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"Right-Wing" Romney Supported Dem Paul Tsongas In 1992
It just gets worse and worse for Mitt Romney: It's now emerged that Romney actually voted for a liberal Democrat in 1992. Today's Washington Post piece on the criticism Romney's been taking from conservatives also contains the news that Romney, who was an independent in the early 1990s, voted for Tsongas in the 1992 Dem primary. That means that Romney was not only not conservative early in his career but wasn't even a moderate Republican. The man he voted for was a liberal Democrat who of course vocally supported all the things Romney now claims he's against — gay rights and abortion rights, to name just two.
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That makes at least one person who will admit to having voted for Tsongas in the primary. And it might not make such a "liberal" of Romeny; rememeber, Tsongas ran to the right of Clinton, and had to play defense on his proposals for what amounted to partial privatization of Society Security ...
December 21, 2006 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry for the extra e's ...sticky keyboard.
December 21, 2006 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
True, some of Tsongas's positions were indeed unorthodox for the time. Others, like his insistence on balancing the federal budget, have since become Democratic orthodoxy (and Republican heterodoxy). However, it still remains that his positions on various social issues — gay rights, abortions rights, etc. — were pretty much solidly liberal.
December 21, 2006 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least Romney can say that he voted against Clinton.
December 21, 2006 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Mitt,
If you still supported your previous positions, I would consider voting for you. You would have made a good moderate Democrat.
Cordially,
Rich
December 21, 2006 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Keep shining the light on this guy's pandering flip flops, and drive a stake into the heart of his incipient presidential campaign before it develops traction, and we have another George Bush on our hands. If they had done this to the Bush campaign 7 years ago, we wouldn't have had to go through the nightmare that the past 6 years have been.
December 21, 2006 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
All this says is that he voted in the primary (presumably open to independents) for Tsongas over Clinton and Jerry Brown. If he says he went on to vote for Bush in the general, it won't cause him any problem at all.
December 22, 2006 5:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mitt Romney's cynicism with regard to the political process, as evidenced by his attempts to remake himself as a conservative, pale in comparison to his antics in the last couple of days of his governorship of Massachusetts. In December, Romney has issued several edicts designed to burnish his credentials as a conservative, but he knows full well they will never be enacted. In fact, he is sticking incoming govenor Duval Patrick with the task of undoing his dirty work. Here are two examples:
Illegal Immigrants: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/03/troopers_can_arrest_illegal_immigrants_in_romney_deal/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/12/01/illegal_immigrants_toiled_for_governor/
Turnpike tolls:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/12/20/romneys_turnpike_games/
The most egregious, of course, was Romneys failure to exercise proper oversight of the "big dig." Given how he responded to the collapse of the tunnel, you would think that someone else has been govenor for the last four years.
December 22, 2006 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, keep asking why, if he was any good as governor, his hand-picked LG and successor got swamped, by more than 20%, by a political newcomer.
I gotta feel that Romney is going nowhere with this.
December 22, 2006 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dbrown04:
Fact: Democrats have a supermajority in both the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives. Accordingly, Democrats have a supermajority and can override anything Romney wants to do or enact anything they like. But Massachusetts Democrats mastered the Beacon Hill Salute: something goes wrong, blame the Governor.
Having said that and in regards to the Big Dig, do you really think the legislature is some sort of powerless entity at the mercy of the all powerful Governor? Maybe next time we decide to build something we’ll use non-union workers or at the very least give the Governor the power to fire the people in charge before their ineptitude causes people to die. Finally Massachusetts has a Democratic Governor because I’m sick of the Beacon Hill Salute.
Eric Kleefeld:
In regards to Mitt’s presidential run; do you think it helps or hurts his chances knowing that he voted for Tsongas. I’ll answer that, the more voters you connect with the better your chances, especially if you are the Governor of a Democratic state and historically voted for the better candidate not simply with the party. In addition, Romney never said he’s against gay rights and abortion rights.
December 22, 2006 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink