Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Josh, I don't want to gang up on you or anything. I know that as one of the Last Conservatives Standing around here, you wind up getting a lot of flak. Even though we usually disagree, I appreciate that you stay here in the Thunderdome and hash it out. But I would ask you how you feel when you see Mitt talking now about people should just go to the ER, and then you see footage of him a few years ago talking (correctly) about how the "send 'em to the ER" approach is wildly inefficient. Does it bother you at all to see a man clearly contradicting himself like this again and again, on issue after issue?
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Even though we usually disagree, I appreciate that you stay here in the Thunderdome and hash it out.<< +1, for what it's worth.
Originally Posted By utahjosh Mitt is not a perfect candidate, at all. He's not always well-spoken 100% of the time (who is?), and I don't remember the last time I saw a candidate that I thought would be an amazing president. However, I will vote for Mitt because I do not like the direction Obama and his policies represent. I'm a conservative, and Obama is anything but. And of course Mitt being a member of my small, misunderstood church doesn't hurt.
Originally Posted By utahjosh And thank you, gentlemen, for the kind words. I don't have to come to WE. I know I'm not going to convince any of you to believe the things and think the way I do. But I do come here to get a well-rounded look at the world. And often, to defend the faith that means the world to me.
Originally Posted By utahjosh <Does it bother you at all to see a man clearly contradicting himself like this again and again, on issue after issue? Yes, when it's an actual real clear contradiction, it does bother me. Often there is a rational explanation. And when there is not, I am disappointed.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Rationa explanations??????????? How can he be for Romneycare one day and then say he'll repeal it because it's Obamacare the next? There's nothing rational about that.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<Yes, when it's an actual real clear contradiction, it does bother me.>> Give us some examples, please. I'd like to know what you think is a "clear contradiction" regarding a topic that Mitt has flip-flopped on.
Originally Posted By utahjosh <How can he be for Romneycare one day and then say he'll repeal it because it's Obamacare the next? > For one, the state level factor. It's not a huge difference, but it's a difference.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<For one, the state level factor. It's not a huge difference, but it's a difference.>> Too bad it isn't what he actually believes. In 2009 in a USA Today op-ed, Romney advocated for Washington to adopt the "lessons learned in Massachusetts" to help solve the health care problem: <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/how-romney-advocated-obamacare-and-lied-about-it.html" target="_blank">http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2...-it.html</a> <> In 2009, Mitt Romney had a problem. He was running for the Republican presidential nomination, and the towering achievement of his governorship in Massachusetts — health-care reform — had been embraced by President Obama. Romneycare played almost no role in Romney’s 2008 presidential run, but the emergence of the issue onto the national agenda threatened to link Romney with a president Republicans had already come to loathe. His solution was simple. He seized upon the one major difference between his plan and Obama’s, which was that Obama favored a public health insurance option. The public plan had commanded enormous public attention, and Romney used to it frame Masscare as a conservative reform relying on private health insurance, and against Obama’s proposal to create a government plan that, Romney claimed, would balloon into a massive entitlement. Andrew Kaczynski collects several televised appearances and one op-ed in which Romney holds up Masscare as a national model. This tactic backfired when Obama had to jettison the public plan, and Republicans came to focus on the individual mandate as the locus of evil in Obamacare. What was once a Republican idea in good standing was now, suddenly, unconstitutional and the greatest threat to freedom in American history. This left Romney in an awkward spot. It’s hard to run for president as the advocate of an idea that your party considers the greatest threat to freedom in history. His response was to simply revise the past, much as he did with abortion. Romney now claimed he had never advocated a federal version of his Masscare program. Here’s Romney at the December 11 GOP presidential debate: Speaker Gingrich said that he was for a federal individual mandate. That's something I've always opposed. What we did in our state was designed by the people in our state for the needs of our state. You believe in the 10th Amendment. I believe in the 10th Amendment. The people of Massachusetts favor our plan three to one. They don't like it, they can get rid of it. (COUGH) That's the great thing about (COUGH) a democracy, where individuals under the 10th Amendment have the power to craft their own solutions. The coughs are in the original transcript, for what it’s worth. I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to say whether we ought to read anything into them. And here’s Romney at a January 23 debate: My health care plan, by the way, is one that under our