COMMENTARY | Staking out a fairly centrist position on some hot button issues, Republican GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is now counting on potential voters to forgive and forget his past shifts in philosophy.
Romney campaigned in New Hampshire on Tuesday, stopping at two diners and a McDonald's. Apparently, no one asked him about his dietary "policy," but commentators are beginning to assemble a scorecard on the candidate's being either in-step or not with the "Republican message" that has developed since the run-up to the 2010 elections.
First and foremost, Romney is emphasizing the economy although in casual public appearances he has been less than entirely specific. Confronted Tuesday by a Derry woman whose husband has been working in Saudi Arabia after being laid off at home, the candidate gave this weak answer about how he would bring this worker home: "If I'm president of the United States, there will not be a day that I'm not getting briefed on and thinking about bringing American jobs into America."
However, he will likely continue to brush away "hot" social topics in favor of an expanded economic discussion. He did exactly that in Monday's New Hampshire debate among GOP candidates when asked about possibly rebanning gays in the military, beginning: "We ought to be talking about the economy and jobs." He then criticized killing "Don't ask, don't tell" without directly addressing reinstatement of that policy.
After campaigning in 1994 for the U.S. Senate with a message supportive of gay rights and abortion, Romney famously switched sides on both issues in his 2007-08 campaign for the presidency. Now he seems to be sticking to his (new) guns on these matters, but is clearly uncomfortable discussing them.
On three other divisive issues, however, the former governor is positioning himself to the left of his party in some eyes. First, he is now defending his Massachusetts health care plan (including its requirement to buy health insurance), a scheme striking many Republicans as far too close to President Barack Obama's position. Moreover, he is also making it plain he believes that global warming is aggravated by humans, and that bailing out Chrysler and GM was just fine. Both companies are now profitable, making that a bit easier.
This examination of Romney's "Republicanism" isn't over. "There goes the nomination," said Rush Limbaugh last week, after Romney's defense of his global warming stance. And in a largely ignored recent Reuters/IPSOS poll, Romney actually finished behind Sarah Palin. Both candidates trailed the president badly in that survey.
