It's easy to forget, but the iteration of Mitt Romney we see in 2012 is by no means similar to the 2008 version. If Romney 1.0 was an independent who distanced himself from Reagan, and Romney 2.0 was a moderate Republican with sensible positions on social issues and health care, Romney 3.0 was a social conservative who cared deeply about the culture war.
It was that third version who sought the Republican nomination four years ago, working under the assumption that this wing of the party would never accept John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, so he could be the far-right standard bearer.
For the 2012 race, Romney has moved on to a yet another persona -- version 4.0 is an outsider businessman, representing the GOP establishment and the top 1% -- but that doesn't mean he's unwilling to try on his old costumes from time to time.
With Rick Santorum positioning himself as a credible rival, and Newt Gingrich baiting Romney "into a discussion of religious values," we're getting another look at a facade we haven't seen in a while: Culture Warrior Mitt.
Associated Press
Consider Romney's message of late:
On marriage equality, Romney, who used to be a moderate on LGBT issues, was disgusted by yesterday's Prop 8 ruling in California: "That prospect underscores the vital importance of this election and the movement to preserve our values. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices."
On Planned Parenthood, Romney is not only eager to cut off the health organization from all public funding, he endorsed Komen for the Cure's original decision to eliminate grants to Planned Parenthood. (Romney attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in Massachusetts in 1994.)
On contraception, Romney is investing a great deal of energy in attacking the Obama administration over its decision to characterize contraception as preventive care in all health insurance plans. That Romney used to agree with Obama has apparently been forgotten.
On religion in public life, Romney has begun adding more faith talk in his stump speech, as evidenced by an appearance in Colorado yesterday. "When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, they chose their words with care," Romney said. "The state did not endow us with our rights, nor did the king. Instead, the Creator endowed us with our rights."
Whether social-conservative voters buy any of this remains to be seen. Romney's Mormon faith, which is a deal-breaker for some evangelicals, and the fact that he was a pro-choice moderate a few versions ago, makes the pitch difficult. But if the race for the Republican nomination becomes a protracted fight, don't be surprised if Culture Warrior Mitt sticks around for a while.
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Er, Mitt? The "Constitution as it is written" does not define marriage in any way. In fact the Equal Protection clause is why judges all over the country say gays and lesbians have the right to marry, so when you say you'll select judges that won't interpret it according to their own politics and prejudices, that's exactly what you would be selecting them to do.
And yes, the Declaration does say the Creator endowed us with rights. Not just us straight folks - everyone.
Better put a helmet on, Mitt; if you keep tripping like this you're bound to hit your head on something.
hey, mittens.....if you think judges ought to strictly interpret the constitution, i suggest you pay a visit to the jefferson memorial in d.c., and see what one of the fathers of our country has to say about that. he definitely would not agree with you.
just bill 123, thanks for the reference.
From a plaque on the Southeast corner of the Jefferson Memorial -
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Believing the Constitution defines marriage, and does so as between heterosexuals, is a small leap for someone who's foundational belief system is that God directed a white male to some golden plates that told him to take multiple wives.
LOL - so true. I wonder where Joe Smith put his dog when he traveled?
KJ ... Someone should photo shop a picture of Joseph Smith driving a covered wagon with a dog on top.
Someone should ask Mitt where in the Constitution does it say corporations are people.
So Romney says Obama’s proposal on contraception coverage is “a violation of conscience”. As much as I disagree with the Catholic Church position on contraception, I do think Obama’s proposal may violate the First Amendment. But to hear Romney talk about conscience blows my mind. Romney, the consummate flip-flopper. A political moderate who willingly trashed “principles” he had touted for years in order to appeal to ultra-conservative Republicans. His candidacy belongs in the Theatre of the Absurd.
Why?
The employer is required to offer insurance to people that covers that, the employee isn't forced to use it.
I don't agree with guns, but the right to bare arms is forced upon me...doesn't mean I have to buy one...
Wow, that comment could have been made in 2008 about McCain.
