Romney said the following:
“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”
We hate having to parse a person’s comments to find any hidden meaning. But given Mitt Romney’s history of being less than truthful on the issues we have no choice.
Mitt Romney is trying to do two things here: he’s trying to convince women that he’s not the scary anti-abortion candidate that he has been campaigning as for the past several years. He’s also giving himself an avenue to explain his supposed shift to the middle to his Tea Party base.
Romney says: “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion…that would become part of my agenda.” This is the new “moderate” Romney appealing to women.
But the phrase: “that I’m familiar with” provides him with the wiggle room to appease his base. “I didn’t say that I wouldn’t pursue an anti-abortion agenda. I just said that there wasn’t any (current) legislation that I’m familiar with (today) that would become part of my agenda.
This is typical Romney…playing both sides…saying whatever he needs to say to get elected.
Once upon a time Romney was pro-choice. Then he changed. If you pull up his website today you will find Romney saying that he would: “end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.” On the campaign trail he has said that he supports the Hyde Amendment which bans using federal monies to fund abortions. He has called Roe v. Wade “one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history” and vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn it. He has said that as president he would sign a bill banning Roe V. Wade if it crosses his desk. He wrote an opinion piece in ‘The Boston Globe” explaining his opposition to abortion.
Now he would like us to believe that an anti-abortion agenda is the furthest thing from his mind.
The Romney campaign came to the realization that eighteen months of running to the right wasn’t working. They realized that their only chance of winning was to shift to a more moderate approach. They correctly assumed that most Americans would not really begin tuning in to the campaign until the debates and therefore would not fully comprehend this hypocritical shift in position. Armed with this new strategy they directed their candidate to look the president in the eye and in front of 70 million viewers and disavow virtually everything he had said over the past eighteen months. Given Romney’s lack of core principles and willingness to say anything to win the election…they had the perfect candidate to do the deed. First time viewers saw a moderate Mitt Romney who doesn’t have a deficit inflating 5$ trillion dollar tax cut, loves teachers, wants to preserve Medicare and Medicaid, proposes no changes in Social Security and wants to be president of 100% of Americans including the poor and those don’t pay any taxes.
The shifts to the middle on economic issues complete; Romney now moves to smooth over his rough edges on social issues. An anti-abortion agenda…where would you ever get that idea?
Romney is betting that he can win this election by lying to the American people. The move is so transparent it defies belief. In fact it is the only transparent aspect of Romney’s campaign.
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