A Few Notes About Mitt Romney

I just happened to catch a few words on the radio the other day from Sandy Rios on the Chicago radio station WYLL. Sandy has been a fairly listenable conservative voice for years, sort of a kinder gentler Laura Ingram. She did spend a few years in Massachusetts at the time when Mitt Romney was governor and the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay unions. She won't be supporting Romney.

In light of all the buzz among conservatives and Christians over Romney's well written speech regarding religion and politics, including and endorsement from endorsement from Wayne Grudem, and generates a lot of interest from Christians it is interesting to hear a different take.

The gist of Sandy Rios' objection is simply that she doesn't trust Romney. She believes he will say things to please conservatives, but will then do things in such a way as to virtually guarantee the opposite outcome. On abortion and gay marriage, his actions speak louder than words. In short, in her view, the Massachusetts court directed its ruling toward the legislative branch, but Romney, claiming he had "no choice", saw to it that marriage licences were changed from "husband" and "wife" to "party A" and "party B" and ordered officials to begin performing same-sex marriages at risk of losing their jobs if they did not comply.


"No choice" is what Romney hides behind, according to Rios, when in reality he almost certainly could have at least stonewalled if his convictions were truly with the traditional one man, one woman family. Sandy links to a fairly anti-Romney article which, in my opinion, is not a diatribe but documents a pretty thorough and long standing history of Romney's views on family issues with extensive footnotes. It is a bit hard to believe, with no reservations, that Romney's views have changed so radically just in time for a presidential run (since 2002).

Still, Sandy's former colleague Kevin McCullough suggests Sandy and others are being unfair and not taking Mitt's conversion to more conservative views in context. He links to an impressive defense of both traditional marriage and right to life by Romney, though his new "pro-life" stance leaves the law up to the states and thus allows for individual states to maintain pro-abortion laws.

Bottom line, Romney's critics aren't denying that Romney's public views have changed or are well articulated. They simply aren't convinced his public views are genuine or that he will act in a way that is truly pro-family.

Given the choices of likely Republican candidates (Romney, Guliani, Huckabee), I'm not sure I'm thrilled with any of them. Thompson seems to be fading, I'll never forgive McCain for the McCain/Feingold travesty. Ron Paul is just strange. Tancredo gives his critics ammunition everytime he opens his mouth. I'd love to support Duncan Hunter, but I fear he has no chance of winning the nomination. I'm suspicious of Romney, don't like Guliani's views on family issues, and think Huckabee is a bit of a Pollyanna, particularly on foreign policy. I like what Thompson says but he seems a bit sleepy. Hunter is the best on the issues, but has no chance of being elected.

All in all, I won't be enthusiastic about Romney, Huckabee or Guliani. But there is no chance at all I will vote for Obama or Clinton, nor will I allow my vote to iffectively favor the Democrats by voting for an unelectable third party or write in candidate. As always, politics boils down to the lesser of two evils.