After getting clobbered in three states on the same day by a pinhead in a sweater vest, Mittens returns to the attack, this time as a modern day Pat Buchanan. Romney is the first "presumptive nominee" in American political history who no one seems to like, even on the Republican side.
Tee-hee, pinhead in a sweater vest.
I hear that being said in the way Chris Farley sang "fat guy in a little coat"
"This campaign is more about changing the soul of America"
-Mitt Romney
Such statements made in a GOP primary are rather predicatable. But for some evangelicals and those of the Christian Right who are concerned that Romney's mission is to supplant Christianity with Mormonism, these repeated statements about changing the soul of America are not helping him.
There's a very good reason we seperate church and state...We can't let a non=profit be a ruling party
I think it's a winning hand for Obama to refuse unreasonable compromise on the Catholic/health insurance/ birth control issue.
Huge percentage of Catholics do not practice what the Church preaches...so cast it as defending their individual liberty and freedom of choice.
Romney, Gingrich, Santorum are all hinting that they'd like to find a way to restrict / outlaw birth control...so let them, and turn 2012 into a referendum on a woman's right to make her own decision about birth control.
Keeping the Bishops focussed on this losing hand rather than the standard abortion stuff seems like it would be a net gain for Obama. There's no reason to think that if the Bishops win any sort of compromise that they won't immediately pivot and resume carpet bombing Obama from the pulpit on the usual abortion issue...so he gains nothing there, but has a huge opportunity to allow the Bishops and the far right to focus the issue on the wrong place (for them).
Every time Mitt Romney rings the bell of the culture wars, an independent voter gains their wings to fly away from the GOP.
...that's going to be a classic movie someday too.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think MR is absolutely correct -"When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, they chose their words with care," Romney said. "The state did not endow us with our rights, nor did the king. Instead, the Creator endowed us with our rights."
What RM, and the rest of the social conservatives won't admit is that the state is only acknowledging those rights, not creating them. They have always been there; same as with women, same as with African-Americans. We have only to see that and cast away the prohibitions that prevent those rights from being exercised.
They also didn't say "endowed by the Christian God". I think he misses that point, too.
In order to justify overthrowing a king ("King of Great Britain") whose rights come from God you have to appeal to a different God so Jefferson used "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". That is all it means.
Right-wingers twist that phrase into meaning exactly the opposite, that the revolutionaries were serving God and aristocratic elite by overthrowing the government they were trying to create.
You crack me up...Willard 4.0
BWA HA HA AH HA
We may be watching the Republican national party self-destruct. The mainstream party and its campaign contributors want Romney. But the Republican voters have a different mind. If Romney does not come out as the candidate for the party, the Republicans may be cash strapped because the monied interests are not going to wholeheartedly support a candidate that Wall Street, the banks and the wealthy are not sure will protect their interests. Any current candidate other than Romney is going to having problems raising money and support because donors are not going to throw a lot of money at an unknown quantity.
Mittens is and always will be the empty suit of empty suits. He's a cold soulless shell of a man who has only one goal, to get the new toy he wants so badly. He's been wanting the Presidency for a long time because it's just the best toy his millions can buy. What he should do is slink back to one of his many homes and stay there.
Our creator endowed us with free will MITT...
Republicans hating women for over 200yrs...
I would really like for the President to come out and say a couple of sentences about the contraceptive thing. I think it has gotten SO mixed up in all the rhetoric that people don't really know what it's about - that it's about insurance.
With Newt saying that Obama has declared war on the Catholic church, people who are not like me and do NOT have the news on all day, may actually believe that.
I think the President should clear it up - which is the case with many things including the Super Pac money.
Fewer people are voting for Romney because more realize his viewpoints are so obsolete that he must use opinion polls to determine how he feels about each issue.
Hardly qualifies as the adult in the room.
That was brilliant!~ "Our creator endowed us with 'em, not y'all." So what's your point,Mitt?
Mitt's point is that he hasn't said anything really stupid or totally contradictory for a while so the "I can't help myself" urge just jumped out there.
"There you go, again."
source with more instances
This is the point I've been trying to make. In our town, the only hospital is run by a Catholic order. In order to best serve the people who live here, they need to hire the best people, regardless of their social views.
It's time for Catholics to get out of operating ventures like hospitals and other medical facilities. They can't serve the people appropriately if they're going to shove their dogma down people's throats.
I'm thinking this might be REALLY, REALLY good timing for the Right to start trying to surpress the rights of women and our bodies/choices...(sarcasim).
If this were corporate politics, I would credit Axelrod with using Sebelius to fire up the religious right behind the Anti Romneys. A "clumsy" rollout of a policy known to be a hot button for the far right, then a reconciliation to bring moderate Christians back to seeing that Obama is the only sane choice. So at little cost to them they get to pump up the anti Romney forces for a few more months of GOP circular firing squad spectacle while Congress debates Payroll tax relief.
.
Diabolical. The reality is pretty tame stuff compared to corporate politics but to be fair it's probably tough to pull off with so many more unpredictable factors- just look at where tricky Dick's inclinations got him. I am sure Clinton would allow tactics like that- heck he and Carville would think it was funny. This administration is more typical- aware of but disinclined to engage in this level of gamesmanship.
We seem honestly very fascinated and simultaneously dysfunctional about discussing these issues.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd like the nation to honestly examine how we talk about values in a pluralistic society. Because it is not like there is just a conservative and liberal side to questions of what is or is not moral. It has nothing to do with whether a relationship has members of the same sex, it is about whether a family has an abusive atmosphere or a nuturing, loving one. This has everything to do with values and the emotional maturity of the participants, not their sexual practices.
Fundamentally what the right is advocating concern social patterns that no longer fit the mainstream. How does half the population feel about "barefoot and pregnant" attitudes lurking under these reactionary policy positions?
Go ahead Rick and Mitt- have a competition to get to the right of each other on values. "Bring it".
We have always had a segment of society that decries social issues that they believe reflects a permissive society. It was the same in the 1920's, the 1940's, the 1960's, and so on every twenty years. This is usually a generational matter and many of the issues fade away. But the abortion issue has and will continue to remain a big issue because there is no way to reconcile the beliefs of the religious with the secular. Rational discussion is impossible because the religious are intractable in their position.
Yes. Someone like Jonathan Haidt would bring up the historical fact that this sort of trope of "moral decay preceding the empire's fall" is transhistorical and transcultural.
I am not so pessimistic about the possibility of rational discussion. It may be impossible to engage in dialog using secularist language, and I am experimenting with this approach both on conservative and liberal religious sites like sojo.net. I made a stab at it on Chris Matthews' blog- he is getting lots of heat over his and E.J.'s genuflection before the "barefoot and pregnant" wing of the Catholic Patriarchy.
I live for the day when I never hear this @!$%#ing phrase exit the mouth of a politician again. I'm throwing a party, in fact. You're all invited.
Will there be much lesbian orgy sex? I'm not ruining my man-pants for chips and dip, TYVM.
I would like a chance to engage Santorum and ask him exactly how it is that he defines marriage between a man and a woman. That sentence doesn't make any sense. So can I point to any adult male and state that he's my husband because I'm a female and he's a male? My assumption is Santorum would say 'no' that there is more to marriage than that. So, in otherwords, marriage isn't defined as between a man and a woman. The irony, I'm sure, is that Santorum would eventually describe that marriage is between two people who love each other, want to care for each other, and want to build a life together. And that, of course, would contradict his earlier argument in NH in which he said that such a definition would allow bestiality, polygamy (gasp!), and child-molestation. Le sigh.
I really don't think that a religious employer who employs non religious people can skirt the law here. I don't think that it is a first amendment issue. If they want to be a church, then awesome, don't give your employees birth control....but if you want to be a hospital or a school, and not a church, then you should have to abide by the law...at least that is how it seems to me.