Moses Kagan's Aurora Borealis

Here's why I think Mitt Romney is the worst of the Republican candidates running for president right now:

The conventional take on Romney is that he's a flip-flopper. Romney used to be reliably moderate on social issues - reliable enough that he was elected governor of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the country. Then, when he decided to run for president as a Republican, he flip-flopped, undergoing an instant conversion to a right wing orthodoxy that denies women's right to choose, gay people's right to marry, etc. So good so far...

But here's what I want to know: Given that Romney is an observant Mormon, and given Mormonism's general hostility both to women's rights and gay rights, how did Romney come to his "original", moderate positions. To put it another way, do we even believe that Romney was a moderate in the first place?

I would argue that Romney's original "flip-flop" was the one he made in order to position himself to run for governor of Massachusetts. So, this most recent ideological back-track is really the second one in his relatively brief political career.

I can live with politicians who use questionable tactics to reach admirable goals (like FDR). I can even live with, though not support, politicians who fervently hold beliefs that I find objectionable (Mike Huckabee). I can't live with Mitt Romney, a politician who doesn't really have any personal beliefs, just positions that change based on the electorate to which he happens to be pandering at any particular point in time.

Labels: Mitt Romney, politics