Constitution we're allowed to have. The people in our state chose a plan which I think is working for our state. At the time we crafted it, I was asked time and again, "Is this something that you would have the federal government do?" I said absolutely not. I do not support a federal mandate. I do not support a federal one-size-fits-all plan. I believe in the Constitution. This is clearly untrue. Romney, as Kaczynski has shown, repeatedly held up the Massachusetts model in 2009. For instance, from the USA Today op-ed: There’s a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it. .. For health care reform to succeed in Washington, the president must finally do what he promised during the campaign: Work with Republicans as well as Democrats. Massachusetts also proved that you don’t need government insurance. Our citizens purchase private, free-market medical insurance. There is no “public option.” … Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn’t have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages “free riders” to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn’t cost the government a single dollar. The remarkable thing is that none of Romney’s opponents challenged these demonstrably false claims. If you check the transcripts of the debates, Romney simply lies about what he advocated, and then everybody lets it go. Among other things, this underscores the sheer incompetence of his opposition. Kaczynski is an excellent researcher, but it’s not as if he had to comb the ends of the Earth to find these nuggets. He culled them from such sources as USA Today and Meet the Press. Every opposing campaign either failed to look up this basic stuff or failed to train the candidate to understand it. Romney is now on the verge of escaping with the party nomination having embraced a program his party considers inimical to freedom itself and blatantly lied about having done so without any major opponents pointing this out. It’s pretty incredible. <> Mitt was originally for a Federal version of the Massachusetts model. The only reason, as this article points out, that he's against it now, is because the GOP is against it. This is one of those "clear contradiction" examples that Josh seems to be unable to mention.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>I know that as one of the Last Conservatives Standing around here<< Just because one is a "conservative" doesn't mean that one has to support a Corporate Raider or even the GOP.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper I'm conservative but the GOP lost my support about 5-6 years ago when they finally strayed too far for my liking. I just haven't landed anywhere yet.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Yes, when it's an actual real clear contradiction, it does bother me.<< Okay, that's good to know. I think a key part of holding politicians accountable is not looking the other way when they do that sort of thing. I know that every politicians (well, the ones who win elections anyway) pander at some level. It's the equivalent of the insincere "You're the greatest audience ever!" from a rock band or something. But IMHO, Romney has taken this pandering to new heights. He seems willing to cast aside any previously held position to suck up to whatever the prevailing winds of the GOP require. And it isn't because he has given these issues some fresh, deep thought and come to a new perspective -- he does it in the calculated cynical algebra that he figure will get right wing votes. It's too bad, because if you'd have asked me even 4 years ago, Romney seemed like a decent, compassionate conservative. Maybe he still is, in his heart. Maybe he would govern in a more reasonable, moderate way ultimately. But he's flip flopped so desparetly, always with that nervous salesman's laugh, that the thought of him winning worries the hell out of me.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan And one other thing, and this is petty and dumb on my part. But he says phrases like "I'll work harder than the Dickens." Like he just dropped by from a 1950s sitcom. I half expect him to be in black and white when photographed. He doesn't have to curse like a sailor, but just some of the phrases he uses make him feel like a visitor from some other era. I'm reminded of Ferris Bueller explaining what might happen to a lump of coal with his uptight friend. (Look at me, illustrating my point with a movie reference almost 30 years old. LOL)
Originally Posted By skinnerbox ^^ Perfectly acceptable, 2oony. Bueller is classic! "Bueller... Bueller... Bueller..." 8^D
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Maybe he would govern in a more reasonable, moderate way ultimately. > I've said this before, but I don't think he'd be able to, even if he wanted to. He has NEVER shown the backbone to stand up to the far right/tea party. And that's who the squeaky wheel would be if he wins. They've shown time and again that they'll primary (as a verb) anyone who "isn't conservative enough" (Richard Lugar and even Bennett of Utah come to mind), and even the threat of a primary challenge in 2016, held over Romney's head, would be enough to make him cave to the far right more often than not. I don't think he IS far-right (except on tax policy and being super-pro-corporate), but I also don't think he has a single vertebra in his spine, and he'd cave again and again and again.
Originally Posted By dshyates Mitt has a palpable disdain for those less fortunate than himself. And that includes me. At least the feeling is mutual.
